- Who
- Yosemite
- Where
- United States (Arizona)
The Barringer Meteorite Crater (also known as Meteor Crater), in Arizona, USA, is a hole in the ground measuring around 1.2 km (0.74 mile) wide and 173 m (570 ft) deep. It was first proposed to be the result of a meteorite impact in 1891 but was believed to be of volcanic origin by many geologists until US geologist Eugene Shoemaker compared the crater's anatomy with that of craters produced by nuclear weapons testing in Nevada in 1963. Geologists now believe the iron meteorite that produced it, some 49,000 years ago, exploded with a force equivalent to 2.5 megatons of TNT more than 150 Hiroshima bombs.
