Beaverhead impact structure

Okay, so imagine you're playing with your toys in a sandbox. You have your little cars and dolls and maybe even some rocks. Now imagine that a really big rock falls from the sky and crashes right into your sandbox. That's kind of what happened with the Beaverhead Impact Structure.

A really long time ago, like before you even had toys or maybe even before your great-great-great-great grandparents were born, a big asteroid or comet crashed into the earth. The impact was so strong that it made a giant hole in the ground. That's the Beaverhead Impact Structure.

Now, you might be wondering what happened to all the dirt and rocks that were in the hole? Well, they got squished and squeezed and pushed around so much that they turned into a special kind of rock called breccia. It's kind of like a rock puzzle, made up of pieces of all different kinds of rocks that were smashed together really hard.

The Beaverhead Impact Structure is really big, like the size of a whole bunch of football fields put together. You can't see it from up above because it's covered by dirt and trees and other stuff. But scientists and geologists know it's there because they've studied the rocks and the ground around it. It's kind of like a secret hiding under our feet!