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Amanda UptonUpward Bound Geology Student |
| Impacts With Earth | Barringer And The Mining Project | Identifying An Impact Crater | The Experience | | |
Located in the Southern portion of the Colorado Plateau and being completely surrounded by desert composed of sandstone, lies a huge hole in the ground. Daniel Moreau Barringer decided to take a venture on this extraordinary site to pursue his dream of finding a large meteorite containing iron and nickel. Even though he was told by many that the crater was created by a gaseous blow out, he pursued his venture. His continuing efforts have brought forth this widely visited site now to be called.... Meteor Crater.
Nearly 50,000 years ago the impact of the crater on the Earth's surface probably looked something like this. The meteorite is believed to have been traveling 40,000 miles per hour, weighing 300,000 tons, and being 150 feet in diameter.
In 1902, Barringer formed the Standard Iron Company in hopes to make a
fortune. On the walls of the crater there are small trials where miners carried out what
they had hoped to be iron material from the meteor that caused the impact.
Barringer never did find the huge meteorite that caused this impact so he never
had a chance of becoming rich off of it.
Crater view from overlook.
Meteor Crater has been the world's first proven impact site and because of that criteria has been established to identify other impact craters. Impact craters should have meteorites, a raised rim, shatter cones, stishovite and coesite in their natural state, and a magnetic field.
This
is a piece of the meteorite that struck the Earth's surface and it is estimated
to be worth as much as a million dollars! While we were at Meteor Crater
we were unable to take the rim tour of the crater due to strong winds.
Instead of the tour, lectures were held inside the building to discuss how the
crater came about. A brief video was shown to explain how
the impact occurred and what had happened as a result of it. After the
video and the lecture we explored the museum and looked at all of their
displays. In one of them there was a computer simulation used to create your own meteor and have
it collide with the Earth's surface. After it's collision some facts were
given about the size of the crater and how the Earth was impacted by it.
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This page was last updated on Monday, May 20, 2002 .