Haviland

Key facts

Country

United States

Diameter

15 m

Age

probably less than a few thousand years

Location

37.58° N, 99.17° W

The Haviland crater, in Kiowa County, Kansas, in the United States, is one of the smallest known meteorite craters on Earth, only about 15 m across. It is linked to one of the most famous stony-iron meteorites, the Brenham pallasite.

The meteorite. Brenham is a pallasite, a stony-iron meteorite made of glassy olive-green crystals of the mineral olivine set in a network of iron–nickel metal. Farmers in the area began finding heavy, rusty masses in their fields in the 1880s, and many tonnes have been recovered since. Pallasites are thought to come from the boundary between the metal core and the rocky mantle of a small, broken-up asteroid.

Discovery of the crater. In 1933 the meteorite hunter Harvey Nininger investigated a shallow, oval depression on a farm that had long been known locally. Digging showed that it was a small impact pit, with fragments of the pallasite, many of them weathered and broken, in and around it. It was one of the first meteorite craters described in the United States.

Age. The crater's age is not well known. The weathering of the fragments and the soil in the pit suggest it is young, probably no more than a few thousand years old, though some estimates are older.

Why it matters. Haviland shows that even quite small meteorites can make craters if they are dense enough and strike fast enough. A crater this size forms only when a mass of perhaps a few tonnes survives the flight through the air largely intact.

Visiting. The crater is on private farmland and has largely been filled and ploughed. Meteorite hunting in the area is only lawful with the landowner's permission.

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