- 3330 - METEOR CRATER - Manson, Iowa. A meteorite that struck the Earth 74 million years ago still today has an effect on Iowa's water supply. This meteorite about a mile in diameter formed the “Manson impact crater” at the end of the Cretaceous period. The crater is one of the largest in North America.
---------------------------- 3330 - METEOR CRATER - Manson, Iowa
- The State Hygienic Laboratory was one of several agencies called to respond to a well water incident in May in Calhoun County. Although the lab is regularly called upon to perform well water testing, the area where the incident occurred made the case unusual.
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- Calhoun County, in west-central Iowa, includes much of the Manson Impact Area, where the meteorite crashed into the Earth. The 12-trillion ton mass struck what is now Manson, Iowa, causing widespread devastation, said to have more than the combined forces of all of the world's nuclear explosives.
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- All life was destroyed in a circle with a 650-mile radius, extending from what is now Denver to Detroit and Winnipeg, Canada, to Dallas. The meteorite formed a crater that remains buried under the landscape, stretching 24 miles wide through four counties: Calhoun, Pocahontas, Humboldt and Webster. What county did you live in?
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- It's that crater that still affects the water supply in the area. It is not uncommon for owners of private wells in the area to purchase water from the city or other entities.
Because of the aquifer and geologic formations there is limited and unpredictable water availability in that area.
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- Duane’s relatives living in a house in the county contacted Calhoun County Environmental Health Sanitarians with questions about their drinking water. Family members reported numbness and tingling in their mouths after drinking the water from a shallow, 80-year-old private well.
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- Contaminants in water can lead to health issues, including gastrointestinal illness, reproductive problems and neurological disorders, according to the CDC. Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people whose immune systems are compromised because of AIDS, chemotherapy or transplant medications may be especially susceptible to illness from contaminants.
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- Iowans with health concerns that could be related to their drinking water should consult their doctor, then contact their county sanitarian at the county health department. The county health department could then reach out to the State Hygienic Lab if needed. If that does not work contact an astronomer.
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- The impact crater near the site of Manson, Iowa is where an asteroid or comet nucleus struck the Earth during the Cretaceous Period, approximately 74,000,000 years ago.
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- It was one of the largest known impact events to have happened in North America. Previously it was thought to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs until isotopic ages proved that it was too old.
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- No surface evidence exists due to comparatively recent coverage by glacial till, and the site where the crater lies buried is now a flat landscape. But, hidden 66 to 295 feet below the surface is a buried structure 24 miles in diameter.
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- The impact lies under the southeast corner of Pocahontas County and extends under portions of three adjoining counties. That an anomalous structure underlaid the area was known from unusual water well drill cuttings in 1912 of deformed rock, "crystalline clast breccia with a melt matrix".
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- A research investigation was started in 1955, and it was labeled a "cryptovolcanic structure" (a hypothetical volcanic steam explosion). Further investigation was undertaken by Robert S. Dietz who proposed an impact origin in 1959 and by Nicholas Short in 1966 who produced evidence of shocked quartz grains which confirmed the impact origin of the structure.
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- In 1991 and 1992 the U.S. Geological Survey along with others including the Iowa Geological Survey conducted detailed research in part to test the possible connection of the Manson Crater with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
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- An isotope ratio dating of the core from the impact structure gave an age of about 74,000,000 years old or about 10 Myrs older than the K–T boundary.
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- The meteor is considered to have been a stony meteorite about 1.2 miles in diameter. The site at the time was the shore of a shallow inland sea, the Western Interior Seaway.
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- The impact disrupted granite, gneiss, and shales of the Precambrian basement as well as sedimentary formations of Paleozoic age, Devonian through Cretaceous. Limestone layers that give the rest of Iowa hard water were instantaneously vaporized down to the basement rocks, giving Manson the anomalous soft water that it has today.
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- Duane, no wonder your skin is so soft. That soft water causes wrinkles you know.
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- November 4, 2021 METEOR CRATER - Manson, Iowa 3327
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