Posted on 05/08/2008 12:11:16 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
The dinosaur-killing Chicxulub meteor might have ignited an oilfield rather than forests when it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, say geologists.
Smoke-related particles found in sediments formed at the time of the impact are strikingly similar to those created by modern high-temperature coal and oil burning, as opposed to forest fires, says Professor Simon Brassell of Indiana University.
He and colleagues from Italy and the UK publish their report on the discovery in the May issue of the journal Geology.
...What he and his colleagues have found instead are particles called cenospheres, which resemble the sooty output of industrial coal and oil burning, he says.
When cenospheres are found, they are usually associated with what's called fly ash, which is man-made.
"In many places the presence of such material is taken as evidence as the presence of human activities," says Brassell.
And since the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is about 65 million years too early for humans and their coal-fired Industrial Revolution, something else had to be burning fossil fuels.
Brassell and his team suggest that the Chicxulub meteor crashed into oily shales of the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the oil in the rocks to vaporise and ignite in the air, making cenospheres in the process.
Today the large oil fields that edge right up to the Chicxulub structure testify to the ample supply of oil available to burn 65 million years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
...and powdered wig. :’)
You forget to mention, he’s wearing lace... frilly lace.
Sad.
Oil comes from ancient dead microscopic plankton (algae and diatoms) that lived in shallow seas.
Actually, during elementary and jr high school back in the 60's and 70's, we were taught that it came from dead dinosaurs, trees, and other plant life. Guess our teachers were taught wrong themselves. (Government conspiracy? You decide... Just kidding.)
“That was conventional wisdom for a while. Not so sure anymore as Titan Has More Oil Than Earth is a little hard to explain by dead dinos and plants.”
Oh, now that’s going to be an interesting pipe line construction job.
Asteroid Impact Made Hail of Carbon Beads
Sky & Telescope
May 5, 2008
United Press International
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/wires?id=117077452&c=y
The researchers said they believe the liquid carbon rocketed skyward and formed tiny airborne beads that blanketed the planet. The team of U.S., U.K., Italian and New Zealand researchers said those beads, known as carbon cenospheres, cannot be formed through plant matter combustion... The carbon cenospheres were deposited next to a thin layer of the element iridium — an element more likely to be found in solar system asteroids than on Earth. The iridium-laden dust is believed to be the shattered remains of the approximately 125-mile-wide asteroid’s impact.
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