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Barringer Crater, also known as Meteor Crater, is a famous impact crater created by a meteorite, located about 55 kilometers east of Flagstaff in the northern Arizona desert ( USA). Its coordinates are 35°1'38"N 111°1'22"W

The impact of the meteor with Earth occurred about 50,000 years ago. Currently, the crater is about a 1.5 kilometers in diameter (slightly less than a mile), and some 170 meters deep (570 feet). A 30 meter high rim of rock surrounds the crater, distinguishing it from the surrounding plains. At the time of the impact, the climate on the Colorado Plateau was cooler and damper. The area was a grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by wooly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and camels.

The crater was created when an iron-metallic meteor about 50 meters across fell from the sky. For any creatures watching, it would have burned much brighter than the SunThe Sun (also called Sol is the star in our solar system. Planet Earth orbits the Sun. Other bodies that orbit the Sun include other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust. Not all objects passing through the solar system have been orbitally capt as it fell, probably exceeded speeds of 40,000 kilometers per hour (km/h). The meteor slammed into the ground, producing a massive explosion that was about three times more powerful than the Tunguska eventThe Tunguska event was an aerial explosion that occurred at 60° 55’ North, 101° 57’ East, near the Podkamennaya (Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Evenkia, Siberia, at 7:17 AM on June 30, 1908. The size of the blast was later estimated to be between 10. The explosion dug out 175 million tons of rock and left a crater about 1,200 meters across and 170 meters deep. The shock of impact propagated as a hemispherical shock wave that blasted the rock down and outward from the point of impact, forming the crater.

At ground zeroGround zero is the exact location on the ground marking the detonation point of any bomb; in the case of a bomb designed to explode in the air, it refers to the point on the ground directly below the bomb at the moment of detonation. Since it is the impac, the impact would have melted everything that it did not vaporize. It produced high enough temperatures and pressures to transform carbonAlternative meaning: Carbon (computing Carbon is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol C and atomic number 6. An abundant nonmetallic, tetravalent element, carbon has several allotropic forms: diamonds (hardest known mineral). Bindi mineralMinerals are natural compounds formed through geological processes. The term "mineral" encompasses not only the material's chemical composition but also the mineral structures. Minerals range in composition from pure elements and simple salts to very comps into diamondsAlternate meanings: Diamond (disambiguation Diamonds is one of the four suits found in playing cards. It is the third-highest ranking suit in contract bridge. See also Red suit Anglo-American playing card games. and lonsdaleiteLonsdaleite is a hexagonal polymorph of the carbon allotrope diamond, believed to form when meteoric graphite falls to Earth. The great heat and stress of the impact transforms the graphite into diamond, but retains graphite's hexagonal crystal lattice., a form of diamond found only near the crater and in Arizona's Canyon Diablo . Limestoneshale overlaid by limestone. Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed of mineral calcite (calcium carbonate). The primary source of this calcite is usually marine organisms. These organisms secrete shells that settle out of t blocks as massive as 30 tons were tossed outside the crater's rim. The shock of the impact would have sped through the ground, resulting in an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or higher.

All life within a radius of three to four kilometers was immediately killed. The fireball that formed would have scorched everything within a radius of ten kilometers. A shock wave moving out at 2,000 km/h leveled everything from 14 to 22 kilometers, dissipating to hurricane-force winds that persisted to a radius of 40 kilometers. Despite this destruction, the Barringer impact did not throw up enough dust to seriously affect the Earth's climate. The area was likely recolonized by the local flora and fauna within a century.