Campo del Cielo

Campo del Cielo, the field of the sky, is a strewn field of around thirty craters spread across some twenty kilometres of Chaco scrub, where an iron meteorite entered the atmosphere roughly four thousand years ago and broke into fragments before impact. Indigenous peoples knew the iron long before Europeans, and Spanish expeditions searched for its source from the sixteenth century. The fragments recovered here are among the heaviest meteorites ever found anywhere: the mass known as Gancedo weighs over thirty tonnes and is displayed at the site, alongside El Chaco, of comparable size. Visits take in the display, the craters and an interpretation area, in flat dry forest that gives no hint of what fell here.

History

The craters were made four to five thousand years ago, and the native peoples, who used the iron for weapons, said it had fallen from the sky at a place they called Piguem Nonralta, which the Spanish translated as Campo del Cielo; in 1576 a provincial governor sent soldiers to find it, and they brought back samples of unusual purity, but his report to the Archive of the Indies in Seville was soon forgotten. In 1774 Bartolomé Francisco de Maguna found the great mass again, calling it the Mesón de Fierro, the table of iron, and in 1783 Rubín de Celis cleared it with explosives, judged it a single stone of some 15 tonnes formed by a volcano and left it, but sent samples to the Royal Society in London that proved to be 90 per cent iron and 10 per cent nickel, of meteoritic origin. About 100 tonnes of fragments have since been recovered, more than from any other meteorite find (Wikipedia, Campo del Cielo).

What's there

• The great iron masses - Gancedo and other multi-tonne meteorite fragments on display.
• The craters - shallow impact depressions scattered through the scrub.
• The interpretation area - the story of the fall and its long human history.
• The Chaco forest - dry thorn woodland surrounding the field.

When to go

April to October, when the Chaco heat eases; summer temperatures here regularly pass forty degrees and the site has little shade. Guided visits run to a schedule, so arriving mid-morning is safest. Rain can make tracks between craters difficult.

What to expect

The craters are shallow and unimpressive to the eye; the meteorite masses are the real sight. The area is remote, with few services and long drives from any city. Collecting fragments is illegal and enforced.

Nearby

Gancedo is the nearest village; Resistencia lies far northeast across the Chaco.

Key facts