Better, higer resolution photos have been added!

Welcome to my collection of meteorites. All of the items in my collection have a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Mike D. Reynolds, Ph. D.

Type: Iron. Coarse Octahedrite (IAB)
Location: Coconino County, AZ

The Canyon Diablo meteorites tell a story of scientific controversy and the rise and fall of the ambitions of a mining engineer from Philadelphia.

Near the time of the dawn of modern homo sapiens in North America, fifty thousand years ago, a 300,000 ton mass of iron and nickel was hurtling towards modern-day northern Arizona at over 25,000 mph. Born in the interior of a long since destroyed planet, it hit the Earth with the force of over a two-megaton atomic bomb. Most of the meteorite vaporized upon impact, creating a crater a mile wide and over 500 feet deep.

Only about a tenth of the original mass survived, littering the surrounding plains over several miles with fragments of iron meteoritic material. The crater once called Coon Butte, is now known as the Barringer Meteorite Crater, named after Daniel Moreau Barringer who at the turn of the century was convinced that the crater was caused by the impact of a super-massive iron meteorite. Barringer was able to convince investors of his theory with a plan to sell off the giant meteorite for millions of dollars. Although Barringer was right about his theory that Coon Butte was an meteoric impact crater, he exhausted his adult life and a sizeable fortune in search of the "gold" that was destroyed upon impact.

Barringer stood firm in his theory that the crater was created by a giant meteorite impact, but the massive meteorite was never found. However, over 45 tons of meteoritic material has been recovered from this fall.