Verdict
The core of the claim holds up, but a specific detail as it circulates is wrong or overstated.
Gypsum dissolves. The Tularosa Basin has no outlet for surface drainage, so runoff arrives carrying it, evaporates, and leaves crystals behind — and wind builds those into dunes up to 18 metres tall.
The USGS puts the impactor at about 30 metres across and 100,000 tons, arriving at 12–20 km/sec with the force of over two million tons of TNT. The hole it left is 1.2 km wide and 180 m deep.
The Colorado broke through a half-finished irrigation headgate in 1905 and took until 1907 to put back. But the river had filled that basin on its own before, and each time the basin dried out again.
Oklahoma's 2004 relocation covered only families with children under seven. Then the Army Corps found a third or more of homes had collapse potential. Then, in 2008, an EF4 tornado hit the town.
Cyanobacteria top out near 73°C. The middle of the spring sits near boiling. No photosynthetic mat can live there — but the Park Service records abundant Archaea in it, and the blue is what deep water does to light.
The fire is real and the town is gone. The two details everyone repeats — the trash fire, and the 250 years — are the two the record supports least.
