Meteor struck Southern Nevada 382M years ago, scientist believes
Between 1951 and 1992, more than 900 nuclear weapons were detonated at what is now the Nevada National Security Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But that was child’s play compared to the explosion that some scientists believe rocked the area roughly 382 million years earlier.
By some estimates, the meteor strike known as the Alamo impact left behind a crater nearly large enough to swallow Clark County.
In celebration of international Asteroid Day, the National Atomic Testing Museum will host a lecture at 2:30 p.m. Saturday on the still-disputed cataclysm.
Multidisciplinary scientist Ben McGee calls his presentation “The Day an Asteroid Nuked the Test Site.”
He said it’s a “cosmic irony” that the impact happened within the boundaries of the world’s most active nuclear weapons proving ground, literally “the place where we put our own craters.”
Scientists first discovered evidence of the meteor strike in the mountains near the Lincoln County town of Alamo about 20 years ago, but the Alamo impact remains unconfirmed and has not been added to the official list of meteor scars around the globe.
McGee said teasing out evidence of something that happened so long ago, when the region was submerged beneath a shallow sea, is a bit like looking for a single hair in a crowded marketplace to track down a murder suspect.
“But I’m convinced based on what I’ve seen, and I’m a pretty skeptical person,” he said.
McGee holds degrees in geology and space science and has worked professionally in everything from the design of orbiting space habitats to his current job as a radiological safety engineer at the Nevada National Security Site. The self-described “space geek” has also appeared as a host and expert on a variety of programs on Nat Geo Channel, Travel Channel, History Channel and the Weather Channel.
In his lecture, McGee will discuss what the impact might have been like based on the evidence collected so far, including a 2015 study that suggests the crater may have been up to 93 miles wide, roughly twice as big as previously thought. That would make the Alamo impact the largest known meteor strike in the United States and one of the largest anywhere on Earth in the past 500 million years.
McGee said the explosive collision “left its fingerprints” at the top of Frenchman Mountain at the eastern edge of the Las Vegas Valley, where scientists have found similarly aged deposits left by a tsunami.
Saturday’s lecture will be held at the National Atomic Testing Museum at 755 E. Flamingo Rd. Admission is $5 per person or free for museum members.
More information is available by calling 702-794-5151.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.
Are you asteroid aware?
Asteroid Day is global awareness campaign, now sanctioned by the United Nations, to teach people about asteroids, the hazards they pose and what people can do to protect themselves and the planet from future impacts.
The event, first held in 2015, was created by astronauts, scientists, civic leaders and artists, including astrophysicist Brian May, also known as the guitarist for the rock band Queen.
According to the campaign's website, Asteroid Day is observed each year on the June 30 anniversary of the largest impact in modern history, the 1908 Tunguska event, when an asteroid about 43 yards across flattened 770 square miles of unpopulated forest in Siberia.
