Posted on 03/09/2005 10:19:19 AM PST by ZGuy
It's a mystery that has puzzled scientists for years but researchers said Wednesday they have discovered why there isn't much melted rock at the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona.
An iron meteorite traveling up to 12 miles per second was thought to have blasted out the huge hole measuring three-quarters of a mile across in the desert.
The impact of an object at that speed should have left large volumes of melted rock at the site. But British and American scientists said the reason it didn't was because the meteorite was traveling slower than previously estimated.
"We conclude that the fragmented iron projectile probably struck the surface at a velocity of about 12 km (7.5 miles) (per second)," said Professor H. Jay Melosh, of the University of Arizona, in a report in the science journal Nature.
Meteor Crater, which was formed about 50,000 years ago, was the first terrestrial crater identified as a meteorite impact scar.
Melosh and Gareth Collins, of Imperial College London, used a simple model to calculate the speed on impact. They showed the meteorite had slowed when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and broke into fragments before it struck the Earth.
They calculated the impact velocity was about 26,800 miles per hour.
"Even though iron is very strong, the meteorite had probably been cracked from collisions in space," Melosh said in a statement.
"The weakened pieces began to come apart and shower down from about 8.5 miles high. As they came apart, atmospheric drag slowed them down, increasing the forces that crushed them so that they crumbled and slowed more," he added.
The scientists said that at about 3 miles altitude, most of the meteorite was spread in a large cloud.
If the article was in any way related to Mac or PC....I suppose we could say that Mac is like a giant hole in the gound blown away by Gates abusive and antitrust use of his monopoly. Or we could say that security in the PC is like that crator.
But we are really stretching here.
The article clearly stated the age of the crator and I just wanted to know what the science behind the claim was.
Thinkplease eventually answered the question.
With 'animalistic sexual depravity,' or so we've been told by the various paranoid obsessive-compulsives who haunt threads like this......
.... oh, I'm sorry, that's only if the Theory of Evolution is correct -- nothing to do with craters -- never mind.
;-)
That's nothing; you should see what some folks say about science on CREVO threads....
Glad to be of service. I suspect you couldn't have gotten the answer you were looking for. Those links are from online journals, and they generally cost money to view, unless you happen to work for a subscriber, like I do.
Which is why I didn't even try. The odds of actually turning up a scientific article that would discuss the dating method used is low.
Hence my frustration that the popular press doesn't report the method.
I think not, Mr. Smarmy! Many, many Hanna-Barbarians would have been destroyed--Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty would probably be among the victims!
Think a little before making some crude joke about the tragedies of our ancestors, would you? Jeez!
Nor does mine, but my faith does sometimes require me to question observations, and the conclusions drawn from those observations, and to avoid jumping to rash conclusions when an observation appears to contradict my faith.
My faith is not malleable where any human conjecture or believed observation, automatically requires an adjustment in my understanding of what God said.
I'm quite content to take note of certain observations and flag them as questionable. It's a lot more believable than that God miscommunicated.
They don't live on the moon, the live in the moon. Sheesh!
God never miscommunicates. We're sometimes so busy squabbling amongst ourselves, however, that we don't quite hear correctly. I'm not pointing to anything specific, just a philosophical moment.
Certainly I agree with that. But I think there also are other times when we hear quite clearly and yet men are saying something different. The temptation is to listen to men over God. Scriptures says that will be a temptation. We should be aware of it and avoid it.
But then wouldn't the Flood have filled it with silt? < /thumper>
Yes, I am kidding.
If the bolide that caused the 1908 Tunguska event had hit eight hours later St. Petersberg would have simply ceased to exist...
There are smaller impact points in the mountains to the south.
What we have here is an unwitnessed event, one which can't be reproduced in the lab (except as absurdly unpersuasive micro-impacts), an event comprised of numerous features which can't be explained by themselves, but only as part of an integrated whole, an event which can't be dated due to the unreliability of radiometric dating techniques, an event which thus far has received only Godless, naturalistic "explanations" in the form of rocks randomly falling from the sky, an event which -- even if it happened as long ago as the naturalist scientists claim -- can't be verified due to their ignorance of conditions so long ago, an event which seems to defy the odds by its very uniqueness, an event which mimics the shape of recently-observed crop circles, and this is the event which the Godless naturalistic scientists want to teach to the children as a purely natural event.
If this is only part of an even bigger meteor that 'cracked' apart as it went through the atmosphere, then where are the other pieces and why does this impact crater look round in shape?
Now add in tremendous friction due to high speed. So much so that the pieces of shot break up into dust sized fragments and form what the article calls a "cloud" -- same speed, same mass, just not big chunks, hitting the ground. That's basically the theory.
There are people who will say it was before my time, but not by much...
Better notify the Craterism ping list
Wait till you read 53 and 73.
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