Introduction
Randomly, yesterday, I read a post on LinkedIn by Excel MVP Oz du Soleil in which he posted a photo of the Meteor or Barringer Crater in Arizona. Oz had stopped there as he was driving from a to b.
I suggested that he might use Excel to find the volume of the crater and he responded to say it was a good idea. So, I took it upon myself to do the work.
The Meteor or Barringer Crater in Arizona
The following three images will open in this page: click the link and then the back button to return here
Summary of my findings
Original crater 250,455,065 cubic metres
Rubble 130,247,133
Empty Volume 120,207,933 ... the hole in the ground we see now!
The dimensions of the crater are taken from Wikipedia: that link opens in a new page
Meteor Crater, or Barringer Crater, is an impact crater about 37 mi (60 km) east of Flagstaff and 18 mi (29 km) west of Winslow in the desert of northern Arizona, United States. The site had several earlier names, and fragments of the meteorite are officially called the Canyon Diablo Meteorite, after the adjacent Canyon Diablo
Cone v Spherical Cap
I read elsewhere that it is usual to use the formula for the volume of a cone to estimate the volume of the displacement by a meteor. However, it is clear from the photos and other images that the Meteor Crater is much more of a Spherical Cap: the bottom part of a sphere, in this case.
If we accept the dimensions of the visible void in the meteor now, here is the formula and then the calculations of the debris displaced.
Volume of a Spherical Cap
Inputs Section
Workings Section
Discussion
It's not every day that an ordinary user of Excel needs to work on the volume of soil and rocks displaced by a meteor but when the time comes, we can see that it's certainly not impossible to work with.
We should be aware, just look at the photos, contour map and cross section, that I have provided estimates, only, I don't have the fine detailed knowledge to provide a more accurate answer but it gives you an idea of the energy contained in a meteor that they think was 50 metres across as it smashed into Arizona 50,000 years ago!
Since my efforts are openly available on LinkedIn, why am I posting here as well? Well, I went back to the original post and my own post and found that it has, essentially, been demoted as not relevant to the orginal post. So, you would probably never find it there, sad to say! I am a premium LinkedIn subscriber, too!.
Duncan Williamson
2nd May 2025
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