Meteor Crater

50,000 years ago, an unbroken plain stretched across the Arizona desert. Suddenly, out of the northeastern sky, a pinpoint of light grew rapidly into a brilliant meteor. Hurling at 26,000 miles per hour, it was on an intercept course with Earth. In seconds, it passed through our atmosphere with almost no loss of velocity or mass.


An iron-nickel meteorite estimated to have been about 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons, struck the rocky plain with an explosive force greater that 20 million tons of TNT.


The results of these violent conditions was an excavation of a giant bowl shaped cavity. In less than a few seconds, a crater of 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across was carved into this once flat rocky plain. During its formation over 175 million tons of limestone and sandstone were abruptly thrown out to form a continuous blanket of debris surrounding the crater for a distance of a mile.



This is indeed one "big hole". I hope the pictures will give you some idea of its size.