Barringer Meteor Crater

Barringer Meteor Crater

The Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona was the first recognized terrestrial impact crater. The confirmation of a meteor impact (subsequently identified as the Canyon Diablo meteorite) at the site proved an important stepping-stone for advances in geology and astronomy. In solving the mystery surrounding the origin of the Barringer crater, geologists and astronomers made substantial progress in understanding the dynamic interplay of gradual and cataclysmic geologic processes both on Earth and on extra-terrestrial bodies.

The Barringer Meteorite Crater (originally named Coon Butte or Coon Mountain) rises 150 feet above the floor of the surrounding Arizona desert. The impact crater itself is almost a mile wide and 570 feet deep. Among geologists, two competing theories were most often asserted to explain the geologic phenomena. Before the nature of hot spots or plate tectonic theory would have convinced them otherwise, many geologists hypothesized that the crater resulted from volcanic activity. A minority of geologists asserted that the crater must have resulted from a meteor impact.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, American geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, then the head of the U.S. Geological Survey, set out to determine the origin of the crater. Gilbert assumed that for a meteor to have created such a large crater, it was necessary for it to remain intact through its fiery plunge through the earth's protective atmosphere.

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