Odessa Meteor Craters

By 1920, a number of iron meteorite fragments had been found about ten miles southwest of Odessa, Texas. In 1926 D. M. Barringer visited and identified the main Odessa crater as an impact crater. This was only the second impact crater to be identified in the U.S.-- Meteor Crater, Arizona being the first. Since then, the Odessa crater has been thoroughly studied by using extensive excavation, trenching, core drilling and the sinking of a 165-foot-deep vertical shaft. In 1939 an excavation project began which used 35 men and lasted two years. New drilling was done in 1958 and 1960 by the Barringers. 

Meteorites come in four basic varieties: stony-chondrite, stony-achondrite, stony-irons, and irons. The meteor that caused the Odessa crater is an iron meteorite. It is composed predominantly of the elements nickel and iron with only 2% of its composition from other elements.

A large amount of meteoritic material has been retrieved from this area. Indeed, six tons of material were taken from a ten-foot-deep satellite crater just west of the main crater and sent to the Texas Memorial Museum. This led to the hope that a huge meteorite might be buried at depth in the main crater. Further studies concluded that an intact, metallic mass does not exist at depth. The meteorite apparently broke up on impact and most of the pieces were ejected from the crater. Aided by an electromagnet the famous meteorite expert H.H. Nininger picked up 1500 pieces of iron meteorite in a seven-hour period in 1933. The largest single piece of meteorite found here weighed 300 pounds. The map below shows the distribution of the ejected material.

Five craters have now been identified at the Odessa site. The structure of the main crater is used as the type example of simple impact craters. Most impact structures in the world are classified as either "Odessa type" or "Barringer type."

These maps show the location of the five, known craters near Odessa and the distribution of the meteorite fragments.

Cross section of the main crater (550 feet in diameter, 100+ feet deep)

Prior to the impact the layers were all flat lying like the Triassic shale at the bottom of the cross section. Imagine the force required to break and crumple the layers of strong rock at the top of the cross section.

Later drilling showed that there is probably not a large, intact meteorite at depth.

Cross section of small crater #2 which is (70 feet in diameter, 17 feet deep)

One can observe how the many fragments (six tons in all) were scattered in the rock below the bottom of the crater. Presumably the iron meteor was a large object that shattered during impact.

This section shows the ejected material that fell into the crater immediately after impact. Most of this material was actually thrown out of the main crater.

The fill is material washed into, and blown into, the crater long after the impact. Note that the fill completely obscured the crater shape. The only clue that the crater existed was a high magnetic reading that led to its excavation.

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This page was last updated on July 19, 2006