#meteor crater

    This giant crater in the Arizona desert is creatively named Meteor Crater. It is 1200 metres wide and around 170 metres deep. 50,000 years ago this 40 metre wide asteroid struck what would have been a damp grassland with ten times the speed of a bullet. 

U.S. Geological Survey geologist, Eugene M. Shoemaker, and assistant pose with cross-section drawing of Meteor Crater, Arizona, 1960 ca. It is “assistants” like this that made space exploration possible. 

Series: Office Files of Eugene M. Shoemaker, ca. 1960 - ca. 1964. Record Group 57: Records of the U.S. Geological Survey, 1839 - 2008. (National Archives Identifier 7788427). 

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