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All the United States Arizona Winslow Meteor Crater
AO Edited

Meteor Crater

This 4,000-foot-diameter hole is touted as "the most well known, best preserved meteorite crater on Earth."

Winslow, Arizona

Added By
Rachel James
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CAPTION
  Crater Under a Big Sky/public domain
  marvindejean / Atlas Obscura User
Panorama of the crater on a clear day   wonderbacon / Atlas Obscura User
  breaingram / Atlas Obscura User
  CoolCrab / Atlas Obscura User
  gpg70 / Atlas Obscura User
  gpg70 / Atlas Obscura User
  gpg70 / Atlas Obscura User
A NASA photo of the crater   NASA Earth Observatory
The largest fragment discovered from the meteorite that formed Meteor Crater   Wikicommons
  © Joseph Sullivan - CompassProPhoto.com
Aerial view of Meteor Crater   Wikicommons
Telescopes at Meteor Crater   JaneWeinhardt
Size perspective   JaneWeinhardt
Crater with Snow New Years Day 2007   sixtwentysix / Atlas Obscura User
Crater Parking Lot, Mountain in the Distance 2007   sixtwentysix / Atlas Obscura User
Meteor Crater   Keren Lynn / Atlas Obscura User
A different view!   Keren Lynn / Atlas Obscura User
Apollo Test Capsule   Keren Lynn / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
Meteor Crater Apollo Test Capsule   niccolek / Atlas Obscura User
Meteor Crater Apollo Test Capsule   niccolek / Atlas Obscura User
View through the telescope   evilgreentriangle / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
  TCubed / Atlas Obscura User
8-17-21   Darrell Powers / Atlas Obscura User
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About

About 50,000 years ago, a meteorite came screaming from the sky and slammed into the Earth. The scar it left across the Arizona landscape is now a popular tourist attraction, complete with wreckage from daredevil pilots that flew too low.

While it's known simply as "Meteor Crater" to most, scientists refer to it as "Barringer Crater" after Daniel Barringer, the man who first suggested that the giant hole was made by a flying space rock. Barringer was a mining engineer, and his business, Standard Iron Company, staked claim on the property. In 1903, along with his partner, mathematician and physicist Benjamin Chew Tilghman, Barringer conducted land surveys and collected documentation supporting his meteor theory. Despite his efforts, he was met with skepticism and disbelief from the scientific community.

Planetary science didn't mature enough for geologists to swallow Barringer's impact theory until the '50s and '60s. A discovery of the minerals coesite and stishovite, which only occur when quartz-bearing rocks are severely shocked by an instantaneous overpressure, supported all of Barringer's findings. Unfortunately, Barringer died in 1929 and was never vindicated in life. Eugene M. Shoemaker, who discovered the minerals, was given credit as the man who uncovered the first unarguable proof of extraterrestrial impact. 

Those visiting the Meteor Crater should keep their eyes out for the plane wreckage said to still be visible after an ill-fated attempt in 1964 to buzz the crater's rim, ending in a fiery crash that seriously injured a pair of commercial pilots. Both men survived, and the wreckage of the Cessna 150 was left in the crater, perhaps as a cautionary visual aid to other daredevils that found the geological oddity hard to resist.

Related Tags

Meteorites Martian Landscapes Geological Oddities Disaster Areas Craters Ecosystems Geology

Know Before You Go

Meteor Crater is located off I-40 at exit 233, then six miles south on the paved road. It's 35 miles east of Flagstaff, 20 miles west of Winslow. The path is along crater rim and there is no access to the bottom of the crater. Tours are subject to weather conditions.There is an RV Park and gas station at exit 233.

Community Contributors

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Rachel

Edited By

Martin, OliviaRose, Keren Lynn, mkaykrista...

  • Martin
  • OliviaRose
  • Keren Lynn
  • mkaykrista
  • JAS76
  • Jane Weinhardt Goldberg
  • CoolCrab
  • breaingram
  • sixtwentysix
  • evilgreentriangle
  • niccolek
  • Darrell Powers
  • marvindejean
  • gpg70
  • wonderbacon
  • TCubed

Published

December 10, 2012

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  • http://www.meteorcrater.com
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater
  • http://www.barringercrater.com
Meteor Crater
Meteor Crater Rd
Winslow, Arizona, 86047
United States
35.028072, -111.023197
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