Has anyone ever used the Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona in an adventure and/or as a prop?
Arizona Meteor Crater
- Thread starter Spinward Scout
- Start date
I've been there live.
It's...a hole. In the desert. And not very adventureful.
Put it in a jungle, and now we're talking. You can hide things in a jungle. But this place? See that photo? That's it. A hole surrounded by dirt as far as you can see. Get on the rim and some binoculars and see what you want to see (not much).
Sure, you can go down and do core samples and what not, but...it's just not very interesting.
It's...a hole. In the desert. And not very adventureful.
Put it in a jungle, and now we're talking. You can hide things in a jungle. But this place? See that photo? That's it. A hole surrounded by dirt as far as you can see. Get on the rim and some binoculars and see what you want to see (not much).
Sure, you can go down and do core samples and what not, but...it's just not very interesting.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
The metal fragments found around the edges of the crater are unique. Maybe even exotic. That's how my hook usually starts with that crater.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Depreciated starport class dee.
I live about 150 miles from there. Might make a good Ancients site.
There's something in a stasis field under it. Might have been what was targeted to make the crater, or it might have been what made the crater.
It's too young for the canonical Ancients. 5000 to 50000 years ago, so 8 to 53,000 before IY 1107...
Not the 250,000 to 300,000 of the Ancients period.
My twist on that is something in a stasis bubble that got punched down into the planet's asthenosphere (Wikipedia) that's once again worked its way almost to the surface via the magma flows inside a stratovolcano like Mt. St. Helens (again, Wikipedia).Yeah, but that's just a crater. I'd expect a caldera.
If you're patient, it may surface on its own. Or, a collapse of one flank of the volcano will cause it to be shot out sideways in the explosion.
This collapse might be random, or perhaps it could be triggered (intentionally or inadvertently) by excavation efforts.
This implies that somewhere in the region there is also a crater from an extinction-level meteorite impact.
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For others thinking about jungles and old craters, remember that the one in Arizona is in a relatively stable geologic location, has a lack of vegetation and rain. So jungle craters, if they look like a crater are younger.
So, I've been to the Arizona Crater.
I've also been to Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley. Ubehebe Crater is volcanic, and smaller than the Arizona crater.
The key point, though, is that what they have in common is they're both exhausting to get OUT of.
The run down the trail to the bottom of Ubehebe Crater is great fun. Getting out? Entirely different matter. The walls are steep.
So.
If you want to go explore it (and you're not just going to plonk an air raft in the middle), then you get to haul your gear down the steep sides (in the wild, there may well not be a trail, so this can be treacherous). But in the end, that's easy-ish, gravity is on your side.
You make camp in the bottom. You run your scans, and soil samples, and, wait, is that a metal door in the crater wall over there? Wait, ignore that.
Anyway. Odds are high that the work at the bottom of the crater, outside of perhaps finding a snake, scorpion, or spider in your sleeping bag, will likely be uneventful. Then you have to drag all of that stuff back out, up those steep walls.
This is a desert environment. Small lizards, poisonous snakes, feral mice and rats. But no large predators, no real hiding spaces, the environ is the biggest obstacle.
Put it in a jungle, and you get all of the great fun of hidden -- anything.
Have you seen the LIDAR scans of Guatemala and the Mayan structures they're revealing?
www.nationalgeographic.com
Hidden for hundreds of years. This is the mystery that a jungle offers. Plus Jaguars. Black Jaguars. Green, shiny eyes sizing you up from the bush. Talk to Lee Stroud about Jaguars. Being stalked by a big cat, with cover...do not underestimate that. It's bad enough here in the house with mine, the "domesticated" ones.
The desert, not so much.
I've also been to Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley. Ubehebe Crater is volcanic, and smaller than the Arizona crater.
The key point, though, is that what they have in common is they're both exhausting to get OUT of.
The run down the trail to the bottom of Ubehebe Crater is great fun. Getting out? Entirely different matter. The walls are steep.
So.
If you want to go explore it (and you're not just going to plonk an air raft in the middle), then you get to haul your gear down the steep sides (in the wild, there may well not be a trail, so this can be treacherous). But in the end, that's easy-ish, gravity is on your side.
You make camp in the bottom. You run your scans, and soil samples, and, wait, is that a metal door in the crater wall over there? Wait, ignore that.
Anyway. Odds are high that the work at the bottom of the crater, outside of perhaps finding a snake, scorpion, or spider in your sleeping bag, will likely be uneventful. Then you have to drag all of that stuff back out, up those steep walls.
This is a desert environment. Small lizards, poisonous snakes, feral mice and rats. But no large predators, no real hiding spaces, the environ is the biggest obstacle.
Put it in a jungle, and you get all of the great fun of hidden -- anything.
Have you seen the LIDAR scans of Guatemala and the Mayan structures they're revealing?
This Ancient Civilization Was Twice As Big As Medieval England
A vast, interconnected network of ancient cities was home to millions more people than previously thought.
Hidden for hundreds of years. This is the mystery that a jungle offers. Plus Jaguars. Black Jaguars. Green, shiny eyes sizing you up from the bush. Talk to Lee Stroud about Jaguars. Being stalked by a big cat, with cover...do not underestimate that. It's bad enough here in the house with mine, the "domesticated" ones.
The desert, not so much.
