2012 Doomsday

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Natural Features of the Grand Canyon[/url]

"]Geologic formations such as gneiss and schist found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years.

 

gneiss

"Noun - any coarse-grained metamorphic rock that is banded or foliated: represents the last stage in the metamorphism of rocks before melting.

From German Gneis, probably from Middle High German ganeist spark; related to Old Norse gneista to give off sparks"

 

Most gneisses are formed by recrystallization of preexisting rock during intense regional metamorphism. Although the exact mechanisms of this process are not well understood. Gneisses typically occupy large areas within the high-grade cores of regional metamorphic belts. Such terranes are often difficult to understand, because the processes which cause formation of gneissic texture are also sufficient to obscure preexisting rock structures.

[trout]

I'm pretty sure I saw Paul Atreides bare back riding something there, no? Might have just been Sting though .. no sure?!?

[ArabiaTerra]

Ok Koy, if these crater weren't caused by impactors, then how do you explain the iridium layer at the K-T boundary? Iridium is one of the rarest elements on Earth, yet it is common in meteorites. Where did the K-T iridium come from?

 

(It was the discovery of iridium at the K-T boundary that started the impact theory of the dinosaur extinction, long before the crater was found.)

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Largest melt from lightning strike[/url]"] A few years ago, two boys discovered what they thought were dinosaur bones near Winans Lake in Michigan. In 1984, paleontologist Daniel C. Fisher went to investigate. But what Fisher and petrologist Eric Essene found instead was the world's largest known fulgurite.

Scientists have known for two centuries that lightning bolts, which can heat the air to 10,000 [deg.] Kelvin -- comparable to the sun's surface temperature -- can vaporize and melt any rocks, sand or soil they hit. But Essene and Fisher's study of the Winans Lake fulgurite, published in the Oct. 10 SCIENCE, is among the first quantitative investigations of the chemical and physical processes behind fulgurite formation.

Their studies reveal the presence of two minerals that had never before been found to occur naturally. But more important, the two researchers determined that the Winans Lake fulgurite is one of the most chemically reduced (deoxidized) natural materials known. Moreover, they believe their findings adds a new wrinkle to studies of another ultrahigh-temperature, ultrafast event: the proposed impact of a meteorite or comet on the earth, which may have been responsible for mass extinctions of earth life 65 million years ago.

Essene and Fisher found metallic globules embedded in the fulgurite glass. Electron microprobe analysis showed these to be made up of a variety of iron and silicon metal compounds. While purely metallic materials are common in meteorites, they are rarely created on the earth's surface by the normal geologic processes. Usually, they are oxidized or have combined with other elements to form compounds that must be smelted in order for the pure metal phases to be retrieved. But in the Winans Lake fulgurite, the lightning bolt had somehow removed the oxygen from metal oxides in the ground, reducing the metals to a much greater extent than even those found in most meteorites, according to Essene.

On the basis of their fulgurite studies, Essene and Fisher suggest that much more of the iridium may have come from the earth than is commonly supposed. The researchers found that the Winans Lake fulgurite has enriched in gold; presumably, the metallic melts that were formed by the lightning scavenged the gold from surrounding soils. If highly reduced metallic melts are also formed during impact events, says Essene, then they might collect and concentrate iridium in the same way. The result would be that iridium levels in the impact melts would be much higher than what is normally found on the earth.

"If so," he says, "then the estimate of the size of the [impacting] body is too high, and therefore, perhaps, people may be looking for craters that are too large." In any event, the researchers write that their observations "broaden considerably the range of models that should be considered in investigating the origin and implications of the observed iridium anomalies."

[EM]

The craters are electric

That was really interesting. I'm relatively ignorant when it comes to electricity and had not been aware of this whole debate. I had, however, long wondered about the predominance of symmetric craters rather than what would be caused by oblique impact.

[ArabiaTerra]

If highly reduced metallic melts are also formed during impact events....

"If" they are formed. In other words, baseless speculation.

 

Have they actually found Iridium at the sites of lightning strikes in comparable proportions to that found in meteorites?

 

Plenty of lightning strikes to choose from. I bet the whole surface must have been hit at least once in the 4.5 billion years since the Earth was formed, which would mean that the Iridium should be everywhere...., which it isn't.

 

So no Iridium from lightning then.

 

So tell me again, where did the Iridium in the K-T boundary come from?

[KOYAANISQATSI]

The effects such a strike would produce on the surface, at ground level are not fully understood as it is pretty much a new model being presented to an old question, but then it seems that the present model has as many; if not far more anomalies to answer to. Also because of such an event being a symptom of the Electric Universe model there is not much chance of it getting funding or support of an equal ammount, as it points away from the great god of physics - "General Relativity" and anyone from an academic institutian would soon find themselves out on their ear if they dared to argue the toss with those peer reviewed so called certainties of the way things work; Or not as the case may be.

 

Here are other anomalies taken from a site not in support of the electrical discharge model but favouring ejection from the Earth and descibing a theory claiming that a nearby exploding star, a supernova, was the culprit. Another being a super solar flare but yet again the electric model would seem to fit in fine.

About 65 million years ago some event took place that wiped out more than half of all life on Earth. In addition to this mass extinction there was a major face-lift for the Earth as a planet. The continents were shoved to new locations, and inland seas moved on and off the continents, as major ridge expansion took place, particularly in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the process there was major mountain building, volcanic eruptions, and some places sunk beneath the sea, while others rose from the sea. There is evidence of massive destabilization of the oceans and atmosphere. Powerful storms wrecked havoc as indicated by vigorous erosion and greatly increased continental weathering. Some elements, known as isotopes, show drastic shifts in abundance. Masses of sand, clay, and mud deposited layers everywhere, while other areas show missing sedimentary layers. The oceans show rapid desalination events, temperature transitions, and chemical changes.

 

The Late Cretaceous was the last for the dinosaur, and its close was the most catastrophic of any period in the history of life on Earth. More than one half of all the species on Earth became extinct. In some places 75% to 90% of the life forms vanished from the scene never to be seen again in the fossil record. With the close of the Cretaceous there came the wholesale extinction of large marine creatures (Plesiosaurs, Mosasaurs and Icthyosaurs), flying reptiles (Pterosaurs), ancestors of the Chambered Nautilus (Ammonites), Scleractinian and Hermatypic Corals, shellfish (Bivalves, Inoceramids, Rudists, Gastropods and Echnoids), chalk-forming creatures (Coccolithophorids, Planktonic Foraminifera, Beleminites, large Benthic Foraminifera and Radiolaria), and the Dinosaurs. Here was the end of one of the most successful life sytems in all of Earth history. What was it that overwhelmed the Earth?

 

Impact Theory:

 

Suddenly an asteroid or a comet pierces the atmosphere, igniting a huge fireball that lights the sky in a huge blast. Intense blistering heat from the blast ignites rapidly spreading wildfires. The object smashes into the ocean near a continent, ejecting massive amounts of dust and water into the atmosphere. Within a short time the dust encircles the Earth, plunging it into a thick black darkness. Every bit of vegetation withers, followed by a famine that affected all the animals (except scavengers and decomposers), causing mass extinctions. With the Sun's rays blocked, an extreme cold eventually envelopes the Earth. After some time the dust falls, but much of the water still remains aloft, causing a greenhouse effect that heats the Earth by as much as 10o Celsius (18o Fahrenheit). Acid plummets to the ground as the energy combined nitrogen and oxygen into nitric acid. So goes the theory that an asteroid or a comet (collectively referred to as a bolide) hit the Earth at the close of the Cretaceous.

 

This theory was suggested because of the high iridium level noted at many locations at the K-T boundary. The K-T Boundary is the transition point from the Cretaceous, the last time the dinosaurs lived, to the Tertiary, the time when mammals began to dominate the land. The impact theory is the most widely held theory of the event that closed the Cretaceous. There are many facts that support this theory. However, unlike the media has been pushing, there are many facts that contradict this theory, and indicate something else has to be responsible, if not completely, then at least partially.

 

Facts Supporting the Impact Theory

 

1-Iridium was found in many sediments of the Cretaceous. Iridium is a metal that is rare on Earth, except in the interior, but is a common component of meteors and asteroids.

2-Shocked minerals (quartz and shistovite), typical of an impact were found.

3-A crater (or a structure that looks like a crater) was found along the coast of Yucatan, called Chicxulub.

4-Evidence of acid rain was found in a number of rock samples.

5-Carbon soot, indicative of wildfires, was found.

6-Temperature data shows that there was a temperature drop and later a temperature rise.

 

Outstanding Problems of the Impact Theory

 

1-Other impacts (i.e., craters) during the Mesozoic (the era of the dinosaurs reign) did not cause any associated extinctions, mass extinctions or otherwise.

2-Amphibians (e.g., frogs, salamanders, etc.) are vulernable to the slightest envornmental changes survived the event -- their eggs were laid in mud or water which are good buffers against ionizing radiation, but not by an impact scenario.

3-The impact was supposed to be the site of Chicxulub, Yucatan, and now a multi-ringed crater is noted in the North Sea of approximately the same age. Yet, the Southern Hemisphere was just as devastated as the Northern Hemisphere.

4-Iridium is found almost globally and is found in strata that is not the same date everywhere, when it should be found mostly in the Yucatan region and bare the same date. The greatest abundance of iridium was found on the Hess Rise in the mid-Pacific, some 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away from Chicxulub. In Raton Basin, New Mexico, the iridium was deposited during normal polarity of the geomagnetic field, not the reversed polarity of other sites. Many irregularities in iridium occur worldwide (by orders of magnitude).

5-Some areas, such as at Gubbio, Italy, display a long interval of shocked minerals which is bisected by the boundary. Also at Gubbio, there are five iridium peaks, indicating the need for five impacts, and therefore, five craters with no other impact structure of the right age (with the possible exception of Manson Crater in Iowa). Similar extended zones can be found in the Pacific, Atlantic, Denmark, Spain, France, Germany and New Zealand.

6-The abundances of noble metals is more consistent with earthly compositions than extraterrestrial sources at many sites. Also other metals typical of meteoritic materials are missing in some sites with iridium or the ratios are not typical of impact debris.

7-An impact is theoretically less likely to initiate widespread tectonic activity, and sea level rise, which occurred at the end of the Cretaceous.

8-The climatic shift should have went from a drastic drop in temperature (with sunlight blocked) to progressively hot temperatures (the Greenhouse Effect). Notwithstanding, the temperature went from warm to progressively colder temperatures with only a short period with a temperature rise. The atmosphere never rebounded, but was colder than it had been and would remain colder than any time throughout the Cretaceous. In the Cretaceous there was no glacial cover anywhere, and the Arctic regions were much warmer than today with places like Alaska having temperatures similar to San Diego, and the treeline and temperate species were much farther north than at present. After the boundary the climate is much more like that of today, with glaciers developing in the following periods (beginning in the Paleocene).

9-The mass extinctions of the time do not fit the impact theory: (a) The extinctions were not instantaneous and were selective. ( Many species were in decline before the time of the proposed impact. © If the Yucatan region were the impact site then the greatest mass extinctions should be in southeastern North America, Central America, and northeastern South America, but were not (it seems that the greatest dinosaur fossil graveyard is in the Gobi Desert, on the other side of the Earth, and most extinctions were along mid-latitudes, not the tropics). (d) The huge dust and water vapor cloud should have caused plant extinctions the most, but it did not, and equatorial species should have been hit the worst, but it was mid-latitude species that were affected the most, and most mass extinctions were animals. (e) Photosynthetic nannoplankton survived into the Tertiary, and Cretaceous and Tertiary species even coexist in land-based marine sections of the Tertiary. (f) Tropical insects should have become extinct, but persist into the Tertiary. (g) The dinosaurs appear to have undergone gradual extinction in at least some locations.

10-Also, the structural similarities of multi-ringed craters with a central peak are too uniform, regardless of size and proposed angle of impact, for them to be impact craters; laboratory experiments show different structures for different angles and impactor size.

 

And so on.

[ArabiaTerra]

I could deal with all but one (number 5) of the objections to the impact theory off the top of my head if you want, but I can't really be bothered right now. But if you insist... ?

[EM]

...But if you insist... ?

While you are at it could you summarise what the official explanation is for why the craters on the moon etc are mostly circular rather than shapes indicative of oblique impact? As I said above, I've never looked into this before and have no axe to grind. I'm just confused why most of the craters look like they have been caused by vertical action.

[ArabiaTerra]

1-Other impacts (i.e., craters) during the Mesozoic (the era of the dinosaurs reign) did not cause any associated extinctions, mass extinctions or otherwise.

Two things. 1) The Yucatan impact happened in shallow water where the seabed was gypsum which was about the worst possible place you could pick to have an impact due to the sulphur dioxide produced by the impact and 2) Recent research has revealed the possibility that there were more than one impact associated with the K-T extinction event. An even bigger crater called Shiva has been found off India though this has not been confirmed.

2-Amphibians (e.g., frogs, salamanders, etc.) are vulernable to the slightest envornmental changes survived the event -- their eggs were laid in mud or water which are good buffers against ionizing radiation, but not by an impact scenario.

This is rubbish. Individual species of amphibian may be vulnerable but the group as a whole is one of the most diverse and ancient groups of land vertebrates. Amphibians are found from the Arctic to the driest deserts and were the first vertebrates to crawl out of the ocean. As a group they are among the most successful of the Earth's creatures.

3-The impact was supposed to be the site of Chicxulub, Yucatan, and now a multi-ringed crater is noted in the North Sea of approximately the same age. Yet, the Southern Hemisphere was just as devastated as the Northern Hemisphere.

The crater in the North Sea is disputed as it is similar in composition to non-circular formations nearby, it's circularity may be a coincidence. Anyway the effects of just the Chicxulub impact would have been global and there is evidence that there were multiple impacts.

4-Iridium is found almost globally and is found in strata that is not the same date everywhere, when it should be found mostly in the Yucatan region and bare the same date. The greatest abundance of iridium was found on the Hess Rise in the mid-Pacific, some 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away from Chicxulub. In Raton Basin, New Mexico, the iridium was deposited during normal polarity of the geomagnetic field, not the reversed polarity of other sites. Many irregularities in iridium occur worldwide (by orders of magnitude).

Chixulub is not the only impact in Earth's history. Any sufficiently large impactor would have left a global Iridium signal. Also there may have been multiple impacts at the K-T boundary.

5-Some areas, such as at Gubbio, Italy, display a long interval of shocked minerals which is bisected by the boundary. Also at Gubbio, there are five iridium peaks, indicating the need for five impacts, and therefore, five craters with no other impact structure of the right age (with the possible exception of Manson Crater in Iowa). Similar extended zones can be found in the Pacific, Atlantic, Denmark, Spain, France, Germany and New Zealand.

There may well have been five impacts.

6-The abundances of noble metals is more consistent with earthly compositions than extraterrestrial sources at many sites. Also other metals typical of meteoritic materials are missing in some sites with iridium or the ratios are not typical of impact debris.

Not all asteroids are the same. If we could find fragments of the original object(s) then the exact composition of the impactor(s) could be established. This might help answer this question. As far as I know, no such fragments have been found (yet).

7-An impact is theoretically less likely to initiate widespread tectonic activity, and sea level rise, which occurred at the end of the Cretaceous.

Says who? How many impacts with solid bodies of this magnitude have been observed by Scientists? (None) We just don't know the full scale effects of such a catastrophe.

8-The climatic shift should have went from a drastic drop in temperature (with sunlight blocked) to progressively hot temperatures (the Greenhouse Effect). Notwithstanding, the temperature went from warm to progressively colder temperatures with only a short period with a temperature rise. The atmosphere never rebounded, but was colder than it had been and would remain colder than any time throughout the Cretaceous. In the Cretaceous there was no glacial cover anywhere, and the Arctic regions were much warmer than today with places like Alaska having temperatures similar to San Diego, and the treeline and temperate species were much farther north than at present. After the boundary the climate is much more like that of today, with glaciers developing in the following periods (beginning in the Paleocene).

That the impact (or impacts) seems to have permanently changed the climate is interesting, but to say that it should not have done so, how do we know? Nothing of this magnitude has ever been observed. The closest analogue we have is Shoemacher-Levy 9, a comet hitting a Gas giant. To say that something should not have happened is impossible.

9-The mass extinctions of the time do not fit the impact theory: (a) The extinctions were not instantaneous and were selective. ( Many species were in decline before the time of the proposed impact. © If the Yucatan region were the impact site then the greatest mass extinctions should be in southeastern North America, Central America, and northeastern South America, but were not (it seems that the greatest dinosaur fossil graveyard is in the Gobi Desert, on the other side of the Earth, and most extinctions were along mid-latitudes, not the tropics).

(a) some were lucky, ( there are always species in decline the same way there are always new species appearing. Anyway, the fossil record, by it's very nature is incomplete so to make sweeping statements about an environment we only have snapshots of due to the miracle of fossilisation is stretching the evidence. © The fossil record shows us where the conditions were right for fossilisation, it can tell us nothing about the actual pattern of animal death.

(d) The huge dust and water vapor cloud should have caused plant extinctions the most (Why?), but it did not, and equatorial species should have been hit the worst (Why?), but it was mid-latitude species that were affected the most, and most mass extinctions were animals. (e) Photosynthetic nannoplankton survived into the Tertiary, and Cretaceous and Tertiary species even coexist in land-based marine sections of the Tertiary. (f) Tropical insects should have become extinct (Why?), but persist into the Tertiary. (g) The dinosaurs appear to have undergone gradual extinction in at least some locations.

The above points are sweeping generalities which cannot be supported one way or the other due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record.

10-Also, the structural similarities of multi-ringed craters with a central peak are too uniform, regardless of size and proposed angle of impact, for them to be impact craters; laboratory experiments show different structures for different angles and impactor size.

How can this be supported. Just because a Scientist firing a ball bearing at a piece of rock doesn't get a peak doesn't mean it won't happen when a several million ton asteroid hits a planet. Secondly, and to partly answer EM's question, the Chixulub crater is not circular and neither is the possible Shiva crater, both are elliptical suggesting oblique hits.

 

EM, As to why the moons craters tend to be circular, I don't know. But on Planets with atmospheres one possibility is that the meteors hitting the planet at more extreme angles are more likely (a) to burn up as they have more atmosphere to penetrate or ( to skip off the atmosphere back into space, therefore the majority of impacts tend to be towards the vertical causing round(er) craters. Larger impacts, of course , will be unaffected by the atmosphere.

[ArabiaTerra]

Additional info:

Several other craters also appear to have been formed about the time of the K–T boundary. This suggests the possibility of near simultaneous multiple impacts, perhaps from a fragmented asteroidal object, similar to the Shoemaker-Levy 9 cometary impact with Jupiter. In addition to the 180-km (112 mi) Chicxulub Crater, there is the 24-km (15 mi) Boltysh crater in Ukraine (65.17 ± 0.64 Ma), the 20-km (12 mi) Silverpit crater, a suspected impact crater in the North Sea (60–65 Ma), and the controversial and much bigger 600-km (370 mi) Shiva crater. Any other craters that might have formed in the Tethys Ocean would have been obscured by tectonic events like the relentless northward drift of Africa and India.

[MaxFusion]

I vaguely remember seeing something about the moon a while back.

it said something along the lines of if the moon weren't there we'd be getting hit way more frequently. it's basicaly spinning round up there soaking up a lot of meteors so maybe the fact there's more "round" craters up there had to do with them being attracted by the moons gravity.

 

off to look it up noo so don't slate me too bad

[MaxFusion]

just found this for you EM

...at the very high energies of cosmic impacts, craters are produced by explosions, not gouging

...NASA scientists experimenting with hypervelocity impacts determined that craters remain circular until impact angles less than about 15°

http://the-moon.wikispaces.com/Oblique+Impact+Craters

[MaxFusion]

Found this site which explains why we don't see as many terrestrial craters and shows some of the remnants of larger impactors...

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tercrate.htm

it would take one hell of a lightening strike to make some of these

 

Found it interesting to search the given locations in google earth too, kind of gives a bit more perspective to the pictures they supplied. The only one you can't really make out in GE is Chicxulub tho, and be ware you will have to zoom out quite a bit to see them clearly.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Truth extends beyond the border of self-limiting science. Free discourse with opposing viewpoints draws the open-minded away from the darkness of inevitable bias and nearer to the light of universal reality.

 

Pro impacters[/url]"]It's all down to the amount of explosive energy that vaporises everything at the point of impact in a symmetrical circular pattern, says Fred Watson. The energy of the impact produces an approximately spherical expanding envelope of hot gas, which is what produces the crater.

 

Izzat so?....

 

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8885/1207078.gif http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2002/1207075.gif

It goes without saying that hexagonal cratering patterns are difficult, if not impossible, to explain with the impact hypothesis. And incredibly, many dozens of such formations have been imaged on planetary surfaces.

The unique morphology is of special interest, because it links directly to experimental work with plasma discharge in the laboratory. In recent years, plasma scientists have observed hexagonal patterns in a dielectric barrier discharge streamer.

 

Mercury spiders anyone?

 

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5215/3spider13101468x324i.jpg

 

Here's a clue:

 

http://205.243.100.155/frames/5Yen3.jpg

A Japanese 5 Yen coin demonstrates how the compressive forces squeeze the entire coin. Not only does the coin shrink, but the center hole closes up in the process.  This brass coin was shrunk with using 5,700 joules. Notice the distortion of the horizontal lines above the collapsed center hole.

 

Have another:

 

http://205.243.100.155/frames/gallery/coins5.jpg

A magnified of view of Washington's shrunken head. Although the pattern is fundamentally maintained, closer observations shows that some relative shifting is occurring between features. The radiating lines on the shrunken coin are called "Luder's Lines". These are created as the coin is plastically deformed. Luder's Lines are parallel to the direction of the applied shrinking force. The lines clearly delineate the radial forces that were applied to the coin.

 

Crater chains

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/1412/050810crater.jpg

Look at the above image of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Try to imagine an impacting body breaking up to form a neatly graded and spaced line of objects that might create this series of overlapping craters. Common sense tells us that the chance of this happening is virtually zero.

 

But crater chains are an observed effect of electric arcs passing over a cathode (negatively charged) surface, as discussed above (Craters in the Laboratory). With slight variations in the current or in surface composition, the arc may stop jumping from one crater to the next and cut a trench instead.

 

In other words, within the electric model, there is a full range of connections that must be explored between channels and craters. And yet mainstream science, while spending billions on space exploration, appears to have spent not a penny on exploring the power of electricity to create a wide range of enigmatic features observed in space.