Given Sunday's posting on a special place in Utah, near Green River (http://www.dailykos.com/...) we mosey south and west to Arizona and will find ourselves in an entirely different planed topography, where a sizable visitor from outer space made a great big hole in the landscape, Meteor Crater. Like the San Rafael Swell desiring a national monument status, this privately owned facility wouldn't mind having the same status. However, so far the crater is dubbed a landmark. Question is: Would you pay to see this crater pictured above? Some 200,000 annual visitors think it's worth the time. You tell me. Meanwhile, this diary's virtual tour can be thought of as partially extraterrestrial and terrestrial. But you will find no aliens and spacecraft here. Best you drive farther east after the tour and visit Roswell, New Mexico for that sort of thing.
Location/Geography: In east central Arizona, about 43 mile east of Flagstaff (exit 233, I-40). Closest city: Winslow. High desert country at an elevation of about 5,709 feet above sea level.
Spotlight: Gaping cosmic crater, the first such discovered by humans. Focus: recent human history, speculation, meteorites and geology.
Snapshot: Some 50,00 years ago, a rather large meteorite slammed into this region. Its impact left a gaping saucer-shaped crater and this so-called impacter surely made a big noise and created a brilliant explosion heard and seen for hundreds of miles. Of course, there were no humans around to witness such a startling event. Today, the preserved impression remains a significant and altered topographical contour because of the desert climate of this region. Desert environs also tend to preserve rather than erode or fill. Through the years this relatively sizable indent has been called by various names: the Canyon Diablo Crater (Devil Canyon), Canyon Diablo Meteorite, and the Barringer Crater. In time, today’s designate Meteor Crater found favor because of a regional and former Arizona Post Office named Meteor. The meteor, an anomaly from outer space, left its astral hallmark about 3.5 miles west of Devil Canyon. Daniel Barringer was the first to suggest the aberrant extraterrestrial footprint had been produced by a meteorite. The crater is also privately owned by the Barringer family under the auspices of the Barringer Crater Company. This company proclaimed the crater was the first proven, best-preserved meteorite crater on earth. So far, this assertion remains unchallenged. More about this point is explained further along. To date, there have been roughly one hundred-seventy impact craters discovered around the world. Meteor Crater measures 4,000 feet in diameter and 570 feet in depth. The crater is surrounded by a rim that rises 150 feet above the surrounding desert plains. The center of its basin is filled with 700 to 800 feet in depth of spent rubble lying above the crater bedrock.
Diagram of an impact crater structure:
