Meteor Crater, AZ: More Than a Massive Hole in the Ground

ByChristine Updated on

Meteor Crater happened to be along the way from the Grand Canyon to my sister’s house in El Paso. It’s only a few miles off the interstate so we made a side trip to go see it. It cost $16 per person, but we thought it was worth it. This included two short movies, a presentation by a tour guide, the museum, and viewing the crater itself.

It is estimated that the meteor was about 150 feet in length and weighed several hundred thousand tons. The original crater was about 700 feet deep and 4000 feet wide. Now, the crater is about 550 feet deep.

It was really interesting to hear how it was originally thought to be of volcanic origin. Thereafter, a mining engineer believed it was actually a meteor crater, but erroneously believed it was buried in the crater and that if it could be dug up could be mined for iron. Finally, it was realized that it had disintegrated upon impact, but there are still mine shafts and remnants of the mining equipment used.

Scientific studies are still ongoing here, and the crater was even used as an astronaut training ground.

The Holsinger Meteorite is the largest chunk found of the meteor that created the crater. It was really neat being able to stand right next to a rock from space. There are pieces of the meteor in other places in Arizona and around the world, like a meteor fragment in the Geology Museum at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.
Northeast from here you can see another type of crater, a volcanic crater, at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona. If you want to see some manmade craters used for astronaut practice, the nearby Cinder Lake Crater Field is incredibly fascinating.
 

Checkout Winslow, Arizona and stand on the corner if you feel so inclined! Just past Winslow are the petrified logs of Petrified Forest National Park.

If ancient peoples and structures are more your speed, the Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling and the Tuzigoot National Monument ancient pueblo are about an hour an a half south.

Christine is the co-founder of Never Stop Adventuring, and an avid traveler who started traveling the world as a child growing up in a military family. She even lived in Germany for numerous years. Since then she has been to 48 U.S. states, 17 countries, and traveled the U.S. in an RV for over 7 years.

With her 3 kids, the adventures continued family travel style. She has planned and coordinated travel with kids for the last 10 years and shares family travel tips and tricks, destinations, costs and even the mistakes so you can be empowered to take your own family trips with confidence!