[meteorite-list] Arizona's Meteor Crater: A Big Bang For Your Buck

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Aug 21 00:08:28 2006
Message-ID: <20060821033248.52920.qmail_at_web36910.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Ron, list -

Anybody got any idea when they will conduct meteorite
hunting parties on the site, if ever?

good hunting,
Ed

--- Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>
>
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-sidetrip20aug20,1,2024700.story
>
> Arizona's Meteor Crater: A big bang for your buck
> By David Ferrell
> Los Angeles Time
> August 20, 2006
>
> IF it were due to happen on a specific date - say,
> on a moonless Friday
> night, when the Arizona sky is frosted with stars -
> the popular interest
> might be staggering. People and TV trucks might line
> the roads at a safe
> distance, looking for the best vantage points. All
> would point
> binoculars or cameras to witness one of the great
> celestial spectacles
> in history.
>
> As it is, the space rock that landed in the barren
> desert near Winslow,
> Ariz., fell 50,000 years ago.
>
> A stop between...Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest
> national parks. It's
> only six miles south of Interstate 40, about 30
> minutes' drive east of
> Flagstaff.
>
> The draw: Meteor Crater, a pit as round as any moon
> crater, is more than
> 4,000 feet across and deep enough to swallow a
> 60-story building.
>
> There's a tiny museum with a gift shop but no resort
> hotels, no
> adjoining casinos and not a single theme restaurant.
> The crater is
> pretty much all there is, and yet an estimated
> 230,000 people still come
> to see it each year. Apollo astronauts trained
> inside it in the 1960s
> because of its similarity to lunar craters.
>
> Visitors stare at the crater's steep, pale-mustard
> walls, look to the
> sky and try to grasp what it must have been like
> when worlds collided.
> Scientists estimate that the object that landed here
> was only 150 feet
> in diameter but struck with the force of 20 million
> tons of TNT. It
> would have roared from the sky at a mind-boggling
> 40,000 mph.
>
> "This is impressive," said Bob McNabb of Portland,
> Ore., who was gazing
> at the crater from the uppermost of three
> observation decks along the
> northern rim. "Some people said, 'Yeah, it's just a
> big hole in the
> ground' - but we're glad we came."
>
> The site is still owned by the descendants of Daniel
> Barringer, who
> began exploring the crater in 1903 and staked the
> original claim, hoping
> to mine the meteorite itself. The rock must have
> disintegrated, however,
> because no significant piece of it has ever been
> recovered.
>
> The lesson of Meteor Crater is that Earth is in
> constant danger. As a
> museum display points out, a huge explosion in
> Tunguska, Siberia, in
> 1908, knocked down trees across about 800 square
> miles. "A very large
> meteorite could be disastrous," a placard warns,
> "creating a huge
> initial blast, followed by tsunamis, wildfires,
> prolonged darkness and
> atmospheric effects."
>
> A smaller Meteor Crater-size impact may happen every
> 50,000 years. Which
> means, perhaps, we're due for another.
>
> The delay: It's a 10- or 15-minute detour off
> Interstate 40 to the
> crater. Allow 60 to 90 minutes to see the museum,
> walk along the rim and
> check out the view from the observation decks.
> Guided tours of the rim
> leave hourly between 9:15 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. daily.
>
> *
>
> Meteor Crater, Exit 233 off Interstate 40. Open 7
> a.m. to 7 p.m. between
> Memorial Day and Labor Day, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the
> rest of the year.
> $15, $13 seniors; $6 ages 6-17, 5 and younger free.
> (928) 289-5898,
> http://www.meteorcrater.com .
>
>
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>
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>


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Received on Sun 20 Aug 2006 11:32:48 PM PDT