18
TRAVEL
VACATION » SIGHTS » DAY TRIPS » ADVENTURE » EXPLORE » TRAVEL
UNIQUELY ARIZONA
Winslow’s Meteor Crater impresses the world Claire Natale >>The Entertainer!
N inspiring.
amed one of the Seven Wonders of the World 2020 by Conde Nast Traveler, Winslow’s Meteor Crater is awe
As one of the world’s few meteorite impact sites, Meteor Crater is considered to be the best-preserved on the planet. At 550 feet deep and almost a mile wide, the crater was formed in about 10 seconds when the meteorite, traveling at 26,000 mph, crashed into the earth. The force of impact was 150 times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed
Hiroshima and equal to 20 million tons of TNT. The impact occurred during the last ice age, at a time when the Arizona landscape was cooler and wetter. Winslow was then covered with a forest, where mammoths, mastodons and giant ground sloths grazed, and the force of the impact leveled the forest and wiped out life for miles. Arizona’s dry climate has helped preserve this crater. Little of the rim’s crest has eroded, unlike most craters on Earth that are often erased by geological processes. Daniel M. Barringer, a mining engineer and businessman, would have benefited from knowing that the meteorite vaporized. In 1903, Barringer believed the site was created by a large nickel-iron metallic meteorite. He formed a company, the Standard Iron Company, and staked claim to the
land. He received a land patent signed by Theodore Roosevelt, allowing the company to research the crater. Barringer found fragments of oxidized iron meteorite in the surrounding area, leading Barringer to believe there must be a large deposit of meteoric iron below the surface. Barringer spent the next 27 years drilling, mining and searching for iron ore, but no significant deposit was found. He had grand plans for the iron, estimating that if the iron were found, the amount would be valued at more than $1 billion in 1903. Unfortunately, he lost his fortune trying to do so. The Barringer family, along with long-time Arizona ranching and business families the Tremaines and Chilsons, now own the site. It’s been transformed into one of Arizona’s most enduring family attractions.
