[meteorite-list] NPA 11-29-1941 Great Meteor (Crater) Is Challenge To Geophysits

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: Reno Evening Gazette
City: Reno, Nevada
Date: Saturday, November 29, 1941
Page: 6

Great Meteor Is Challenge To Geophysists

     That great meteor that lies buried some twenty-three miles west of 
Winslow, Ariz., is a challenge to Geophysics. That meteor is said to have 
buried itself deep into the earth, making a crater three miles in 
circumference. About $1,000,000 has been spent of drilling and mining 
operations, endeavoring to locate the "sky wonderer." Mining operations have 
been carried on to recover the mineral it contains. Excavation work has for 
its goal a possible $500,000,000 deposit of valuable metals. The meteor fell 
more than two thousand years ago and left a hole in the ground 4200 feet in 
diameter. The crater now is six hundred feet deep and the main deposit of 
meteorite material is believed to live seven hundred feet below the crater 
floor, the Mining Record says.
     This crater has the appearance of having been made by a body at least 
ten million tons. Fragments of meteoric iron have been found which are 
reported a assaying ninety per cent iron and seven per cent nickel. A shaft 
was sunk to a depth of sixteen hundred feet, but the main body of the 
meteorite has not been encountered.
     The problem of locating this immense body of iron and nickel would seem 
to be made to order for quick solution with one of the numerous geophysical 
instruments that have solved problems of hidden ore all over the world. When 
that meteor hit Mother Earth, it was probably at an angle, with the result 
that the meteor is embedded in the ground some distance from the crater it 
made. Our scientists should be able to give approximate figures as to the 
momentum with which the meteor hit the earth and to what depth the meteor 
would become imbedded in the character of the ground encountered, if it did 
not burst into fragments. Part of it did, no doubt, because these fragments 
can be found widely scattered near the crater. But, the crater is evidence 
that the main meteor drove itself into the ground. If the mass is 
nickel-iron, as shown by the fragments, it should be readily located with 
the scientific instruments now available.
     A student of this subject has ventured the assertion that if the great 
metallic mass is not too deep in the earth, he could locate its position 
vertically by driving an auto equipped with a radio over the country; that 
the strength of the radio wave and loss of volume over the metallic mass 
might indicate its position. Evidently, the geophysical reports that have 
been made in the past on the Arizona meteorite have proved of little value. 
The scientists should not let the Arizona meteorite problem remain unsolved.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
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