The Canyon Diablo meteorite comprises many fragments of the asteroid that impacted at Barringer Crater (Meteor Crater), Arizona, USA. Meteorites have been found around the crater rim, and are named for nearby Canyon Diablo, which lies about three to four miles west of the crater.
History [edit]
The asteroid fell about 50,000 years ago.[3] The meteorites have been known and collected since the mid-19th century and were known and used by pre-historic Native Americans. The Barringer Crater, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, was the center of a long dispute over the origin of craters that showed little evidence of volcanism. That debate was settled in the 1950s thanks to Eugene Shoemaker's study of the crater.
In 1953, Clair Cameron Patterson measured ratios of the lead isotopes in samples of the meteorite. The result permitted a refinement of the estimate of the age of the Earth to 4.550 billion years (± 70 million years).[4]
Composition and classification [edit]
This meteorite is an iron octahedrite. Minerals reported from the meteorite include:
Samples may contain troilite-graphite nodules with metal veins and small diamonds.
Fragments [edit]
"Holsinger Meteorite", the biggest recovered fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteorite
There are fragments in the collections of museums around the world including the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The biggest fragment ever found is the Holsinger Meteorite, weighing 639 kilograms (1,410 lb), now on display in the Meteor Crater Visitor Center on the rim of the crater. Other famous fragments:
- 360 kg, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Paris
- 242.6 kg, Verkamp's Store, Arizona[5]
- 136 kg, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.[6]
- 122 kg, Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California.
- 100 kg, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco.
- Basket Meteorite (22 kilograms (49 lb)), Meteor Crater Museum, Arizona.[7][8]
- 485 kilograms (1,070 lb), Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand. The largest fragment outside the United States.[9]
- 54 kilograms (120 lb), Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.
- 225.9 kilograms (498 lb), Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
External links [edit]
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