Posted on 02/15/2013 10:36:13 AM PST by Red Badger
An asteroid measuring up to 20km across hit South Australia up to 360 million years ago and left behind the one of the largest asteroid impact zones on Earth, according to new research published today.
The impact zone in the East Warburton Basin was buried under nearly four kilometres of earth, said Dr Andrew Glikson, a visiting fellow to the Australian National University's Planetary Science Institute and a co-author of the paper. "It's significant because it's so large. It's the third largest impact terrain anywhere on Earth found to date," Dr Glikson said. "It's likely to be part of a particular cluster that was linked with a mass extinction event at that time." Dr Glikson published his findings in a paper in the journal Tectonophysics, co-authored by ANU colleagues Dr John Fitzgerald and Dr Erdinc Saygin and by the University of Queensland's Dr Tonguc Uysal. The team analysed quartz grains drawn from over 200 samples taken from far below the Earth's surface and studied underground seismic anomalies. Dr Glikson said there was a chance that the asteroid that caused the impact zone actually split in two before it hit. "We are studying another anomaly in West Warburton that could well be its twin but we don't know yet." Dr Simon O'Toole, Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory, said the finding was very interesting. "It strengthens the case for the idea that the Chicxulub crater is connected to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. We are starting to see more evidence that impact events caused mass extinction events," said Dr O'Toole, who was not involved in the research. "Australia is a fantastic place for impact crater hunters because we have huge open space with nothing in it," said Dr O'Toole, adding that the size of the new impact zone was very significant. "It's huge. Most asteroid events are about 100m in diameter." Another asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA14, will pass within 27,700 kilometres from Earth on Saturday, potentially passing communication satellites, but is unlikely to hit the planet.
More information: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040195113000188
Provided by The Conversation
If only there was some way we could get a strike when Obama is in the White House and Congress is in session!
Global Warming caused it???
Is that like a crater?
Have you ever wondered why the Senate, House and the President & Vice President are never seen together and when they are there are THOUSANDS of snipers on local buildings, troops massed just blocks away, choppers at the ready and every DC cop on duty?
Just think how great a temptation it would be to start with a fresh slate of politicians who are uncorrupted and possible more concerned with doing the right thing rather than trying to figure out how to get more money out of us.
Riddle question: How big does a meteorite have to be before it’s an asteroid?
Not necessarily a ‘crater’, since it is weathered and eroded severely over the eons. The tell-tale sign is ‘shocked quartz’ that only appears in high temperature, high pressure sudden impacts, i.e. asteroid strike..........
that's actually the begining of a Tom Clancy novel ... I can't remember which just now
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“Just think how great a temptation it would be to start with a fresh slate of politicians who are uncorrupted and possible more concerned with doing the right thing rather than trying to figure out how to get more money out of us.”
Well if a meteor could get most of them, that would be a nice start.
I served in the Navy, and I was thinking about this the other day. If a foreign power invaded Washington, and was intent on decapitating our political system, I don’t think I’d care.
Well...I’ve always thought if I lived in DC....I would get VERY worried when “O” and his family leave town....like this weekend....
At the end of "Debt of Honor", he had an airplane crash into the capital during a joint session of congress, when a new president was being sworn in. I remember reading that (this was before 9/11 btw), and saying to myself "wow! Did he really write that?" Then I read the last 3 pages again, just to enjoy the entire concept.
I think like you do.
I would set down names of politicians who voted for laws which benefited “Them” and their associates and were not Constitutional.
I would hang them from the trees outside the White House, Congress and all other government enforcement and regulatory offices.
There they would hang until their last bone fell from the rope. Anyone who tried to take their bodies down would be hanged alongside them.
NO politician would serve more than two full terms (Period). States would determine Senators and Congressmen and pay their expenses. The Federal Government would provide NO money to house them, feed them, transport the to and from Washington or anywhere for that matter.
Crimes commuted while in service to the US, the states would indite, try and make any determinations as to disposition as necessary.
I think a LOT of people would prefer complete renewal and no senior politicians be allowed to serve.
We can just dream because we could never get enough people who think like us (and would actually take up arms) and make it a reality.
But we can dream.
UNLESS YOU KNOW ENOUGH PEOPLE WHO WOULD MAKE SUCH A STAND, I WOULD GLADLY JOIN YOU.
Do you have an age on this crater?
Silly me, I just went back and read 360 mya. What was that, end of the Devonian?
The article sez “up to 360 million years ago”, Australia has some of the oldest surviving surface on Earth. 20 km is a pretty big rock, 360 million years ago would be during the Cambrian; the Permian is estimated to have started about 298 million years ago.
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