Did you Know? 1100+ year old German Town built in a Meteor Crater

Wiki image of Nördlingen built in Meteor Impact Site

…….Nördlingen has another, completely unexpected, claim to fame, which dates back a great deal longer than any of its architecture: it is in the middle of a giant crater created 15 million years ago when a huge asteroid came crashing through the atmosphere. The high-speed impact made a crater 25km wide and 1,500 metres deep, which in the many years since has filled with rich and fertile soil. If you know what you are looking for, you can make out the crater edges from up on the Danielturm, but you get a much better insight into the geology of the impact from the Riesenkrater Museum, in a converted 15th century barn in the centre of town.

One of the unlikely consequences of that impact is the presence of compacted quartz in the rock formations around Nördlingen. Having mined that rock for building material, the town can safely say that extra-terrestrial action is partly responsible for the way Nördlingen looks today! READ MORE