After spending 3-4 days in Joseph City, I head West on I-40 towards Flagstaff. Along the way is a privately owned landmark, Meteor Crater. If you don’t remember the story, about 50,000 years ago, a large iron-nickle composition meteor blasted a hole in Arizona. Traveling at 26,000 miles per hour, it vaporized upon impact but that was unknown to the miner that bought the land in 1903. Expecting to find a large iron deposit right at the bottom of the crater. Years later the head geologist of the US proclaimed that it was a volcanic feature. Wasn’t the first time the guy had been wrong.
Anyway, there have been movies made there, the astronauts have trained there, etc. Now the family of the original owner runs the place as a tourist destination. It’s pretty cool. I’ve been here twice over the years. They have a RV park at the entrance and a Subway shop in the museum.
Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to hike around the rim or go down into the crater, so all these shots are from the rim near the museum. The crater is 4,000 feet across, 550 feet deep.
A shot of the rim…
Down into the crater.
It’s me!
Off in the distance, the Mogollon Plateau? Can’t remember.
I was here with Jim on a visit in the deep past. One thing I don’t think they make clear at the visitor center is that Barringer belived the meteor had burried itself under the crater. He blew his fortune trying to find it (hence all the shafts visible in the crater). This was in the 1920’s and of course science now knows this doesn’t happen and there is little trace of the mostly iron meteor (what wasn’t vaporized is widely scattered). Not too long ago (probably in Nov or Dec 05) I read they had run a new model that shows the reason there is little molten remains surrounding the site is that the meteor that caused the crater was only part of a larger one that broke up while moving through the atmosphere. This slowed the fragements enough to prevent much melting.
While we were there, Jim kept complaining that although he could see a giant crater, he couldn’t see a giant meter and wanted a partial refund. Ignorant twit.