... * Effect of the moon on rainfall * Ozone in hurricanes * Ice falls (hydrometeors) Comments from reviews: ". .. can be recommended to every one who realizes that not everything in science has been properly explained", Weather 202 pages, hardcover, $16.95, 40 Illustrations, 5 indexes, 1983. 745 references, LC 82-63156, ISBN 915554-10-0 , 7x10 format. Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Quakes and monster, solitary waves and natural detonations; these are the consequences of solids, liquids, and gases in motion. In our modern technological cocoon, we are hardly aware of this rich spectrum of natural phenomena. [Picture caption: Sand craters created by earthquakes] Typical subjects covered: Periodic wells and blowing caves * Sun-dominated tides * Immense, solitary waves * Animal activity prior to earthquakes * Earthquake geographic anomalies * Earthquake electricity * The sound of the aurora * Musical sounds in nature * Mysterious detonations * Anomalous echos * Slicks and calms on water surfaces * Periodicities of earthquakes * The vibrations of waterfalls * Unusual barometric disturbances Comments from reviews: ". .. surprisingly interesting reading", Nature 220 pages, photocopied edition, $16.95p, 32 illustrations, 5 indexes, 1983. 790 references, LC 83-50781, ISBN 915554-11-9 , 7x10 format Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows: A Catalog of Geophysical Anomalies Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Most of us ...

... were bombarded by untold numbers of small, oddly shaped stones called "tektites." New finds of tektites have expanded the strewn field of these Australasian tektites to include part of China. It now appears that about 30% of the earth's area was subjected to this stony bombardment. It is inescapable that the Australasian-tektite fall was a major event in the earth's history. But where are other signs of this great catastrophe? The present consensus holds that the Australasian tektites originated when a large celestial body slammed into our planet somewhere in Southeast Asia. The energy of the impact splashed droplets of molten rock into the atmosphere, where they were shaped aerodynamically and then fell as tektites. The extent of the immense Australasian-tektite strewn field implies a hard-to-miss crater about 100 kilometers in diameter. Yet, despite the geological recency of the event and despite much geological surveying, no convincing crater has been discovered. (SF#115) So, we have abundant evidence of a terrestrial event encompassing much of the planet but no "smoking crater"! The mystery deepens when one realizes that whatever cataclysm sent the Australian tektites aloft may have been comparable in magnitude to the impact that extinguished the dinosaurs (and other fauna) some 65 million years ago. This much older event has its craterburied below the Yucatan and is further marked by widespread biological extinctions. In contrast, the Australasian-tektite event is not only minus an obvious crater but seems to have had scant effect on the earth's cargo of sensitive life forms. It was a strangely ...

... ). Even though Lake Baikal is only 20-25 million years old, more than 5 kilometers of sediment have accumulated in some spots. These facts are remarkable as fresh-water lakes go, but Baikal also has features usually found only in salty oceans. It seals sport in fresh water 1,000 kilometers from the nearest salt water. (How did they get there?) Even more interesting are Baikal's thermal vents or chimneys that are otherwise restricted to cracks in the earth's crust in the deep oceans. Further enhancing Baikal's marine attributes, deep drilling and seismic profiles have recently discovered the existence of gas hydrates (methane hydrate, for example). Plumes of gas bubbles have also been detected where gas hydrates have been tectonically disturbed. There are even craters on Baikal's deep bottom where gas hydrates have erupted explosively. (De Batist, Marc, et al; "Tectonically Induced Gas-Hydrate Destabilization and Gas Venting in Lake Baikal, Siberia," Eos, 80:F502, 1999.) Comments. Baikal's gas-explosion craters resemble those on the floor of the North Sea. There, the sudden releases of gases are thought to cause the famous "mist-pouffers" or "fog-guns" heard around the shores of the North Sea. The Barisal Guns (India) and Guns of the Seneca (New York State) probably have similar origins. (GSD1 in Earthquakes, Tides... ) Someone should be listening for "Baikal Guns." See also: BOG BREATH . From Science ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects TLPs One Fades, Others Flash The TLP (Transient Lunar Phenomenon) reported in SF#127 involved a 40-minute darkening of an area near the lunar crater Aristarchus on April 23, 1994. The phenomenon was observed independently by some 100 amateur astronomers. The initial analysis of data returned at the same time by the lunar satellite Clementine at first seemed to confirm the amateurs' telescopic impressions. But after correcting the satellite data for lighting geometry and other effects, Clementine's vision of the TLP faded away like the Cheshire Cat. TLP doubters were well-satisfied. (Anonymous; "Lunar Surface Change: A False Alarm," Sky & Telescope, 99:22, March 2000. Cr. D. Barbiero.) Comment. Were the independent observations by 100-or-so geographically dispersed amateurs all hallucinations? The TLP "myth" does not fade away so easily. On the night of November 17/18, 1999, the Leonid meteors pelted the earth's atmosphere and, as one would expect, the moon's surface. The moon's atmosphere, however, is almost non-existent so its share of the Leonid shower did not burn up before hitting the surface. But might not the high-velocity impacts with the surface create luminous phenomena? To find out, a team of observers monitored the dark side of the moon during the peak of the Leonid shower. Sure ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eight Little Craters All In A Row The recent impact upon Jupiter of a procession of chunks from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 has encouraged geologists to look for crater chains here on earth. Such have been spotted on the moon, and it is unlikely the earth escaped such bar rages. Of course, older terrestrial craters are harder to identify due to the ceaseless geological activity here on earth. In the first 1996 number of Geophysical Research Letters, M.R . Rampino and T. Volk describe a possible swath of meteoric devastation across the North American Midwest. "Eight circular geologic structures ranging from about 3 to 17 km in diameter, showing evidence of outwarddirected deformation and intensive brecciation, lie within a linear swath stretching about 700 km across the United States from southern Illinois through Missouri to eastern Kansas. Based on their similar geological characteristics and the presence of diagnostic and/or probable evidence of shock, these structures, once classified as 'crypto volcanic' or 'cryptoexplosion' structures, are more confidently ascribed to hypervelocity impact. No other similar occurrence of aligned features is known, and we calculate the probability of a chance alignment to be less than 10- 9 ." The craters are all roughly the same age: 310-330 million years. Rampino and Volk suspect they were formed all at once by a string of asteroids or comets. (Rampino, Michael R., and Volk, Tyler; "Multiple Impact ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Where's the big bang's "crater"?This question was posed in a recent issue of New Scientist: "Where the big bang happened, there must by now be an enormous hole. Where is it?" (Barber, M.G .; "Images in Time," New Scientist, p. 49, May 8, 1993.) Comment. A silly question? Well, it is ar any rate a nice introduction to our next item. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Tsumani Tales Only a few years ago astronomical catastrophism was denied as a major factor in geological change. Now one reads everywhere of huge terrestrial impact craters, iridium layers, and tektite deposits. Even so, one necessary consequence of 70% of the large impacts has been neglected until recently: the giant tsunamis and marine incursions that must have swept over the coasts of the continents following impacts at sea. This oversight is now being rectified. 100,000 BP. The South Pacific. A longstanding geological enigma of the New South Wales coastline is the curious distribution of sand dunes. Those headlands less than 40 meters high have lost most of their dunes, leaving only raw, unweathered rock. On the other hand, the higher headlands have retained these dunes. Australians B. Young and T. Bryant hypothesize that a tsunamis 40 meters high swept the lower headlands clean about 100,000 years ago. They can even plot the incoming wave's direction, because a few remnants of the coastal dunes still cling to the southwest corners of the headlands along the NSW coast south of Newcastle. In their scenario, the tsunamis came from the northeast, smashed into the Solomons, southeastern Australia, and northeastern New Zealand. The Great Barrier Reef protected northeastern Australia from the full force of the wave. Young and Bryant favor a Hawaiian landslip as the initiator of the tsunamis, but acknowledge that an asteroid impact could also have done ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm, wet, fertile mars Mars may not be orbited by huge artificial satellites of alien provenance, but its geological history is looking more and more as if could have supported or perhaps still does support life. "A large number of anomalous landforms on Mars can be attributed to glaciation, including the action of ice and meltwater. Glacial landscapes are concentrated south of lat -33 and in the Northern Plains suggesting vast Austral and Boreal ice sheets. Crater densities on the glaciated terrains indicate that the final glacial epoch occurred late in Martian history. Thus, Mars may have had a relatively warm, moist climate and dense atmosphere much later than previously believed." (Kargel, Jeffrey S., and Strom, Robert G.; "Ancient Glaciation on Mars," Geology, 20:3 , 1992.) If Mars was warm and wet not too long ago, as implied above, perhaps life did gain a foothold there through either independent invention or, perhaps, through seeding by template-carrying comets or meteorites. P.J . Boston et al have investigated one possible Martian ecosystem: "We have reexamined the question of extant microbial life on Mars in light of the most recent information about the planet and recently discovered nonphotosynthetic ecosystems on Earth -- deep sea hydrothermal vent communities and deep subsurface aquifer communities. On Mars, protected subsurface niches associated with hydrothermal activity could have continued to support life even after surface conditions ...

... the present time. The cycle may not be strictly periodic, but a periodicity of 30 Myr is robust to probable errors in dating of the geologic events." The obvious question is: What could cause a 30-million-year periodicity? Internally, the earth's innards might be periodic, possibly in terms of plume eruption, mineral phase changes, core convection, etc. Externally, comets and asteroids are cyclic. Rampino and Caldeira point out that the solar system crosses the heavily populated plane of the Galaxy every 30 million years. (Rampino, Michael R., and Caldeira, Ken; "Major Episodes of Geologic Change: Correlations, Time Structure and Possible Causes," Earth and Planetary Sci ence Letters , 114:215, 1993.) Reference. We catalog crater periodicity in ETC4 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog described here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Impact Crater Beneath Lake Huron "With the help of magnetic sensors, scientists have detected a rimmed circular structure, 30 miles in diameter, more than a mile beneath the floor of Lake Huron. They believe the magnetic ring marks a buried crater -- blasted by a meteorite at least 500 million years ago." (Stolzenburg, W.; "Impact Crater May Lie beneath Lake Huron," Science News, 138:133, 1990.) Reference. Many other impact craters are cataloged in section ESC in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. Details on this book here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... much of Australasia -- an immense area. The tiny, often-illustrated teardrop- and button-shaped tektites clearly seem to have been formed when an extraterrestrial object smashed into the earth, melted terrestrial rock and soil, and splashed the fluid droplets over thousands of kilometers of Australia and Southeast Asia. Solidifying in flight, these par-ticles fell by the millions. Aerodynamically sculpted Australasian tektite But another type of tektite is also found in Southeast Asia. These are the layered or Muong-Nong tektites, which are not aerodynamically sculptured. They come instead in large, irregular masses, 3-20 centimeters thick, weighing up to 24 kilograms. Their layered appearance is thought to result from flow and stirrings as they solidified in small pools of melted rock and soil splashed from nearby impact craters. These irregular chunks of solidified melt could not have traveled great distances like their streamlined brothers. They lie at most only a few crater diameters from their parent craters. Since layered tektites are found over an area 800 x 1140 kilometers in extent, and they are not far-travelers, Southeast Asia must have been peppered with many small cosmic projectiles 700,000 years ago (the disputed age of the event). Whereas geologists have been searching diligently for a single huge crater (perhaps 100 kilometers in diameter) to explain the Australasia strewn field, they should be looking for many 1-kilometer craters. This scenario is radically different from mainstream thinking about this great event in earth history. (Wasson, John T.; "Layered Tektites: A Multiple Impact Origin for the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightning "attacks" vehicles Sketch of the lightning ground tracks and craters in Shelhamer's parking area. "On Sunday, 17 July, 1988, the usual calm and quiet on the Shelhamer property in rural Hannacroix, New York, was suddenly disrupted by a bright flash and a powerful concussion. The house shook. A picture came off the wall and crashed onto the floor. A contact lens popped out of Mrs Shelhamer's eye. The electric power went out. The kitchen clock froze at 3.30 PM. Mr Shelhamer saw three wisps of smoke rise from his parking area. He noticed a strange smell in the air. A pickup truck, parked near the house, was covered with dirt. Two of its tyres were flat, and the hubcaps were lying on the ground. Strange trenches and tracks had appeared in the surface of the parking area. These trenches led Mr Shelhamer to a hickory tree, about 20m from the house. On it a 10cm scar had appeared, spiralling up the trunk toward the sky. A few minutes earlier it had begun to rain, and all this was the result of the lightning strike. "Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this lightning strike was the way the currents flowing from the hickory tree along the surface of the ground apparently leapt out of the ground in places to pass through the automobiles parked in the parking area. Two of the trenches that radiated ...

... down." Thus have the Maoris sung. Their myths, songs, and poetry clearly link the demise of the moa, not to their own overhunting as others maintain, but rather to a cataclysmic event that occurred some 800 years ago. Maori oral history tells of "the falling of the skies, raging winds, upheaval of the Earth, and mysterious devastating fire from space." Even some of the place names in New Zealand relate to some kind of catastrophe. In the province of Otago, there is Waipahi (place of the exploding fire) and Tapanui (big explosion). Oral history is entertaining, but scientists want something more palpable before they will entertain Velikovskian ideas about recent history. Well, if you visit Tapanui (big explosion place), you can find Landslip Crater, a 900 x 600meter depression 130 meters deep. This does not have the appearance of a bona fide meteor crater, but all around it are suspicious signs. For example, treefall distribution from 800 years ago was radially away from Tapanui out to 4080 kilometers. In the same area one finds the trinities, small globules of silicates with tektite overtones. And then there is the extirpation of the moas about this time. To be sure, there are separate, conventional explanations of all these phenomena. But, if you add the Maori oral traditions to all these suspicious physical signs, a Tunguska-like event does not seem impossible. (Steel, Duncan, and Snow, Peter; "The Tapanui Region of New Zealand: A 'Tunguska' of 800 Years Ago?" ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury: the impossible planet Mercury, largely hidden in the sun's glare, also conceals beneath its baked, cratered surface: (1 ) far more iron than solar-system theory allows; and (perhaps) (2 ) a dynamo that should not exist. Let us take the excess-iron problem first. Mercury's density is 5.44 (compared to earth's 5.52), so that it very likely contains much iron. Our moon, which resembles Mercury in size and external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury ...

... tektites solidified about 700,000 years ago. Yet, their geological age, as measured by the age of the terrestrial sediments in which they are found, is only a few thousand years. This great disparity in age engendered a confrontation between geologists and geophysicists. The latter insisted on their 700,000-year figure; the former said "maybe so" but the tektites are still found only in very young, superficial sediments. The point here is that time-of-solidification may not be the same as time-of-fall. At stake is the prevailing theory, now dogmatically proclaimed, that tektites are created when a large asteroid impacts the earth, ejecting molten droplets of rock which shower back to earth as solidified tektites. No one has ever found a suitably large crater ( 200 miles in diameter) assignable to the Australasian tektite strewn field. Nevertheless, the impact model prevails; and the young geological age of the tektites is dismissed as erroneous. A Soviet scientist, E.P . Izokh, has recently proposed a radically different scenario that would produce both the young and old dates. If a moon, or Jupiter, or some similar body, explosively ejected the glassy tektites, embedded in an icy cometary body some 700,000 years ago, the tektites could, after cruising through space for millenia, have fallen to earth recently and over a wide area. Thus, both geologists and geophysicists would be satisfied! (Sullivan, Walter; "New Answer Proposed for Tektites: A Comet," New York Times, November 28, 1989. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tektite-like objects at lonar crater, india Arguments about the origin of tektites persist in the scientific literature. A strong consensus has these small, drop like glassy bodies originating when meteors smash into the earth, liquifying themselves and some of the surface rocks. The resulting liquid droplets solidify in flight and when they descend form "strewn fields" hundreds, even thousands, of miles in extent. The main argument has been over whether the actual impact craters giving rise to the tektites might actually be on the moon instead of the earth. Looking over the literature, one sees that this debate has been characterized by much invective and scientific infighting. Today, most scientists concur that some tektite strewn fields are definitely associated with specific, although distant, meteor craters on the earth's surface. Unfortunately, the large separations of craters and strewn fields add a circumstantial flavor to the evidence. However, some tektite-like objects are to be found in the immediate vicinities of terrestrial craters, but not in far-flung strewn fields; viz., the Aouelloul Crater in Mauritania, and the Zhamashin Crater in the USSR. Another example has now come to light: the Lonar Lake Crater, a 50,000-year-old impact crater, in the Deccan flood basalts in India. From the paper's abstract: "Homogenous, dense glass bodies (both irregular and splash form) with high silica contents ( 67 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Demystifying Those Australian Craters In SF#53, we reported some mysterious craters in Queensland, Australia. Were they excavated by ancient humans? Do they display ancient inscriptions? Australian readers were quick to supply additonal information. It turns out that several years ago, geologists did inspect the so-called "Mystery Craters." This appellation was actually applied by the owners of the land, who have made the craters into a tourist attraction. (This fact alone is enough to raise suspicion!) The geologist's report completely dispells any aura of mystery. Here follows their summary: "A geological investigation of the 'Mystery Craters" adjacent to Lines Road, South Kolan, indicates that these structures are sinkholes in a laterite profile. The sinkholes have been caused by the collapse of overlying strata into underground voids produced by tunnel erosion." (Robertson, A.D .; "Origin of the 'Mystery Craters' of South Kolan, Bundaberg Area," Queensland Government Mining Journal, p. 448, September 1979. Cr. R. Molnar.) Comment. No mention was made in the geologist's report of any inscriptions. From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Recent Martian Rivers Erode Alba Patera Most of the Martian surface is thought to be more than 3.8 billion years old. This portion is densely cratered from a period pf heavy meteorite bombardment. It is also carved by many channels that are thought to have been cut in ancient times by flowing water, water which quickly escaped into space or combined chemically with Martian minerals. The present atmosphere of Mars, in consequence, contains little water vapor. But some of the Martian landscape, notably Alba Patera, raises questions about the above scenario. The anomalous characteristic of Alba Patera is its relative smoothness and scarcity of impact craters. This Martian real estate is believed to be 2 billion years younger than the rest of the planet. Even so, it, too, is marked by "fluvial" features that resemble stream beds. Question #1 . How did Alba Patera get smoothed out or "reworked"? In other words, what happened to the ancient craters that must have pocked its surface, as they do everywhere else? Question #2 . Where did the water come from to cut Alba Patera's stream beds if all of the Martian water disappeared 2 billion years earlier? One line of thought maintains that "fluvial" does not mean "pluvial," and that Martian water has come from below rather than as rain from the atmosphere. Both fluvial episodes, in this view, occurred when something caused the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bright flash on the moon is 1985 Left. Photo of Moon. Right. Sketch based on photo. The arrow marks the position of the flash. Some large craters noted for reference. (Two to right of terminator do not show up well on photo). We quote an abstract that appeared in the journal Icarus. "We present photographic evidence of a very short duration, strong flash from the surface of the Moon (near an irregularly shaped crater in Palus Somni). The flash covered a region roughly 22 by 18 km wide with a total energy of the order of 1017 erg. The event is established to be slightly above the surface of the Moon. An explanation is proposed involving outgassing and a subsequent electrical discharge caused by a piezoelectric effect." (Kolovos, G., et al; "Photographic Evidence of a Short Duration, Strong Flash from the Surface of the Moon," Icarus, 76:525, 1988.) Comments. Of special interest above is the suggestion that the flash was generated by the electrical ignition of expelled gases. It has been proposed that terrestrial earthquake lights are kindled in the same way (See GLD8 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras .) Further, the presence of methane on the moon is compatible with T. Gold's theory that the earth retains huge amounts of primordial methane beneath its crust. (See ESC16 in our catalog: Anomalies in Geology ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is the earth seeding the rest of the solar system?We begin with the lead paragraph from a recent letter to Nature from H.J . Melosh; "Recent evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars raises the question of whether large impacts on Earth may eject rocks that could fall on Mars (or other planets in the Solar System) and, if so whether they might contain spores or some sort of viable microorganisms that would have the opportunity to colonize Mars." After some computations Melosh concludes: "It seems likely that the impacts that produced craters on Earth that are greater than 100 km in diameter would each have ejected millions of tons of near-surface rocks carrying viable microorganisms into interplanetary space, much in the form of boulders large enough to shield those organisms from ultraviolet radiation, low-energy cosmic rays, and even galactic cosmic rays. Under such circumstances spores might remain viable for long periods of time." (Melosh, H.J .; "The Rocky Road to Panspermia," Nature, 332:687, 1988.) Comment. Next we need a reasonable mechanism that spreads life through interstellar space. Light pressure, that's it; and the idea is over a century old! Incidentally, SNC is short for Shergottites, Nakhalites, Chassignites; all rare classes of meteorites. From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life Currents In Space A few of the hundreds of meteorites picked up in the Antarctic wastes have chemical properties consistent with a Martian origin. Calculations, too, support the notion that a large meteoric impact could propel bits of the Martian surface into space where, statistically speaking, a tiny fraction would be captured by the earth's gravitational field. Some of these would fall to earth; others would remain in orbit. Now, the reverse scenario has been investigated numerically. S.A . Phinney and colleagues at the University of Arizona have calculated what would happen to small chunks of the earth's crust if a large meteor impact excavated a 60milewide crater. "Phinney's group used a computer to calculate where 1,000 particles would go if ejected from Earth in random directions, moving about 2.5 kilometers per second faster than the minimum speed necessary to escape. Of the 1,000 hypothetical particles, 291 hit Venus and 165 returned to Earth; 20 went to Mercury, 17 to Mars, 14 to Jupiter and 1 to Saturn. Another 492 left the solar system completely, primarily due to gravitational close encounters with either Jupiter or Mercury that 'slingshot' them on their way." (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Have Earth Rocks Gone to Mars?" Science News, 135:191, 1989.) Comment. One implication from the preceding analysis is that terrestrial bacteria and spores could well have infected every ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did an asteroid impact trigger the ice ages?Asteroids and comets are being blamed these days for more and more of our planet's catastrophism -- biological, meteorological, and geological. What a turnabout in scientific thinking in just a decade. F.T . Kyte et al have now provided additional details on meteoritic debris they first described in 1981. On the floor of the southeast Pacific, about 1400 kilometers west of Cape Horn, about 5 kilometers down, they found high concentrations of iridium in Upper Pliocene sediments about 2.3 million years old. Since the proposed projectile hit in very deep water, no crater was dug out. What did survive is called an "impact melt." This is debris rich in noble metals, such as iridium, and contains particles typical of a low-metal mesosiderite. Some 600 kilometers of the ocean floor received this debris. Kyte and his associates estimate the size of the impacting object at at least 0.5 kilometers in diameter. No biological extinctions are correlated with the 2.3 -million-year date, but there appears to have been a major deterioration of climate at about this time. There was a shift in the marine oxygen isotope records and, more obvious, the creation of the huge loess (sandy) deposits in China. What the impact may have done is to vaporize enough water into the atmosphere to increase the earth's albedo, ...

... . Traps could, however, be initiated by asteroid impact, which could stimulate eruptions. (Rampino, Michael; "Dinosaurs, Comets and Volcanoes," New Scientist, p. 54, February 18, 1989.) The dinosaur angle. If dinosaurs were truly susceptible to extinction by either asteroid impact, widespread volcanism, or some combination of both, one would expect to find their numbers and diversity drastically curtailed during Mesozoic impact events. Instead, the dinosaurs not only survived these impacts but prospered. Their demise, which began before the K-T event, was probably not due to either impact or vol canism. (Paul, Gregory S.; "Giant Meteor Impacts and Great Eruptions: Dinosaur Killers?" BioScience, 39:162, 1989.) Reference. Impact craters and stratigraphic evidence of catastrophism are cataloged in: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds and Anomalies in Geology, respectively. For information on these catalogs, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous distribution of large, fresh lunar craters The overwhelming majority of astronomers favors a meteor-impact origin for the giant fresh lunar craters. (Here, "fresh" means post-mare formation.) Such an origin would seem to favor random distribution of these craters. "However, it appears that the distribution of these large, fresh craters is far from random, contrary to what would be expected if their mechanism of formation was by impact. Even the most casual observer of the Moon cannot help but note that the maria contain very few large craters. The more experienced observer will take note of several apparent anomalies. Six magnificent post-mare craters are almost fortuitously located immediately adjacent to mare regions, these being Langrenus, Theophilus, Cavelerius, Aristoteles, Aristarchus, and Copernicus" The author of these observations then buttresses them with a statistical analysis, which indicates a strong, nonrandom distribution of all of these fresh craters. Apparently, the volcano-meteorite controversy is not completely settled after all these years. (Kitt, Michael T,; "Anomalous Distribution of Large, Fresh Lunar Craters," Strolling Astronomer, 31:22, 1985.) Comment. Some of the fresh craters on the mare borders, such as Aristarchus and Copernicus, are well-known sites of lunar transient phenomena. Could they be analogous to the terrestrial volcanos constituting the "ring of fire" around the Pacific Basin? From Science ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Coming Revolution In Planetology "Current ideas about the moon appear to be mistaken on two fundamental points. First, at least within certain large classes of lunar craters, internal origin (i .e ., some form of volcanism) predominates over impact; this result raises questions about the reality of the 'era of violent bombardment.'Second, the origin of tektites by meteoric impact on the earth cannot be reconciled with physical principles and is to be abandoned. The only viable alternative is origin by lunar volcanism, which implies the following: continuance of (rare) explosive lunar volcanism to the present time; existence of silicic lunar volcanism and of small patches of silicic rock at the lunar surface; a body of rock in the lunar interior, probably at great depth, which is closely similar to the earth's mantle and which contains billions of tons of volatiles, probably including hydrogen; and the origin of the moon from the earth after the formation of the earth's core." " Editor's Note . This article by John O'Keefe puts forth a viewpoint with which most planetologists disagree strongly. On the ground that a fresh airing of the long-standing discussion on lunar volcanism is appropriate, Eos offers this article, untouched by editors or referees, and awaits reply by readers." O'Keefe's article reviews considerable evidence supporting his two points: for Point One; crater ...