It came from the far reaches of the solar system, but until recently it was a doorstop. It's a meteorite, only the 15th to be found in Saskatchewan, and it's now the subject of intense interest at the University of Regina.
A softball-sized rock a Regina man was using as a doorstop has been identified as a meteorite that likely once belonged to an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The weathered iron meteorite was originally found in 1999 near Loreburn, Sask., about 130 kilometres south of Saskatoon. Recently, the Regina man heard about the efforts of the Prairie Meteorite Search, a partnership between several universities including the University of Regina to find meteorites.
Nathan Seon's summer job could have been filmed as a reality show cross between an Indiana Jones flick and The X-Files. He spent the last few months searching for rare treasures, and ended up unearthing something that could help unlock the secrets of the universe. The University of Regina geology student was a field researcher for the Prairie Meteorite Search, scouring Western Canada for former heavenly bodies. And his quest paid off. Seon and Dr. Martin Beech, one of three professors who leads the search, confirmed on Thursday they had indeed located one of the alien nuggets. That brings the number now recovered in Saskatchewan to 15 and the total in Canada to a mere 74.