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Verkamp's meteorite is one of the largest
surviving fragments of the iron
asteroid that hit northern Arizona 50,000 years ago to produce Meteor
Crater in a multi-megaton explosion.
The explosive energy of the impact event was so immense that most of the
asteroid was obliterated. Some of the surviving fragments were so
severely shocked that carbon within the metallic masses was converted to
microscopic diamonds. The meteorite is dominated, however, by iron-nickel
metallic minerals called kamacite and taenite. These minerals indicate
the metal in the meteorite was once part of a small planet.
This small planet used to exist with several other small planets between
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Those planets repeatedly collided with
each other to form the asteroid belt. One of those collisions was so
dramatic that it completely disrupted the parent planet to the Verkamp's
meteorite, exposing the iron-rich material that is now visible.
Eventually that exposed iron-rich asteroid collided with
Earth, blazing
through the atmosphere and producing an explosion so large that 175
million tons of rock were instantly excavated to form Meteor Crater, which
remains the best preserved impact site in the world. At the same time,
the surviving fragments of the asteroid, like the Verkamp's meteorite,
rained down on the landscape around the impact site out to distances of 10
kilometers. The Verkamp's relic of this dramatic impact event has been
on display on the rim of the Grand Canyon since the early 1900's."
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