What is the Wetumpka Impact Crater?

Wetumpka, Alabama sits right on the bull’s eye of the greatest natural disaster in Alabama’s history. The hills just east of downtown are the eroded remains of a five-mile-wide impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock of what is now Elmore County.

How Powerful Was the Impact from the Crater?

Scientists estimate that the energy released by the Wetumpka impact event was over 175,000 times the energy of the nuclear bomb detonated at Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

How Much Destruction Was Caused by the Meteor?

The dark spot shows the area of total destruction around the crater and the thin circle line shows the extent of heavy damage and death. The impact affected both land and sea.

84 million years ago...

In the age of Dinosaurs, 84 million years ago, a Meteor the size of Bryant-Denny or Jordan-Hare Stadium penetrated 2,000 feet into the coastal area of the United States at Wetumpka, Alabama and created a 2.3 billion ton TNT explosion equivalent to 175,000 Hiroshima size Nuclear Bombs.

The Crater Today

Today the results can be seen via Google Maps as a 5 mile wide Crater in Central Elmore County where the town of Wetumpka and the Coosa River rest on its Northwest Rim. The Wetumpka Impact Crater Commission^® is working toward the development of Alabama’s Science and Crater Impact Exhibition Center to explore the event and its educational and tourism implications.