Not Many People Know The Story Of Nebraska's Ancient Meteorite Crater

Think you know everything about Nebraska’s natural history? There’s a very good chance you’ve never heard the story of what was almost one small town’s big moment in the spotlight.

Wikimedia Commons/Ammodramus - Public Domain

This is Merna, a tiny Custer County town of 363 people. It's a quiet place, but it enjoyed about a decade of notoriety beginning in 1992. That's when retired University of Kansas geology professor Wakefield Dort, Jr. discovered a circular depression in the ground just west of the town.

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The dent seemed too out of place, too perfectly round, to have been formed by any usual earthly activity, determined Dort. After studying the depression and collecting dirt samples, he concluded that this must have been the site of an ancient meteorite impact.

According to Dort and his colleagues, the soil contained minute black particles that did not originate in Nebraska. The geologists posited that these were remnants of molten meteorite. Further digging produced a layer of crushed glass about three feet below the surface, and a layer of gray soil beneath that. He also pointed to an old Pawnee story of a massive cloud that darkened the sky and left charred remains in its path.

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If this mile-wide anomaly truly was created by a meteorite crashing to the ground, the celestial object that created it would have been massive - around 500 feet across. If you compare this with the Tunguska meteorite that exploded over Siberia in 1908, the Nebraska meteorite would have been much, much larger. The Tunguska meteorite created an explosion with as much power as a hydrogen bomb, and the one that theoretically crashed into Nebraska would have been even more powerful. It would have created a flash brighter than 50 suns and killed everything within a 10-mile radius.

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Jim Swinehart, CSD, UNL

Dort and his team believe that the impact would have taken place between 500 and 3,000 years ago. In the intervening centuries, the relentless wind on the loose soils of the Nebraska prairie has eroded many of the natural features. This, they believe, is the reason that the depression - first named the Bartak Depression for the farmer who owned the land and later changed to the Merna Crater - does not display some of the hallmarks of an impact site, including the usual depth. The criteria for identifying such a crater is quite stringent; only around 60 sites have been confirmed in North America.

Tapatalk/Battleship guy

The "crater" is so shallow now - around 65 feet - that you can stand in the middle of it and not notice anything unusual. In this photo, the photographer is standing in the depression; the gentle rise in the background is the rim of the depression.

Although Dort was convinced that he had discovered a meteorite impact site, skeptics pointed to a number of reasons that this could not have been the case. The surrounding geological features, the lack of depth, and the makeup of the underlying soil all pointed to this depression having been formed by fierce, unrelenting winds during periods of exceptionally dry conditions in the area.

University of Nebraska researchers believe that they have disproven Dort’s theory. Still, the idea of such an enormous impact crater in an unassuming field in Nebraska is undeniably fascinating.

The Merna Crater is located just west of Merna and south of Highway 92. The Cliff Church cemetery is located at the northeastern corner of the depression. The crater is on private property, so please respect any “No Trespassing” signs. There is a geocache there on a fencepost for you geocachers – be sure to sign the guest book if you decide to drive by!

Had you ever heard the weird story of Nebraska’s almost-meteorite crater? What are your theories on the subject? Share your thoughts in the comments!