Parts of the town of Wetumpka, Ala., sit within a 4.7-mile in diameter meteor crater. It was created approximately 83 million years ago when a meteor 1,100-plus feet in diameter traveling 10-20 miles per second struck what is now Elmore County.

The area at that time would have been under a shallow sea, perhaps covered by 100 feet of water. The impact was roughly 175,000 times greater than the Hiroshima nuclear explosion of 1945. Everything within a radius of 25 miles would have been totally devastated. The area's largest natural disaster would have produced a huge earthquake, a tsunami, an atmospheric blast wave and falling debris that would have reached to what is now the Gulf of Mexico.

For comparison, the size of the meteorite would have been large enough to fill the entire bowl of either Jordan-Hare or Bryant-Denny Stadium. No fragments of the meteorite have been found as it was vaporized upon impact.

All that remains today of the crater is a crescent-shaped ring of 300-foot ridges rising above the surrounding area. While most of the impact area is hidden by forest growth, other parts of the crater remnants are visible from U.S. 231 and Alabama 14. Approximately 3,000 residents of Wetumpka currently live within the rim of the crater.

The crater structure was first noted in 1969 by geologists with the Geological Survey of Alabama. In 1976 a paper by Thornton L. Neathery and co-workers proposed that it was formed by a meteorite. This was confirmed in 1998 when Auburn University geologist David T. King Jr. completed a 630-foot drilling operation at the crater's center. The samples obtained revealed evidence of structures formed by high pressure and sudden impact such as a meteor strike. After the results of the research were published in 2002, the site was established as an internationally recognized impact crater.

In 2002, a roadside historic marker that describes the crater was erected by the Alabama Historical Commission on U.S. 231 in front of the Elmore County Health Department.

Each year the Wetumpka Impact Crater Commission holds crater lectures and tours. On Thursday at 7 p.m., King will give a free public lecture on the science of the crater. The lecture will be held at the Wetumpka Civic Center on Main Street, Wetumpka.

School tours will take place on Friday and public tours will take place on Saturday. For more information on the tours visit the crater commission website at www.wetumpkaimpactcratercommission.org.

To register for the school tours teachers can call Marilee Tankersley at 334-567-4637. To register for the public tours on Saturday call Valencia at 334-567-5147.

On New Years Eve the city of Wetumpka holds a meteor drop to commemorate the impact. Here is a YouTube video by Pam Bergmann.