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The Daniel Barringer Meteor CraterIt is estimated that around fifty thousand years ago a projectile from space called a Meteor hurtled through the earth's atmosphere at frightening speed and slammed into the sandstone and limestone arizona rock leaving the bowl shaped impression that you see today. Note that a Meteorite only gets its name after it has passed through our atmosphere so strictly speaking this amazing sight is misnamed but let us not be pedantic. Experts believe that the Meteorite could have been anything up to 150 feet in diameter when it impacted throwing out 175 million tons of rock and leaving this crater which is 4000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep with a rim that reaches 150 feet above the surrounding land. Animal life would have been obliterated near the impact site as the explosion is estimated to have been about 150 times greater than the atomic bomb that exploded over hiroshima in 1945 with the shockwave equalling an earthquake of 5.5 on the richter scale.
Early settlers in the region thought that the crater had been formed by volcanic activity until in 1903 a mining engineer named Daniel Barringer took interest in the site, purchased the land and spent the rest of his life proving that Meteorite impact was the cause. Barringer spent 26 years searching for the iron-nickel Meteorite he was convinced lay buried beneath the crater, it was only proved later that the projectile completely vaporized on impact leaving only minimal pieces scattered around.
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NASA astronauts trained here in the sixties to prepare for the apollo lunar landings learning how to collect rock samples that would have been buried beneath the moons surface before a similar impact on a lunar crater. You may also use a telescope provided to view the moons surface and make comparisons to this fascinating impact site. The city of Flagstaff and the nearby town of Williams have Holiday Inn's that are very near to this attraction.
Return from Meteor Crater to Painted Desert
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