Posted on 10/17/2004 9:46:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
An impact event occurred at 2.15±0.5 Ma in the Bellingshausen Sea. It littered the oceanic floor with asteroidal debris. This debris is found within the Eltanin Impact Layer. Although the impact layer was known, the crater had yet to be discovered. We have found a possible source crater at 53.7S,90.1W under 5000 meters of water. The crater is 132±5km in diameter, much larger than the previously proposed size of 24 to 80 km.
(Excerpt) Read more at gsa.confex.com ...
Japan Scientists Find Million-Year-Old Ice (in Antarctica)
abcnews.go.com | 1/24/2006 | AP
Posted on 03/27/2006 4:26:18 AM EST by S0122017
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1603789/posts
I should have looked for additional work on the dating of this tsunami, but anyway...A possible Plio-Pleistocene tsunami deposit,Many features of the Hornitos conglomerate bed are considered to be characteristic of a tsunami deposit according to the criteria identified by Einsele (1998)... An alternative interpretation as a large debris flow deposit derived from the adjacent alluvial fans is unlikely, as: 1- it is difficult to envisage how a debris flow could result in subaqueous scouring of the shoreface and incorporate shell material, sandstone intraclasts and foreshore-derived pebbles into the resulting deposit; 2- any debris flow deposit is likely to be eroded and reworked by subsequent storm and fairweather processes, and 3- the location of the conglomerate deposit ranges from 3-5 km from the coastal scarp and its associated drainage system... The Plio-Pleistocene drainage is still preserved along the coastal cordillera... and is of insufficient size to develop such a high magnitude event...
Hornitos, northern Chile
Adrian Hartley, John Howell,
Anne E. Mather, Guillermo Chong
July 2001
Revista geológica de Chile
A possible explanation for both the depositional environment and thickness of the Hornitos conglomerate bed is that the Pliocene tsunami was an extremely large magnitude event... supported by the size of the clasts incorporated within the flow that were transported from the alluvial fan into the shoreface... a particularly powerful current would have been required to remove unconsolidated sand, scour at least a metre down into the shoreface and rip-up large clasts of semi-lithified sandstone. This powerful event left a substantial deposit in the upper shoreface... only limited reworking took place prior to deposition of the next bed. As the top of the conglomerate appears to be abruptly overlain by shoreface sandstones, it is likely that some reworking has taken place...
The large scale of the Hornitos conglomerate bed, as previously noted, suggests that it represents a very large magnitude event deposit. As such this event bed should form a useful stratigraphic marker correlatable throughout the Pliocene succession of northern Chile.
FIG. 4. General view of tsunami deposit at Hornitos displaying shallow marine sediments incorporated in a conglomerate as recumbent folds (A); thrust sheets (B), and rip-up clasts (C). Note the erosive base of the deposit (1) partially obscured by slope material (2).
You almost had me convinced - until the Cthulhu part, HE is already awake and acting through his minion Hillary. :)
Instead of it being a 100mi dia crater, perhaps the impact was on the opposite side of the globe, with a giant Newtonian emission at the supposed crater site. (Not plausible, but just as plausible IMHO)
Did a Pacific Ocean meteor trigger the Ice Age?
PhysOrg | 9-19-2012
Posted on 09/20/2012 5:02:02 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2933778/posts
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