Scribd is out on my computer, so I can not acknowledge your student’s success as well.
You make a great point about observer bias: 20% of the known impact craters are on land, while 70% of the Earth’s surface is water.
For that matter, it is not likely that impactors preferentially hit in North America and Europe. And as far as North America goes, the recent smaller comet fragment impacts are like Tunguska was, and not geologically documented yet.
Two problems you are going to run into:
1) the impactites will be ascribed to other impacts, and not to the time you note
2) using this, the tsunami deposits will be attributed to tectonic activity, even if the magnitude is well beyond tectonic causes.
About the only way around this is going to be gathering more widespread samples, triangulating the impact point(s), and examining deep sea cores taken for oil deposit location.
Politically, Weiner already understands the hazard, and the particular hazard faced by New York City and the Hudson Valley.
The 300 BCE date is interessting. Since there is nothing indicated down the coast or on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean at that time (that I know of), perhaps the impact was immediate to the mounth of the Hudson River.
Your analysis of the tsunami flow in the valley may allow you to make some estimates as to the destruction along the river’s banks, which would open up an examination of the local archaeological data and sequences.
Hi Dallas –
Scribd is out on my computer, so I can not acknowledge your student’s success as well.
You make a great point about observer bias: 20% of the known impact craters are on land, while 70% of the Earth’s surface is water.
For that matter, it is not likely that impactors preferentially hit in North America and Europe. And as far as North America goes, the recent smaller comet fragment impacts are like Tunguska was, and not geologically documented yet.
Two problems you are going to run into:
1) the impactites will be ascribed to other impacts, and not to the time you note
2) using this, the tsunami deposits will be attributed to tectonic activity, even if the magnitude is well beyond tectonic causes.
About the only way around this is going to be gathering more widespread samples, triangulating the impact point(s), and examining deep sea cores taken for oil deposit location.
Politically, Weiner already understands the hazard, and the particular hazard faced by New York City and the Hudson Valley.
More later…
and congratulations to your student Ms Cagan.
The 300 BCE date is interessting. Since there is nothing indicated down the coast or on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean at that time (that I know of), perhaps the impact was immediate to the mounth of the Hudson River.
Your analysis of the tsunami flow in the valley may allow you to make some estimates as to the destruction along the river’s banks, which would open up an examination of the local archaeological data and sequences.