Canyon Diablo Meteorite

Collected by Harvey H. Nininger (1887-1986), the "Father of Meteoritics." Nininger inventory no. 34.5196.

FROM THE MOST WELL-KNOWN METEOR CRATER, AND ORIGINALLY FROM THE LARGEST AND MOST FAMOUS PRIVATE COLLECTION OF METEORITES

Harvey H. Nininger is widely known as the "Father of Meteoritics." Having started his scientific career as a biology professor at McPherson College in Kansas, Nininger's life changed forever after witnessing a meteor streaking through the night sky on November 9th, 1923. Although astronomers and geologists had been studying meteorites for well over a century at that point, sustained, academic research on meteorites in American universities was still in its very early stages.

Having spent years collecting and studying meteorites in his spare time, Nininger left McPherson College in 1929 and moved to Denver to oversee the meteorite collection at the Colorado Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science). In 1935, Nininger taught the first dedicated university course on meteorites at the University of Denver. After amassing the world's largest private collection of meteorites by the early-1940s, Nininger left Denver to open the American Meteorite Museum near Meteor Crater in northern Arizona to display his collection and continue his research on meteorites. Moving again to Sedona, Arizona in the early 1950s, Nininger would eventually close the American Meteorite Museum in 1960, selling the vast majority of his collection to the British Museum and Arizona State University.

The Canyon Diablo specimen seen here originates from Harvey Nininger's private collection, and was collected by him at Meteor Crater where the American Meteorite Museum was once located. Nininger's original inventory number, 34.5196, is displayed directly on the specimen. Like most meteorites, Canyon Diablo originated in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and plowed into the desert approximately 50,000 years ago, forming Meteor Crater in an explosion estimated to have had a force of between 2 and 20 million tons of TNT. Most of the mass vaporized on impact while fragments were flung as far as 11 miles from the impact site.

Meteor Crater receives over 200,000 visitors every year, and Canyon Diablo meteorites originating from in and around Meteor Crater are prized by museums and collectors throughout the world. This meteorite — a wonderfully sculptural example with a handsome red and brown patina — is made even more special by its association with Harvey Nininger, the "Father of Meteoritics."

REFERENCES:

Meteoritical Bulletin Entry for Canyon Diablo

Nininger, Harvey H. Arizona’s Meteorite Crater. Past-Present-Future. Denver, Colorado: American Meteorite Laboratory, 1956. 

Norton, O. Richard. Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters. Missoula: Mountain Press, 1998, ch. 7.