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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / Science and Technology => Topic started by: Dandy on June 09, 2006, 11:44:46 AM
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Everytime there is a report in the media about the exstinction of the dinos, the impact of an asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico is quoted as the reason.
Given the size of Yucatan I always doubted that an impact there could cause an worldwide mass destinction.
So I browsed the web on this subject and found out, that there are some scientists who challenged this theory and stated, that the crater of the impact, that *really* killed the dinos, still remaines to be found.
Around that time (1989) I got a very interesting europe map showing the land and the ocean floor as 3d structures.
The first thing I noticed when having a close look at it was that the Mediterranian Sea originally must have consisted of two independant parts: one between Spain and Corsica and the other stretching from Sicilia over to Cyprus.
River courses that are now below the sea level can be seen as well as the traces the water left as the land broke at Gibraltar and it poured from the atlantic ocean into the Mediterranian Sea area.
After the "first bassin" was full, the land between North Africa and Sicilia broke and the water masses poured into the next bassin and so formed the Mediterranian Sea (more or less) as we know it today.
My next "discovery" on this map was a "spot" between Norway and Iceland.
From the 3d-underwater-structures it looked as if there once had been a peninsula, which had been blown away by an really deep impact of an asteroid in the middle of that ancient peninsula.
The "cosmic bullet" must have penetrated earth's crust and exploded below - throwing out massive pieces of the crust.
One of these pieces fell back to the ground with its downside up and is known today as the Faroer Islands.
After the crust had been blown away the groud of the crater must have been a huge sea of burning hot, liquid magma. As the stall coastline of this peninsula had widely blown away by the impact, the way was free for the watermasses of what was the Atlantic Ocean in those days to pour all of a sudden onto this sea of burning hot, liquid magma with approximately the size of Germany.
Have you ever watched an drop of water on a burning hot cooking plate?
Just imagine what then must have happened there...
:-o
Next thing I noticed was that the "regular" structure of the eastern part of the Alps massive somehow looked "interrupted" - as if someone had wiped out that part with a huge rubber.
Then I saw that the same was valid for the Anatolia area in Turkey.
And suddenly it struck me like a lightning:
I saw that all those spots were on a virtual curve, as if they had been caused by an similar event like the impact of the broken Shoemaker-Levy 9 asteroid on Jupiter recently...
Meanwhile I sat up an homepage on this subject:
Deep Impacts (http://www.angelfire.com/de3/piecemaker/)
(please keep in mind that this was my first attempt to create an homepage and that I coded it manually - so don't expect too much eye candy)
You can find all the relevant scans and scetches of the above mentioned maps there.
Please have a close look at them and tell me if I'm just imaginating all that...
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Nice research and interesting theory. The possibility of a "Shoemaker-Levy like" event on earth would make more sense to me. I am puzzled by the curve though. I'd have to think about how an arc would be formed even with the earth's rotation. The fact the magnetic north pole has moved shouldn't matter, but if the earth once spun on a slightly different axis that would affect the pattern of the hits. Still how would that form and arc? hmmmm.... Now all you need is a multi-million dollar research grant to start looking for evidence of related meteor fragments in all of those locations. Good luck with the scuba diving lessons too. :-)
Plaz
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Nonsense, we all know it was Baldrick's underpants that killed them off :-P
Seriously, interesting theory.
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Vincent wrote:
Nonsense, we all know it was Baldrick's underpants that killed them off :-P
:lol:
hehe, Blackadder...
Well, I thought they believed that the Mexican Gulf itself was the meteor crater, not the Yucatan crater, but I might have misread that.
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Plaz wrote:
Nice research and interesting theory. The possibility of a "Shoemaker-Levy like" event on earth would make more sense to me.
Thanks for your feedback, Plaz!
Plaz wrote:
I am puzzled by the curve though. I'd have to think about how an arc would be formed even with the earth's rotation.
I'm not sure if I got you fully here.
What do you mean with "how an arc would be formed"?
Plaz wrote:
The fact the magnetic north pole has moved shouldn't matter, but if the earth once spun on a slightly different axis that would affect the pattern of the hits.
Well - during my engineering studies we were taught by our Physics professor that the axis of a spinning "whirligig" (hope that's the correct word) is slowly moving and so describing a circle.
He demonstrated that in an experiment and said:
"Transferred to the whirligig "Earth" this means that it takes its axle 26.000 years to finishes one cycle."
And he said that scientists had evidence that the North Pole once was situated somewhere in Sibiria.
Plaz wrote:
Still how would that form an arc? hmmmm....
Ahhhh - now I'm beginning to understand what you mean with "arc"!
Well - I would say this comes from the curvature of the earth. If Earth was flat you would get an straight line...
Imagine you are shooting at a spinning ball with an maschine gun. All the "impacts" would be on an arc (except if your position is in the same plane as the equator and you're aiming at the equator - then the "impacts" are on the equator and if you look at them from your shooting position it would look like they were on a straight line).
But if you cross the line of the bullets with a flat board (non-spinning and vertical to the bullet line), the "impacts" on this board would all be on a straight line.
Plaz wrote:
Now all you need is a multi-million dollar research grant to start looking for evidence of related meteor fragments in all of those locations.
Yes - and lots of time...
Plaz wrote:
Good luck with the scuba diving lessons too. :-)
:-D
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Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
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Well, I thought they believed that the Mexican Gulf itself was the meteor crater, not the Yucatan crater, but I might have misread that.
Yes, you misread it.
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@Dandy
Hum,
are you sure that the "spot" between Norway and Iceland isn't the Three Storegga Slides (http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=58381&subForumID=154958&action=viewTopic&commentID=7090110).
Here (http://static.flickr.com/63/163609060_7300725fc3_o.jpg) is an image of the Earth 65 million years ago, (77kb, 750 x 375).
Two more large craters dating from that time are found in the middle of Russia.
The Shiva crater (http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=58381&subForumID=150651&action=viewTopic&commentID=6304712) is a hypothesised impact crater located in the Indian Ocean west of India, that was at the time in the southern hemisphere. It has been suggested that it formed around 65 million years ago and perhaps lead to the formation of the Deccan Traps.
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Blobrana wrote:
Hum,
are you sure that the "spot" between Norway and Iceland isn't the Three Storegga Slides.
Yes, I`m sure.
The spot I`m talking about is called "norwegian bassin".
Blobrana wrote:
Here is an image of the Earth 65 million years ago, (77kb, 750 x 375).
Nice map!
It copes with what one part of the scientists say about the Chixulub impact site: it was under deep ocean.
But on the other hand the other part of the scientists assume that 10 million years before the Chixulub impact "the sealevels began to fall dramatically" and the dino`s environment began to fall dry.
So what is correct now - was the site "under deep ocean" or has the sea level been "dramatically" lower?
Furthermore I cannot say from the maps *when* "my" impact(s) happened.
Maybe they happened at a later point in time.
All I can say from my maps is that something must have happened there (norwegian bassin) and to me it looks from these maps that it must have been a really deep impact.
Blobrana wrote:
Two more large craters dating from that time are found in the middle of Russia.
Are you referring to the "Boltysh" crater?
Blobrana wrote:
The Shiva crater is a hypothesised impact crater located in the Indian Ocean west of India, that was at the time in the southern hemisphere. It has been suggested that it formed around 65 million years ago and perhaps lead to the formation of the Deccan Traps.
Are you sure about the 65 million years?
IIRC I read somthing of 200 million years or so...
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Hum,
i thought the Chicxulub impact site was in a shallow sea.
>>Boltysh Crater
Yeah, i couldn't remember the name...
The deccan traps are dated to 65 million years ago, (the trigger for the massive eruption some suggest is the shiva impact.
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Dandy wrote:
Everytime there is a report in the media about the exstinction of the dinos, the impact of an asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico is quoted as the reason.
Given the size of Yucatan I always doubted that an impact there could cause an worldwide mass destinction.
It was what was hit, rather than the size of the impact, there have been larger impacts.
The Yucatan, where the giant asteroid hit, was especially rich in sulfur and Limestone (calcium sulfate). The impact vaporized the sulfate and deposited billions of tons of sulfur dioxide gas, carbolic acid, and hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere.
Volcanic eruptions show that sulfur dioxide gas would convert to sulfuric acid clouds in the atmosphere, and that such clouds could remain in the atmosphere for years. These clouds may have initially been thick enough to shut down photosynthesis for a year, and perhaps longer.
Meteorite impact and the mass extinction of species at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/19/11028)
A key aspect of the Yucatan site is that the upper 3 km of rock were rich in water, carbonate, and sulfate, which upon impact produced about 200 gigatons each of SO2 and H2O vapor and other gases that greatly altered the properties of the stratosphere.
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Smoking! :shrug:
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Talking of Shoemaker-Levy 9, there's lots of evidence that fragmented comet/asteroid impacts are quite common and have occurred on Earth as well as on Jupiter and its moons.
Searchng for vestigial crater chains could become a new hobby for anyone interested in the phenomenon. This site (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/12may_craterchains.htm) from NASA is fascinating and shows how 'easy' such finds might be made.
Using Google Earth is a brilliant way to skim 50 or 60 miles high over remote terrain looking for tell tale signs. In fact I think I've spotted two craters around Chad not related to the NASA article and not recorded in the standard crater data bases.
Have a go, it's fascinating.
JaX
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Re: What did *REALLY* kill the dinos?
It was islmaist fundamentalists. Pointlessly long link to utter gubbins here that tells you all about it (http://www.nowhere.com)
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Interesting website Dandy. You have put some thought into that.
I enjoyed reading it (far better than the drivel over somewhere else).
Something else to consider perhaps...
Could all the plateaus have cracked apart due to those impacts ?
This would have caused fantastic kinetic forces which in itself wouldn't have done the dinos a lot of good let alone the Tsnunamis that probably swamped most of the low land masses temporarily.
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Hum,
[color=ff00ff]<Off topic>[/color]
interestingly, a new HTML application just got released on aminet...
MakeHTMLMap.lha
Download (http://www.aminet.net/comm/www/MakeHTMLMap.lha) (1.3mb)
Read me (http://www.aminet.net/package.php?package=comm/www/MakeHTMLMap.lha)
[color=ff00ff]</Off topic>[/color]
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The_Editor wrote:
Interesting website Dandy. You have put some thought into that.
I enjoyed reading it (far better than the drivel over somewhere else).
Thanx for your positive feedback!
The_Editor wrote:
Something else to consider perhaps...
Could all the plateaus have cracked apart due to those impacts ?
This would have caused fantastic kinetic forces which in itself wouldn't have done the dinos a lot of good let alone the Tsnunamis that probably swamped most of the low land masses temporarily.
Yes.
Actually I was suspecting that, too - as e.g. one line of breakage between the tectonic plates is situated right in the middle between two possible impact sites (Anatolia and Hungaria).
I have a small map showing the tectonic plates and their borders - I will add it to my website asap...
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blobrana wrote:
Hum,
[color=ff00ff][/color]
interestingly, a new HTML application just got released on aminet...
MakeHTMLMap.lha
Download (http://www.aminet.net/comm/www/MakeHTMLMap.lha) (1.3mb)
Read me (http://www.aminet.net/package.php?package=comm/www/MakeHTMLMap.lha)
[color=ff00ff][/color]
Thanx for the hint, Blob!
I will download it tonight and give it a test.
From what I read it offers a similar functionality as PictureManager Pro?
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All those guys with Time Machine hunting them is what whipped then out. But how else do you make a McRib sandwich.
-Tig
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The dinosaurs were slaughtered by the extraterrestials, so that the humankind could use the fossil fuel in the future and blow the {bleep} out of their planet and make the planet habitable for the extraterrestials. A painless method of terraforming, albeit it takes some time.
V
(I should write a novel of this theory)
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Tigger wrote:
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But how else do you make a McRib sandwich.
-Tig
If you tell me what a "McRib sandwich" is and how you usually make it, I can perhaps tell you how else you could make one...
:roll:
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countzero wrote:
The dinosaurs were slaughtered by the extraterrestials,
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Naaaahhhh - that can't be!
65 million years ago there were no extraterrestial visitors - at that time their civilisation had not yet developed.
They were still living in the trees - far away from having spacecrafts and killing Dinos on other planets...
:-P
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I saw a documentary on Sky TV once where a scientist explained that every now and then the Earth's polarity of North Pole and South reverses. The show explained that with a great enough magnetic field even organic materials can be levitated in the air (as demonstrated by a grasshopper floating above a huge magnet). Could it be that the dinosaurs floated to death, kept suspended in the air unable to chew grass and bite each other?
As for the geology, you're all wrong.
Millions of years ago when the tectonic plates broke apart, Italy got the pasta and Wales got the noodles.
Today, noodles are mined in Crumlin, South Wales in the Pot Noodle Mine.
(http://www.duncans.tv/images/pot-noodle-fuel.jpg)
"Fuel of Britain, Isn't It?" (http://www.fuelofbritain.com/)
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Millions of years ago when the tectonic plates broke apart, Italy got the pasta and Wales got the noodles.
Today, noodles are mined in Crumlin, South Wales in the Pot Noodle Mine.
...
:-) :-D :lol: :laughing: