MNN - Mother Nature Network

A large meteorite smashed into what is now Santa Fe, N.M., some million or billion years ago. Now scientists are trying to determine exactly when this life-killer hit. Space.com reports that geologists are studying the impact crater in detail to determine its size and moment of earth-shattering impact.

 

The Southwest is home to other meteor impact craters. Just across state lines is the Meteor Crater of Arizona, which is known as one of the best-preserved meteor sites on Earth. The Meteor Crater, located about 43 miles east of Flagstaff, is about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) wide and 570 feet (170 meters) deep. It hit some 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when mammoths and giant ground sloths roamed the open plains. People were thought to appear much later in the area.

 

But the meteor that wiped out what is now Santa Fe is thought to have been much bigger than the one that struck Arizona. And much of it remains a mystery. As Space.com reports, geologists have only been able to determine that the meteorite struck sometime between 1.2 billion and 330 million years ago. Figuring out the exact age of the impact has remained a mystery to experts.