Exposing The World

Meteor Crater

Kaboon!

This impact crater between Flagstaff and Winslow was formed about 50,000 years ago by a nickel-iron asteroid about the size of a cruise ship, traveling at about 13 km/second. The crater is 1200 m in diameter and because of the dry climate of the Kaibab Plateau, is deemed to be the best preserved impact crater in the world.

Because the Crater is located in a volcanic province, it was long thought be just another cinder crater until geologist Daniel Barringer realized that “Coon Butte” had a totally different origin than the hundreds of other craters on the plateau.

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This old mining equipment was once used on the crater floor to drill into the main body of the meteorite, which was assumed to be buried there…
…It was never found, because we now know that most of the asteroid vap[orized on impact, though many small pieces of it have been found around the crater.
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