Barringer Crater

Barringer Crater
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Name	Barringer Crater
Other names	Meteor Crater
Caption	Aerial view of the crater
Location	Arizona, Coconino County
Coordinates	35°01′N 111°02′W
Type	Impact crater
Diameter	1,200 m
Depth	170 m
Age	~50,000 years
Discovered	Known to Indigenous peoples, rediscovered by European Americans in the 19th century
Named for	Daniel Barringer

Barringer Crater

Barringer Crater is a well-preserved meteorite impact structure in northern Arizona near Winslow and Flagstaff. It is distinguished by a near-circular rim, ejecta blanket, and central rocky floor, making it a key site for studies linking impact phenomena to planetary geology, stratigraphy, and meteoritics. The crater is privately owned and managed as a tourist site and research locality with extensive historical controversy over its origin and age.

Description and Geology

The site lies on the Colorado Plateau within Coconino County and cuts through Permian strata including the Kaibab Limestone, Moenkopi Formation, and Coconino Sandstone, exposing cross-bedded units and brecciated rock. The crater's rim rises about 45 m above the surrounding ejecta blanket, while the floor is depressed roughly 170 m below the rim and filled with fragmented megabreccia, impact melt breccias, and overturned strata. Geomorphological features include a continuous ejecta deposit, radial and concentric fractures, and shatter cones in displaced blocks—structures compared to similar features at Chicxulub crater, Vredefort crater, and Sudbury Basin. The local hydrology and soil development on the ejecta have been studied in relation to Holocene epoch pedogenesis and aeolian processes linked to the Sonoran Desert and Great Basin environments.

Formation and Impact Event

The structure resulted from an oblique to near-vertical impact by an iron-nickel meteoroid roughly 50–100 m across during the late Pleistocene, about 50,000 years ago, contemporaneous with faunal assemblages and paleoclimate records used by researchers in Quaternary science. Shock metamorphism, including planar deformation features in quartz and high-pressure mineral phases, supports an extraterrestrial origin, paralleling evidence from the Chicxulub impact and studies of lunar mare basins by Apollo program investigators. Estimates of kinetic energy, transient cavity formation, and ejecta distribution utilize scaling laws developed in planetary science and applied in work by researchers associated with institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and university departments of geology and planetary science.

History of Investigation and Ownership

European-American documentation began in the 19th century with reports tied to Arizona Territory explorers and railroad expansion in the American West. In the early 20th century, Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer and businessman, promoted the hypothesis that the structure was an impact crater and acquired the property through land purchases to conduct drilling and mineral assays. The impact hypothesis faced opposition from geologists at institutions like the United States Geological Survey and the American Museum of Natural History who favored volcanic explanations until accumulating evidence—meteorite fragments, nickel-iron spherules, and shock features—validated Barringer’s view. The site remains under the ownership of the Barringer family and is operated by the Meteor Crater Enterprises as a private preservation and education facility.

Scientific Research and Findings

Investigations have included geophysical surveys, petrographic analyses, geochemical assays, and age dating using radiometric and stratigraphic methods by teams from Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, and the Field Museum of Natural History. Notable findings include discovery of meteoritic iron-nickel fragments consistent with meteorites classified as IAB complex or similar groups, identification of shocked quartz and high-pressure polymorphs such as coesite and stishovite, and refinement of impact scaling models used by NASA and planetary scientists studying cratering on Mars, Moon, and Mercury. Comparative work has linked ejecta dispersal and crater modification processes to studies of terrestrial impact sites like Nördlinger Ries and extraterrestrial basins analyzed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Preservation, Tourism, and Facilities

The crater is conserved as a scientific and educational attraction with a visitor center, orientation theater, guided rim tours, and interpretive exhibits developed in collaboration with museums and university partners. Facilities include a geology exhibit, meteorite display, and research accommodations that support visiting scientists from institutions such as Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and international teams from Imperial College London and Max Planck Society. Tourism operations coordinate with local communities including Flagstaff, Arizona, Winslow, Arizona, and regional transportation networks tied to Interstate 40 and historic routes like U.S. Route 66.

Cultural and Media References

The crater has appeared in documentaries and films produced by organizations like the BBC, National Geographic Society, and PBS, and has been used as a training analog for astronauts in programs associated with the Apollo program and later NASA analog research. It features in popular media, referenced in books and magazines by authors linked to the Smithsonian Institution Press and featured on television series involving presenters from Royal Institution and Science Channel. The site figures in regional cultural narratives involving Navajo Nation and other Indigenous histories of the Colorado Plateau.

Category:Impact craters of the United States Category:Landforms of Arizona