[meteorite-list] Arizona Meteor Crater Holds Deep Fascination

meteoriteplaya_at_meteoritecentral.com

--
Mike Jensen
Jensen Meteorites
16730 E Ada PL
Aurora, CO 80017-3137
303-337-4361
IMCA 4264
website: www.jensenmeteorites.com
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Larry Lebofsky <lebofsky_at_lpl.arizona.edu>
> Hi all:
> 
> I caught at least one really big mistake in this article.
> 
> Larry
> 
> Quoting Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>:
> 
> > 
> > http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3673333
> > 
> > Ariz. meteor crater holds deep fascination
> > By Rich Tosches
> > Denver Post 
> > April 5, 2006
> > 
> > There is a hole in the ground near this ghost town on the desert
> > plateau, a place where the Rocky Mountains become little more than
> > small, rocky hills.
> > 
> > The hole is 550 feet deep and 4,000 feet across. As you stand on the rim
> > of the crater and gaze into its red sandstone depths, you can't help but
> > imagine that day, once upon a time, when something almost unthinkable
> > happened in this place.
> > 
> > The first known written note about the crater was penned in 1871 by a
> > scout for Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
> > 
> > For decades after word got out, scientists studied the hole. Some
> > believed a volcano was the culprit. Others thought it was the work of a
> > meteor. (Today, a smaller group clings to a third compelling theory that
> > involves baseball star Barry Bonds dropping a dumbbell on his way to
> > spring training 200 miles south in Scottsdale.)
> > 
> > Turns out the meteor theory was the right one. It came, scientists say,
> > some 50 million years ago, a 150-foot-wide bundle of iron and nickel
> > weighing several hundred thousand tons, burning through the sky and
> > slamming into our planet at some 40,000 mph.
> > 
> > And out here on the dusty land in north-central Arizona where lizards
> > now scamper and the occasional jackrabbit races across the sand, woolly
> > mammoths died on that very loud day.
> > 
> > All of which is not lost on Carolyn Sprinkles, who works in the gift
> > shop at Meteor Crater and sells, among other things, small packets
> > labeled "fossilized dung" for $1.25 each.
> > 
> > "I walk by that hole out there all the time and I'm always in awe," said
> > Sprinkles, who just began her third year working at the tourist
> > attraction and living in an RV just down the road from the crater, an RV
> > she shares with her husband, who works in the Meteor Crater ticket booth.
> > 
> > The hole in the ground is owned mostly by the family of the man who
> > spent a large chunk of his life down inside the crater. Daniel
> > Barringer, a mining engineer from Pennsylvania, became dazzled by the
> > site in the early 1900s and spent decades drilling holes in the bottom
> > of the crater. He thought he'd find the "great ball of iron" that made
> > the depression. He found nothing.
> > 
> > In 1929, a final drill bit became stuck in the ground at a depth of
> > 1,376 feet. Then the drill cable broke. Then Barringer ran out of money.
> > And time. He died later that same year.
> > 
> > Today, the Barringer family has a partnership with the Bar T Bar Ranch,
> > a cattle operation that was started here in the 1880s. In 1955, the
> > ranch owners formed Meteor Crater Enterprises, Inc.
> > 
> > Goodbye cows.
> > 
> > Hello gift shop and ticket booth.
> > 
> > While most of the meteor that hit at what is officially known as the
> > Barrington Meteor Crater vaporized upon impact, many pieces remained.
> > The largest known chunk weighs over 1,400 pounds and is on display at
> > the Crater Museum, near the gift shop. And before Barrington sealed off
> > the area for his drilling work, reports indicated that settlers carted
> > off hundreds and perhaps thousands of tons of the meteor's iron.
> > 
> > Miners, reports indicate, loaded as much as 20 tons of meteor fragments
> > onto trains bound for smelting facilities in Texas where it was made
> > into tools.
> > 
> > NASA, which used the Arizona crater to train Apollo astronauts, says the
> > hole is the first to ever be positively identified as an impact crater
> > and calls it "the best preserved crater on Earth."
> > 
> > Which makes Carolyn Sprinkles smile. And makes longtime Texas high
> > school principal Bill Cranfill proud.
> > 
> > "I live here at the crater, in one of those apartments right there,"
> > said the retired educator, now the manager of the facility, pointing
> > across the parking lot to a row of crater housing units where he has
> > lived for the past five years. "In the summer we'll get 1,500 people a
> > day, seven days a week."
> > 
> > But this odd place on a remote plateau 40 miles east of Flagstaff is,
> > for Cranfill, more than just a tourist site.
> > 
> > "For five years now, whenever I get a minute," he said, "I stand on the
> > rim of that hole. And I just try to imagine what happened that day."
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
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> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Larry A. Lebofsky
> Senior Research Scientist
> Co-editor, Meteorite                      "If you give a man a fish,   
> Lunar and Planetary Laboratory               you feed him for a day.
> 1541 East University                       If you teach a man to fish,
> University of Arizona                        you feed him for a lifetime."
> Tucson, AZ 85721-0063                                     ~Chinese Proverb
> Phone:  520-621-6947
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> e-mail: lebofsky_at_lpl.arizona.edu
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