Canyon Diablo (meteorite)
The Canyon Diablo meteorite impacted at Barringer Crater, Arizona and is known from fragments collected around the crater and nearby Canyon Diablo which lies about 3 to 4 miles west of the crater. The meteorite is an iron octahedrite which fell between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. The meteorite has been known and collected since the mid 1800s and was known and used by pre-historic Native Americans. The Barringer Crater, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, was the center of a long dispute over the origin of craters that showed little evidence of volcanism. That debate was settled in the 1950's thanks to Eugene Shoemaker's study of the crater. Minerals reported from the meteorite include:
- Cohenite - iron carbide
- Chromite - iron magnesium chromium oxide
- Daubreelite - iron(II) chromium sulfide
- Diamond and lonsdaleite - carbon
- Graphite - carbon
- Haxonite - iron nickel carbide
- Kamacite iron nickel alloy - the most common component.
- base metal sulfides
- Schreibersite - iron nickel phosphide
- Taenite iron nickel alloy
- Troilite a variety of the iron sulfide mineral pyrrhotite. The troilite in this sample is used as the standard reference for sulfur isotope ratios.
- Moissanite - a variety of silicon carbide, the second hardest natural mineral.
Clair Cameron Patterson, in 1953, used samples of the meteorite to measure the age of the Earth at 4,550 million years (± 70 million years).
There are fragments among different science related museums around the world including the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.