Walnut Canyon National Monument and The Meteor Crater

Leaving Flagstaff, we headed east for the day to visit Walnut Canyon National Monument.

It's in this canyon, that the Sinagua people lived here in the cliffs.  You can see that there is an overhang on the right hand side of the canyon, which is where the Sinagua took advantage of the natural erosion to live.

So this is the view from on dwelling across the canyon.  Across and all around were their "neighbors".

35 miles east of Flagstaff is Meteor Crater.  At first, it was thought to be a volcanic feature, but by 1961, it was declared the remains of a meteoric impact.  It is so well preserved because of the dry desert climate and the lack of vegetation.

At one mile in 4000 feet across and 700 feet deep, it's considered a small meteor impact.  There was significant mining activity here in the 1920's as a geologist was mining for iron ore.

One key piece of evidence that it was a meteor impact and not volcanic is the inversion of layers of rock.  This sandstone is on top of younger layers of rock.

I thought it was cool to see the rocks that had rolled to the crater floor.  I didn't expect to enjoy Meteor Crater so much.  The history and the geologic explanation of how they proved it to be meteoric was fascinating.