Arizona's Newest Natural Wonder

Explorations by the Ford-TWA Meteorite party determined that these small craters in Arizona resulted from collapse of subterranean caverns. Thirty-eight of these craters are situated on a plateau 20 miles south of Winslow.

AFTER 25,000 YEARS OF unseen existence, a newly-discovered topographical formation near the edge of the northeastern plateau has been explored, and the indications are strong that the Sunset State may boast underground caverns of a size with Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, and of the grandeur of the Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico. Like many another chapter in scientific history, this newest revelation of the natural wonders of Arizona came as an accident. An expedition set out to search for meteorite deposits of nickel and iron. The members realized they were likely to find scientific data of general interest, but they never expected to uncover what may be one of the great natural wonders of the world. So positive are the indications of significant discovery that citizens of Winslow are talking of asking the United States Department of the Interior for a geologic survey to undertake complete exploratory operations for the benefit of Arizona and the nation. The start of this scientific saga began with the routine day-after-day flights of T. W. A. Stratoliner pilot H. H. Holloway over a desolate peninsula of land 30 miles southeast of Winslow, sharply etched into the general shape of a "V" by the Chevalon and Wild Cat Creek Canyons. Captain Holloway noticed that this unmapped, barely explored area was pockmarked by 32 craters of various size. Extremely interested, the pilot discussed the crater group with friends, and they worked out several theories. One was that the craters were "sink holes," solution pits caused by the corrosion of subterranean rivers weakening the earth surface. Another was that the craters had been hammered out by the fall of a flight of meteorites, in the same way that Meteorite Crater on Coon Butte, to the northwest, had been formed.

Not alone was there scientific interest in the subject there was a very practical side, too. Meteorites are composed almost entirely of nickel and pure iron, well worth retrieving. Attempts had been made for decades to mine gigantic Meteor Crater but all had failed, for the sky-borne rock had buried itself too deep. Here, however, were smaller craters in which the locating and excavating of meteorite bodies might be far simpler, much more worth while.

Last summer Captain Holloway flew motor magnate Edsel Ford over his Los AngelesAlbuquerque run, and pointed out the craters to him. Ford became interested. An expedition was organized, headed by a world-renowned meteorite authority, Dr. Harvey H. Nininger, curator of Denver Museum.

The expedition of 20 men made a laborious trip to the craters. They failed to find new sites for mining shafts, nor did they come out with any kind of scientific data they had ex-pected to turn up. But instead they brought out evidences of a geologic find of the first magnitude.

Dr. Nininger interpreted the formations ex-plored by the party to mean that the earth's structure in the area was honeycombed by un-derground caverns and pathways of tremendous size. All these caverns and fissures had once been completely covered. Then, 45 miles to the northwest, the 10,000,000-ton meteorite which formed Meteor Crater 25,000 years ago had fallen. The resulting earthquake pulverized the area for miles around. At the points where the underground caverns were near the surface the rock roofs simply collapsed under the angry shock. That, theorizes Dr. Nininger, was how the "craters" seen by Captain Holloway were formed. He believes that in between those craters are still left gigantic subterranean openings of perhaps unrivalled size.

Dr. Nininger interpreted the formations explored by the party to mean that the earth's structure in the area was honeycombed by underground caverns and pathways of tremendous size. All these caverns and fissures had once been completely covered. Then, 45 miles to the northwest, the 10,000,000-ton meteorite which formed Meteor Crater 25,000 years ago had fallen. The resulting earthquake pulverized the area for miles around. At the points where the underground caverns were near the surface the rock roofs simply collapsed under the angry shock. That, theorizes Dr. Nininger, was how the "craters" seen by Captain Holloway were formed. He believes that in between those craters are still left gigantic subterranean openings of perhaps unrivalled size.

This theory can safely be advanced because of the age of the limestone formations honey combing Coconino plateau. These Triassic Age formations are at least a million years old, and have been saturated again and again with water. The dissolving effect of the water was spread far beyond the specific 32 areas where the rock roofs collapsed. All through the re-gion, it is believed, the water shaped out a vir-tual labyrinth of passages and chambers which remain in existence today, waiting to be dis-covered.

Dr. Nininger characterizes the findings as perhaps the most interesting he has encountered in 17 years of meteoritic study.

The scientific proof is so clinching that the Denver savant has no doubt in his mind but what subsequent trips will locate and map out the caverns. Perhaps as a result of this unexpected discovery, the sparsely populated area of eastern Arizona south of Winslow may become as great a tourist mecca as the cliff dwellers ruins and the painted desert farther north.

This is how Dr. Nininger visualizes the ap-proach of the great meteor whose fall caused one of the greatest shocks Mother Earth has ever known and opened the way to discovery of the cavern formations more than two hundred centuries later:

"The human inhabitants of the region, if any such existed, probably noticed a brilliant light in the northern sky, if the meteor appeared at night. If the fall was in daytime, such a large meteor would be visible. The sound of its passage would not be heard in front of it as it traveled from ten to twenty miles a second, many times the speed of sound.

"These inhabitants undoubtedly were seeing their last sight. When the giant meteor struck, the resultant concussion extinguished all life within at least 50 miles. A wave of intensely heated air rolled out in all directions, scorching the earth's surface and burning everything combustible. "How far this destruction extended is a matter of theory. At any rate, it was a most tremen dous and violent explosion, comparable to the most destructive volcanic eruptions known to history, and in some respects even more devastating.

"From the earthquake alone, every building in the nearby cities of Winslow and Flagstaff, had they been standing at that time, would have been completely demolished. Even Phoe nix, Arizona's capital city 160 miles to the south, would have been seriously damaged."

When the earth cooled and the shock ended, the meteor was buried deep in the earth, at the bottom of a great shaft it had bored for thous ands of feet down, covered lightly for the time being with a coating of sand, vegetation and rock which had tumbled into the pit in its wake.

The shock of its landing at such terrific speed was so great that fragments were broken off from the main mass and hurled miles away. One, weighing 1406 pounds, was discovered not so long ago nearly 10 miles distant. That took place about 25,000 years agoa date established by study of the amount of weathering of the Meteor Crater limestone. The same geological formation of Kaebah limestone was found exposed in the crater field southeast of Winslow, and it had weathered to an identical degree. Thus the age relation ship between the Meteor Crater and the field explored by the Ford TWA expedition is easily proved.

When Dr. Nininger's party first started into the rugged country between the two canyons, the members had already looked over the ground from the air and were puzzled over what they had seen of the craters.

"Aerial survey left unexplained their very peculiar distribution and their concentration in such a comparatively small area where there was similar formation in all directions," Dr. Nininger pointed out. "There was also a definitely non-sink hole tendency to overlap."

So the aerial flight was quickly followed by a land trip from Winslow in automobiles and station wagons. The route was through country which all but defied the cars being used-over and around ravines, scrub undergrowth and jagged rock formations. At the end of the short but difficult trip. horses were utilized for exploration of the craters. The pits were found to range from 50 to 300 feet in depth, and they were from 150 to 500 feet wide. This exploration proved definitely that the craters were not of meteoritic or sink-hole origin, and established the age re lationship to the Coon Butte crater. These facts, together with the concentration of the pits in one area, led to the belief that the abrupt depressions were outcroppings of under ground caverns of great size. It was believed that further exploration would discover openings to these caverns in Chevalon and Wild Cat Creek Canyons, perhaps in the overgrown and tangled sides of the craters themselves. The party firmly believes that pathways from such openings will be found to cross and criss-cross each other for many miles under the earth. Quite possibly when they have all been mapped they will comprise a network larger than the 150 miles of the Mammoth Cave trails in Ken tucky, and perhaps they will include more impressive and lofty underground chambers than are found in the Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico.

Before such wonderful scientific discovery can be proved and laid open to the public, of course, much remains to be done. Exploratory work must be completed. And then roadways or trails to the area will have to be developed.

In comparison to tremendous Meteor Crater, these new pits are extremely small. Meteor Crater is one of the greatest scars on the face of the globe-a hollowed-out area 4,000 feet in diameter, large enough to permit a modern airliner to land and take off in perfect safety. The lip of the crater rises 170 feet above on otherwise perfectly level plateau known as Coon Butte. The highest point of the rim is 570 feet above the floor. The entire crater is estimated to be 10,000 times larger than one which could be created by explosion by any aerial bomb or land mine in existence todaycause for philosophic reflection on the puny capability of man alongside the powers of nature.

This flat-centered crater was an object of high interest long before the coming of modern civilization to Arizona. The Indians created legends built around it, and one of them bears an uncanny relationship to science's own story. This one tells of a wicked god who was thrown from the sky and fell to the earth in flamesjust as the meteor itself must have been flaming when it came into sight. This god, goes the Indian legend, landed so hard he bored a hole This is a close-up air view of a few of the small craters explored by the Ford-TW A Meteorite Expedition recently near Winslow, Arizona. The expedition determined that the pits resulted from collapse of subterranean cavern roofs rather than from meteorite fragments.

deep in the earth, burying himself under the sands at the bottom. Had the smaller pits found by the Ford-TWA expedition been of meteorite origin, they might have contained millions of dollars worth of nickel and iron, two metals required in great quantity for the production of present-day armament. But even the existence of such a potential fortune might not have meant that it was accessible and ready to be mined. The experiences of miners at Meteor Crater proves full well the difficulties of turning meteoric mineral wealth into dollars and cents. The first interest in Meteor Crater as a mine site was manifested by an engineer, Donald M. Barrington. He had read a paper on the subject written by a former head of the U. S. Geological Survey, G. K. Gilbert, and was struck by some of the statements in it. After intensive study of the area Barrington filed mining rights shortly after 1900.

Between 1905 and 1931 more than a score of unsuccessful shafts and drill holes were sunk in search of the main meteoritic mass. Many of the first shafts were drilled straight down from the center of the crater, but none succeeded in making contact with the 10,000,000-ton mass that fell from the sky 250 centuries ago. As time went on a new series of tests established the fact that the meteorite had struck the earth form a northwesterly direction. Explorations were made around the south rim of the pit, and it was decided the meteor itself lay underneath that section.

As a result, a new shaft was sunk in 1927. angling from the interior toward the south. At 1376 feet the shaft came to the same end as many of it predecessors washed out in a morass of water and quicksand. One final attempt was made, this time from outside the south rim. This shaft, sunk in 1930, went down 671 feet before it encountered new trouble. Heavy layers of iron shale were(Continued on Page Thirty-nine)