Decaturville Dome Impact Crater EarthCache
Decaturville Dome Impact Crater
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The Decaturville Dome is like no other landform in the lake area.
It straddles the Laclede-Camden County line and is described as a
ring of low hills about three and a half miles wide. The shattered
rocks within the ring exhibit numerous fault lines and other
deformations. The rocks at the mile-wide core resemble granite.
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WHAT TO LOOK FOR
The most obvious sign of the crater can be seen in the highway
cuts located near the provided parking coordinates.
There are not any formal informational signs or markers describing
the impact crater.
Although you won't see too many remnents of the impact other than
a few patches of strange looking rock, you can experience the
frequent elevation change by driving Mount Horeb Road west of Rt. 5
(see Waypoint) and Lilac Road (see Waypoint) and Livingston Road
south of the Laclede County line.
The posted cache coordinates are at the intersection of Lilac and
Livingston Roads and this location is just over the lip of the
inner most crater ring on the south side of the crater.
HISTORY
The village of Decaturville, situated south of Camdenton on Route
5, was founded in 1854 when James (John) Farmer opened his general
store and residence in a log building.
Eventually, there would be a blacksmith shop, drug store, barber,
a grist mill and a doctor.
Decaturville's post office was opened in 1860. It closed in 1960.
A Methodist (now Baptist) church was built in 1895 and the Woodman
Hall was built nearby in 1899 by local Decaturville men.
The meteor crater deposits in the Decaturville area were once the
center of attention for many Camden County residents.
Several years ago, tucked away in a far corner of the Camden
County Museum, the original narrative of the 1961 radio broadcast
by native Camden County citizen, H.B. Hart was discovered.
What follows here is the promotional flyer advertising the
broadcast. 'HEAR IT, HEAR IT, December 31, 1961, K.R.M.S., Sunday,
December 31st, 12:30 P.M., Dial 1150. The secret of a great
discovery to be revealed for the first time over K.R.M.S. A New
Year's gift to our Ozarks, millions may be spent, several plants to
go up.
It took seven years hard work and over $300,000 spent before this
discovery was made. A discovery which may prove the one important
factor to our nation's survival against the Communists.
Businessmen, teachers, ministers, all professions, certainly should
hear this message.
You will be amazed. Something new to think about, read about, part
of which will not be found in any of our libraries. Camden and
Laclede counties have made new history for our North American
continent.
The radio show was quite lengthy and included song recordings
throughout the narrative. The narrative in its entirety is
available at the Camden County Museum.
The following is a part of the narrative from the 1961 radio show
by Mr. Hart:
I personally entered into this search in January 1926.
From outer space there came a great nickel-iron meteor traveling
at least 40 miles per second from the northeast to southwest at an
angle of near 45 degrees. This large meteor with its terrific speed
and tremendous impact struck what was formerly known as the Wheeler
property.
We estimate the size of the meteor at possibly 400 feet in
diameter and its weight at more than 5 million tons. It struck with
such force that the impact was driven into the earth probably 6,000
to 7,000 feet deep and then a terrific explosion resulted. The
surface of the earth at the time of the impact must have been 1,500
feet higher than it is today.
The force produced by this explosion was many times greater than
that of our atomic bombs today. The earth was first driven down
several thousand feet and then blown out.
A crater was formed, the rim 2,000 feet in diameter, and a hole
was left inside 1,000 feet deep or more the rock layers even in the
granite were lifted up and curled back as though they were small
pieces of tin.
The diameter of the outer shock wave rim is 8,520 feet. The
diameter of the brecciaed powdered core inside is about 1,000
feet.
The diameter of the disturbed broken area is 20,460 feet in an
almost perfect circle. Approximately, 3 1/2 miles across. Some of
the scientists seemed to think this mass may go to 6,000 feet
depth.
The terrific impact, the extreme heat, and explosion of the
Decaturville meteor may have formed and made other high pressure
minerals. We have found a quantity of large sheets of silica glass
and some sponge glass. We have here at Decaturville one mineral
that requires 3,500 degrees centigrade to boil and it takes 1,710
degrees centigrade to melt. This is the highest melting point of
any mineral found to date.
The discovery of the meteor crater at Decaturville should bring to
central Missouri a tremendous lot of business. This is my closing
statement. I want it definitely understood regardless of how much
wealth me and my family may realize from this great find at least
75 percent of this wealth will be immediately put into use for my
many hundreds of friends and my people. It will go for churches,
services, to educate children, the orphanages, hospitals, and to
aid the sick and inform.'
The mineral deposits were not plentiful enough to make the
business venture worthwhile.
The crater rim is still visible. Even though the historical
evidence has almost vanished from the village of Decaturville, the
importance of its heritage lives on.2
EDUCATIONAL
Most of what goes on in the universe involves some form of energy
being transformed into another. The earth processes we see today
are similar to those that occurred in the past. Earth history is
also influenced by occasional catastrophes, such as the impact of
an asteroid or comet.
Impact events have formed major ore deposits, generated large
crustal disturbances, and produced huge volumes of igneous rock.
Researchers have identified apporoximately 140 individual impact
craters on Earth.
You wouldn't hear it coming. A 100-ton extraterrestial object hits
the Earth at hyperverlocity, more than 11 kilometers per second,
and sometimes as fast as 20-25 kilometers per second. That's faster
than sound (about 300 m/sec.)
When an object from space hits the
Earth...
- There is a HUGE explosion.
- The impact makes a big crater with a raised rim and
sometimes a central peak.
- There is a rapid release of a tremendous amount of kinetic
energy as the object comes to a stop in about one hundredth of a
second.
- Ihe impact releases extreme heat. Usually, the object itself is
vaporized. Sometimes it melts completely and mixes with melted
rocks at the site.
- The impact produces a super-hot shockwave that radiates rapidly
outward from the impact point through the target rocks at
velocities of a few kilometers per second.
- The shockwave is stronger than any material on Earth. It
deforms rock in ways that are characteristic of an impact event. No
other event on Earth deforms rock in these ways.
- Tiny glass droplets can form during the rapid cooling of molten
rock that splashes into the atmosphere.
- Hot debris is ejected from the target area, and falls in the
area surrounding the crater. Close to the crater, the efecta
typicall form a thick, continuous layer.
- Large impacts can trigger earthqueakes and initiate volcanic
eruptions.
- The heat ignites fires that may rage across a large
region.
ACTIVITY
You MUST complete the following
activites in order to log this cache.
Take a picture of you and / or your gpsr with the road cuts in the
background and post it with your log. Do NOT park on the side of
HWY 5. Park at one of the provided parking coordinates. You will be
able to safely take a picture from one of the parking locations
without getting close to the highway.
You must also answer the following questions and send me the
answer.
- What is the approximate square
mileage covered by the impact crater?
- What is the distance from the
center of the crater to your home town? Do you think you would have
heard the impact from your home town if you were there and if the
impact happened today?
- Desribe briefly what you see at
any of the listed coordinates that suggests the presence of an
impact crater, based on what you have read in this EarthCache
listing.
SOURCES
- Gillespie, Michael. "The Decaturville Dome."
lakehistory.info website, 2005-2006.
- Albers, Norine. "Decaturville Meteor Never Quite Panned Out",
Lake Sun Leader website, April 2008.
OTHER RELATED SITES
http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/decaturville.htm
Additional Hints
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