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.
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Clear Skies, Mark Bostick Wichita, Kansas http://www.meteoritearticles.com http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com http://www.imca.cc
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