Subject: Australasian Tektite Impact 780 Ka Crater Identified in Spratly Islands
From: Hermann GW Burchard
To: XXX
Date: November 3, 2013
There seems to be a recent update to Google Earth,– apologoizing for over-reliance on this dubious source — the ocean between Vietnam and the Phillipines, the South China Sea. At least, I have not seen this much detail on earlier visits to the site. There now is clearly in evidence what we have corresponded about earlier in the Spratly Islands (plural Spratlies uncommon), which are contested by at least half a dozen nations bordering the S China Sea, as well as the U.S. who claim this is international territory. The reason is that the islands are oil-rich.
The topic I am referring to is the Australasian tektite impact crater long rumored to be in this region. Because of ongoing oil drilling efforts — presumable efforts, I know of no specific news although it probably is out there — it is unlikely that specifics are easy to locate.
Anyway, a multiring circular to oval impact structure is now clearly evident on the latest Google Earth updates. The diameter is about 175 miles/ 275 km, i.e., gigantic as expected from the large tektite strewnfield (BTW, that’s a Germanism, Streufeld, as my daughter recognized immediately when I told her about it).
Also, there was a total regional extinction event that in particular wiped out the human population, early members of a race related to the Melanesians and to people living in India and West to Aden, but absent between Rangoon and Melanesia/ Papua New Guine. This race probably made the lithic industry that Mike Morwood et al discovered on Flores Island that’s 1 Ma old. The much later Homo Floresiensis (“Hobbits”) probably are descendants as are various so-called pygmy races including Andaman and Flores Islanders, and probably the Ainu — speculating like crazy but not insane, adding 2 plus 2 and getting four.
The age is known very precisely at 780 Ka, for the strewnfield, not the crater — this may be known to the oil men in the Spratlies. The precise agreement with the Brunhes – Matuyama geomagnetic reversal was proven more than 10 years ago using Chinese loess sequences.
The 275 km impact structure is centered at an atoll called Union Reefs, or Union Bank, map 9.8,114.4, and this may well have arisen on the top of the central rebound uplift.
I attach two Google Earth images, one narrow view, one wide view. The wide view shows the crater to be on the SE Asian craton, sedimentary rocks. If in this wider image you examine the Spratlies, something extremely dramatic and illuminating emerges. See that big blob of shoal to the NE of the crater? This is called Reed Bank (as G E will reveal in close up, and I have known for the longest), so it must be close to the ocean’s surface. Also, see the embayment to the SW of crater, again shoals, and finally the linear streaks SW to NE from the embayment to the crater and up to Reed Bank. Evidently, as the impact happened on or near the continental slope into Jurassic sediments, the entire slope collapsed, as would be easy to happen, and slipped way toward the NE, with Reed Bank a broken-off piece of near-shore shoaling. — This also may explain why there was so much tektite stuff hurled upward . . .
A very similar event is known to have happened in the N Atlantic W of the Outer Hebrides, vnear the Far Oer Islands map 60.0, -5.0 with broken-off pieces on G.E.
The source rock for the tektites has been dated to the Jurassic in a 1992 paper, by Blum. Papanastassiou, Koeberl, Wasserburg. Of these Koeberl is a familiar name to me, being very influential as to what can be published about cosmic body impacts. This is Christian Koeberl of the Univ of Vienna. They proved the Jurassic age for the tektites, and by inference I conclude that age for the seafloor in the S China Sea, where the Spratlies are located. The fact that the crater is not on the basalt ocean floor but on continental crust is very important for consistency with the results of this paper of Blum et al incl Koeberl (and for the validity of my inference). Here are the two images, I hope they meet your expectations:
“Punctuated gradualism” versus “Catastrophism” — place your bets.
We now have readily available evidence of another set of human cultures having gone extinct due to large boloid impact.
Herman: I was read your article on Crater Burchard and as I was looking at the Google Earth images I noticed to the South-southwest there is a larger Island. The east end of that Island appears to have been bitten off forming a large lagoon. To the East-northeast there are a whole series of small islands that look very similar to galcial morraines. On either side of the lagoon there are long thin island strings that match with the original width of the main island. There is also a central ridge running the length of the lagoon much like the Beneviedes impacts. Maybe hit #2 ??
Herman; I’m sorry I went off half cocked. I got excited and started writing before gathering my thoughts and info. The image I’m working off of is the 2nd one, wide angle. I did some quick geography and found the island with the bite out of it is Borneo. The Islands to the east are the Phillipines the Lagoon is the Sulu Sea. I also npoticed that the north half of the Sulu Sea is shallow compared to the southern half which appears much deeper.
A skeptical but not definitive response from Aubrey Whymark, of the excellent tektite site: http://www.tektites.co.uk/
From: George Howard
To: “[email protected]”
Sent: Sunday, 10 November 2013, 3:21
Subject: Hello Aubrey
Your website on tektites is superb. Thanks so much for your work.
I maintain a Holocene impact blog, and one of my readers and regular contributors has noticed an interesting feature in the South China Sea: https://cosmictusk.com/crater-burchard/
Whatcha think?
Hi George
Thanks for the email. I see the circular outline you refer to. I don’t believe this could be in any way related to the Australasian impact event though for the following reasons:
1) If this were a crater it would be too large. This would be a global killer and a recent one too! Popigai at 100 km diameter is a global event – the strewnfield extends across the globe. The Australasian strewnfield is restricted – it covers about 20% of the globe, so we can say it is a much smaller event. If we compare with the ries Crater at 24 km then clearly the Australasian event is larger. If we compare with Chesapeake (40 km across post-impact size and 85 km now) then we have something very comparable to the Australasian event. Indeed, the consesus is, using various approaches, that the Australasian strewnfield crater should be around 40 km in diameter and I am very satisfied with this number – it closely fits observations.
2) It is in the wrong position to be associated with the Australasian event. You would have to explain why Philippine tektites are so different to Indochinites at equal or greater distances from the impact. If this were the impact site then you would find no difference in the tektites between Indochina, China, Philippines, Borneo. In fact Philippine and Borneo tektites are quite different in terms of morphology and indicative of being further from the impact site than indochinites.
3) I’m not sure geochemically this location would work. I’m just going on assumptions, but you’d need to spend time studying the geology in detail – I just have a feeling it wouldn’t work. You need a major clastic input, I’d assume this is carbonate dominated in the surface layers – this wouldn’t produce tektites.
Hope this helps – for sure the crater is out there somewhere!
Regards, Aubrey
From Hermann Burchard:
Aubrey has some good reasons, but possibly on the flimsy side.
1.) The area is actual SE Asian continental craton, flooded now and flooded during every interglacial warm period as was at 780 Ka, but flooded continent is still continent, no reason to think of carbonates from oceanic sediments vs clastics.
2.) The crater being so large explains that it tossed out material from a huge area, and many different chemistries, toward the Philippines from the Eastern side of the crater, and toward Vietnam and Cambodia out of the Western deposits.
3.) Oceanic craters may end up larger as the water keeps dragging mud along. The land equivalent from the same impactor could be substantially smaller than 175 miles. We saw this in my proposed New Madrid antipodal impact, where it looked like a mud soliton (solitary wave) that cam to rest at the exact 200 km diameter. New Madrid was bad but not a global disaster.
Herman Burchard
Herman; Thanks for the reply and your time. Aubrey mentions in his tektite site that areas close to the impact recieve little or no tektite activity at all. If the impactor had taken the tip of Borneo off I would think the majority of the ejecta would have gone over the Phillipines and into the pacific ocean and the China Sea. Also it appears that the Borneo site may have happened first because the ejecta butterfly from Burchard crater appears to fill in about 1/2 of the northen side of the Borneo site. These 2 locations could very well be separated by a great distance in time.
Anyone read this yet?
What are the Spratly Islands?
http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Spratlys_Geology.pdf
George; Thanks for the reply and your time. Aubrey mentions in his tektite site that areas close to the impact recieve little or no tektite activity at all. If the impactor had taken the tip of Borneo off I would think the majority of the ejecta would have gone over the Phillipines and into the pacific ocean and the China Sea. Also it appears that the Borneo site may have happened first because the ejecta butterfly from Burchard crater appears to fill in about 1/2 of the northen side of the Borneo site. These 2 locations could very well be separated by a great distance in time. George, Sorry for originally headering you as Herman. Again I got all wound up and didn’t read through everything—-Brain Gas
Hermann and George – questions that come to mind to catch me up on this:
1. I understood that the 780kya was the age of the AA tektite field. If so and supposing that Hermann’s crater is not tied to the AA tektite field, then the 780 kya is not applicable, right?
2. Aubrey: “This would be a global killer and a recent one too!” Did Aubrey say that based on the 780kya?
3. “Global killer” – the Permian Extinction was at about 252 mya. Other than the KT event it’s the only global extinction event we have. A possible fit? If not, why not?
4. One of the odd things about the Permian extinction was that the oceanic creatures got wasted, too. That suggests an oceanic impact. So, what would prevent trying to correlate this with that extinction event?
5. So, bottom line: If not tied to the AA tektite field, what information about the age of Hermann’s crater is out there?
Steve,
One reason the structure can’t be related to the
permian event, is that there is no sea floor older than 125mya. Anything older than that has been subducted or uplifted and eroded away.
And you are correct, the Permian event was an oceanic strike, there is a paper out there, from about 12-15years ago, describing possible causes of the Permian event and an oceanic strike was the most likely cause.
And that paper was the first one I read associating large oceanic impacts with LIPs.
Their scenario went like this,
At the time there was only the one super continent, straddling the equator from pole to pole. This arrangment ment that there was no longitudinal circulation of the ocean, only a north south circulation above and below the equator. In the middle of all this was a warm stagnant equatorial zone of ocean that was ideal for diatom like animals and over millions of years the built up a huge layer of carbonacious rocks.
When the impactor struck it excavated billions of tons of limestones and vaporized it, the carbon released mixed with the billions of tons of sea water vaporized and it all rained out as carbonic acid. I can’t remember the strength of the acid that they calculated, but it was pretty strong, and there as some much of it that the entire surface of the world ocean was covered to a depth of 3′ of carbonic acid.
This extreme acidification is what killed the majority of the sea life.
The antipode to this strike is the Siberian traps.
Thanks, Cevin!
Cevin Q –
I take you meaning about the 125mya subduction of one plate under another.
. . . Except. . .
(basic stuff here, and basic questions…)
BOTH plates get erased in 125mya?
Let’s see if I can get this all in and still be clear about my point(s)…
Only one plate gets subducted. The overlying plate — if it gets worn down at the edges, then it just disappears in 125mya? That can’t be true if the present continental plate shapes have been around since before Pangaea.
And yet the jigsaw puzzle of Wegner – SA fitting into Africa and all that – eroded continents retain the same shape
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pangaea_continents.svg
Pangaea was 300-200 mya. That is 2 or 3 of the 125mya cycles ago. Those continents in that Pangaea map should all be eroded away two or three times by now. How do they retain their shapes after 2 or 3 cycles of being eroded completely away?
Also, if the continents get subducted, how does one rectify floating continents with the idea that plates get subducted under the plate next to them? Either the continents float or they are eroded – I can’t see how both can be true. Riding up over the edge of the subducted oceanic plate I do not consier the same as “floating” continents”.
If you look around, all the subduction zones (almost all such plate boundaries, BTW) at present show an oceanic plate going under a continental plate – and not ever the reverse. And if all the show-and-tell graphics convey the thinning properly, then the oceanic plates do 90% of the movement and very little continental edge erosion takes place.
But perhaps it all happens like the Boxer Day 2004 tsunami undersea avalanche happened – the quake caused 200km or so of undersea hillside to just fall off.
****
…And now let’s look at the western USA – which is not atypical of volcanic ranges near subducted plate edges. The subduction creates magma chambers uinderneath the continental edge, making for volcanic ranges like the Cascades. No argument there. That mountain range keeps getting eroded underneath and then rebuilt on top by eruptions. With the same material apparently.
Why does that that look like a revolving conveyor belt to me? At what point does the interior of the NA continent get close enough to the plate edge to be eroded away? Even if it were all to happen via undersea avalanches from quakes, how does the interior of the plate ever get involved and get eroded?
All in all I have to ask: Are you sure that 125mya thing is real? Or maybe they think it is true but they haven’t so far gotten all the pieces of all this assembled into an internally consistent paradigm…
Entire continents eroding away is new to me and I am not sure I can buy into it.
Cevin “At the time there was only the one super continent, straddling the equator from pole to pole. This arrangement ment that there was no longitudinal circulation of the ocean, only a north south circulation above and below the equator.”
I would want to question this. One super-continent also means one super-ocean. We currently have a semi-super-ocean, the Pacific. It has PLENTY of “longitudinal circulation.” One of my other forums discusses the El Niño Southern Oscillation often, so I am at least a bit informed about this. I see no reason why a super-super-ocean wouldn’t have the same basic circulatory patterns as the Pacific.
The Pacific has north and south circulatory patterns, called gyres. The Equatorial zone, which moves north and south a bit seasonally, ends in the Koroshio Current that moves up the eastern side of Asia, then eastward along the Aleutians and Alaska, then south along the NA coast (the Japan Current), and finally back westward all the way back to Asia (the Northern Equatorial Current). The S hemisphere has a somewhat mirror image gyre.
Why would a large, wider ocean not have gyres?
I’m sorry but this just doesn’t work for me, and being the biased observer that I am, I am convinced that my crackpot pseudo crater is the crackpot pseudo crater that all other crackpot pseudo craters must be measured against.
George; I read the paper you linked and I’m not sure exactly where this goes. It seems that they’re inferring the section of continent that Herman is looking at did come off the main continent but they don’t imply exactly what was the cause for the slippage in that area. I don’t generally read scientific papers because I don’t have the backround to enterprit all the data. I did notice on one of the cross section drawings that it was showing a fairly sharp intrusion of basement rock through the sediments and possibly protruding at the surface. As I have seen in other impact articles the earth surface rebounds after an impact and if it has been sufficently heated to semi liquid it can rise up and set up into “mountains”. Possibly the case there?
George that paper was a gem. Recently written, w/ the intel on recent samples from the region. Snap.
It seems to imply to me that the AA tektites couldn’t be from that crater, as the cuesta are made up of neither sand stone or shale (sedimentary) since the AA tektites are known to be formed from a combination thereof. I only know that because I have read extensively on the topic of the AA tektites, in pursuit of my very own crackpot pseudo crater. Naturally this is in order to top the above mentioned best efforts of T. L. Elifritz and all the other misguided souls who believe they have a better chance than myself.
And while we’re on the topic of Crackpot, lets not leave out “Hare Brained”.
The Burchard crater excavated mass (the tektite mass) would have been igneous and metamorphic, the only other types that are NOT sedimentary.
“Igneous and metamorphic samples have been dredged. Although individual spot K/Ar dates cannot be accepted at face value, such rocks can also be inter- preted as an integral part of Sundaland.”
Also mentioned in the article is the draping strata atop the cuesta, and it being of the wrong formative epoch required for the AA tektite source rock. And probably some other references to similar incorrect timing for AA tektite source.
The AA tektites are also the most hydrous known tektites of any on Earth, assumedly from a wet location of formation. I disagree and stick to my own theory that the place may have been extremely dry.
And icy.
TH
Jim –
General encouragement comment:
If you don’t have the background to read the papers, go ahead and read them, anyway. When you come to a term you don’t know, teach yourself! The first ones may be tough, but as you pick up more fundamental definitions and facts, you will get better and better at understanding them. It gets easier. Trust me.
But the bottom line is that you can only begin from where you are now, and also that you have to do it one step at a time. If you retain well enough, you can learn a lot. And a LOT of it is fascinating.
Note: When reading the papers, DO be on the lookout for phrases that mean they are guessing or supposing or assuming. At first, just note these. In time you will see that something don’t jibe with other stuff you’ve read. Then you get to begin really thinking!
BTW, I am studying Spanish right now. Spanish is tougher than the lingo that the scientists use. At least when a scientist uses a term it always means the same thing! Not so with languages!
🙂
Estaphon; Moocho Grassy ass for the encouragement! Spanish must be a lot like English what is said is not what is meant. I will keep on reading papers as they come at me and I’m catching on to the lingo as it happens. If you read enough, context can usually get you through. The rest of it has to be hammered in. I have to say the fellows at CT have been real patient with me and I appreciate it. I can get questiony. And I do believe if it stinks ,it’s usually a pile of….. You haven’t replied about the dolomite pics I sent you, you did get them? If not Let me know and I’ll resend them. Again, Thanks
Comments discuss article by Hutchison and Vijayan, What are the Spratly Islands, for which George had posted link.
Center of what I would call the Spratlies Crater,* is at map point 9.8,114.4, see my email posted by George atop this thread. The article entirely misses the crater and indeed is addressing areas S or SE of the crater. Only a few of the reefs mentioned straddle its S or SE margin.
– – –
*) No doubt known to oil men for some ten, twenty years, only they know what they have called it, and/ or are calling it now.
– – –
Geological discussions by Hutchison and Vijayan pertain to regions which were part of the slide when the impact caused the continental slope to collapse and slip toward the NE by several hundred km.
BTW, this was during an interglacial warm period, so Sunda landed was flooded as it is now. Imagine the archeological treasures hidden beneath those waters.
Steve,
As far as subduction and uplifting goes, I was speaking only of oceanic crust not continental crusts.
Yes, the pacific is a large ocean, but falls short of the scenario presented by the authors of the paper I read, so comparisons of modern current structure to those at the time of the Permian event are not necessarily valid.
But if you look at the structure of the gyres in the pacific they revolve around large areas of little movement of water.
I imagine this arrangement would be magnified by the continental situation of the time.
So what the authors were saying is that in this huge warm ocean, the central portion was very very calm, they might have even used the term stagnant. This warm calm sea within the ocean was perfect for the growth of diatoms and the like, and they laid down huge amounts of carbonacious rocks on the sea bed.
It was in this that the impactor struck, and it’s antipodal hot spot, ie mantle plume, started the break up of the continent.
But that was a very early theory to explain the massive release of CO2 at the time, evidently the release was to rapid for volcanism to account for.
But now that the proposed Antarctic crater has been identified it might be moot, or a portion of the theory still holds if impactor impacted on the edge of the continent.
Also,
When one reads of proposed oceanic craters one aspect of most of the rebuttals, is the lack of ejecta to found in nearby continental investigations. That is actually pretty easy to account for, it has been proposed that, with respect to impacts of large bodies into oceanic crust, most of the energy is absorbed within the earth itself. That contrasts with a continetal impact where most of the energy is reflected back into space, via the ejecta.
Herman; I’ve been perusing around the Phillipines on google earth off your Spratly Islands image and have found 2 other possiblities for investigation. One is due east of Mindoro Island and the other is off the East coast of the Phillipines North east of the last mentioned location. The last one is on the edge of the continental shelf and shows definite raised rim. Though it is extremely circular I don’t believe it’s volcanic. The other looks to be a shallow angle impact. If you get a chance, take a look and see what you think.
Jim; those could be from cosmic body impacts, although no central rebound uplifts are visible, which usually are pretty diagnostic. Both sit on the continental shelves where Google gives pretty hi-res imagery.
Remember, Earth would look just like Mercury or the Moon & numerous solar system spheres, pockmarked with craters if all could still be seen, were it not for her active surface with geo- and biological agents keeping our beautiful planet alive. If we had hi-res all over the sea floor, probably we would see many from the last less than 400 Ma, as Cevin has noted. Even so, if you carefully look at G E, you will find bunches of suspicious spots, overlapping impact crater candidates. Embarrassment of riches! Basic Rule of Planetary Science (BROPS):
The trouble with impact research is that there are so many of them . .
BTW, you had an excellent point earlier about Borneo’s NE corner being cut off by the Spratlies impact. The deep channel along the coast seems to be subject to scouring from fierce currents due to water flowing over Sunda Land being forced into narrow conduits. There may be less oil in the area than previously thought, except in that channel:
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=10651
>>There may be less oil in the area than previously thought, except in that channel…
You know, if you can convince oil geologists that craters equal oil finds, a lot of the YDB acceptance problems will go away under a tsunami of field data.
Trent –
I guess we all know here that Chicxulub was found by an oil geologist. That being the case, it is altogether possible or probable that the oil geologists have figured out the connection with impact sites. If anything, that may be all the more reason to keep it under wraps. BIG bucks involved.
…and the Chesapeake crater described by C Wylie Poag (who was gracious enough to send me the original seismic images because of my interest in medical ultrasound) was suspected because of data obtained while he and others were with Teledyne Exploration/Texaco/Exxon. Oddly enough, Prof Poag coauthored a pare with a famous professional stratigrapher (FPS). My wife and son went on a seashell fossil dig with FPS who is an expert in this particular (unnamed) geologic time period – I asked my wife to ask FPS about the Black Mat and he said “what the hell is that?” and walked off.
Herman;I’ve been cruising your google images of the Crater Bouchard and found what I believe may be 2 more large craters in the same area. Yours is in the South China sea, the first one I noticed is the Sulu sea. I posted on that one. As I looked further I believe that Celebes Sea is possibly a crater and the Banda Sea is a real good candidate with multiple raised rings and a central rebound ridge. The Celebes and Banda sites are on a slightly different incoming angle than the Straitely and Sulu sea sites. Maybe 2 seperate events or a cluster of large hits. I would guess that most of the ejecta and tektite forming material would have sailed over the Phillipines and in to the Pacific. Some may have come down in Austrailia Some may have made it to New Zealand. How does one go about dating craters?
Jim,
see above, November 18, 2013 at 12:37 pm:
Embarrassment of riches! The trouble with impact research is that there are so many of them . .
Jim: “Herman;I’ve been cruising your google images of the Crater Bouchard and found what I believe may be 2 more large craters in the same area.”
Hermann: “Embarrassment of riches! The trouble with impact research is that there are so many of them . .”
Hahahahahaha – If the circular landforms were on ANY other planet, everyone would call them impact craters – and everyone else would accept that designation without question. Because THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM EVERYWHERE.
Earth, however, is this exceptionally repellent planet that God put a force field around, due to the prayers of his anointed species, homo sapiens sapiens. So, impact features here are fought tooth and nail.
The default for ANY other major body (planets and moons) is “Impact first, other explanations only in exceptional cases.”
The default for HERE is “Gradualism explanations first, impact explanations only in exceptional cases.”
Like I said, “Hahahahahahahahahah.”
Hi
I think you need to get somebody on board with a knowledge of South Chine Sea geology and tectonics. If this is a crater then it is huge – as there haven’t been any mass extinctions lately one must assume it is of great geological age. Is this compatible with the geology and tectonics of the region?
This feature is most definitely unrelated to the Australasian tektite event. We have a good understanding of tektite morphology relative to distance from the source and also Australasian tektite distribution. This crater position is way off on both counts.
The Australasian tektites are relatively uniform and came from a clastic rock (mix of sandstones, siltstones and shale) of either Middle Jurassic age plus surface contaminants or more likely (as good mixing is not evident in layered tektites) from a thick column of recent rapidly deposited sediments derived from averaged Middle Jurassic age source.
Regards, Aubrey
Herman; I’m going to take you from the sunny tropics of the south China Sea to the down right fridgidness of Antartica. While watching a you- tube video about ice shelf breaking in Antartica I noticed an impact looking feature on a google image. Its just off the tip of South America where the tip of antartica almost come together. It appears that at one time they were connected. Possibly Pangea? Anyways where the two came apart it looks like an impact crater tore the Istmus apart and shoved it into the Atlantic. There could possibly be up to 4 craters together in that spot. It would appear to have been a very shallow angle because the tear is somewhat elongated but has a diffinite circular rim at the end of the slide and continental shelf pieces are shoved out and to the sides of the groove. I know craters are a dime a dozen but this one is interesting.
Aubrey; I have one quick question for you. I understand that the distance that tektites can travel is directly related to the angle of impactor entry, speed of entry and size. A guesstimate as to how far tetites could theorectically travel from a low angle, large impactite with no airburst?
Jim, Aubrey,
this subject is closed as far as I am concerned, because not being a professional geologist, I am not qualified to travel to the sits and work with ODP/DSDP for verification, nor check the tektite composition (quite variable, Aubrey) against all of the soil conditions on the Sunda shelf that came down in a giant slump-slide, making the horsts and fault blocks SW of the Spratlies Crater, reported on in the paper posted by George (which misses he crater area itself completely, and also made the two parallel tracks from the Sunda shelf toward the crater circles.
Ask George for my email, and I will send you a summary ASCII tsxt file in chaotic shape where I have gathered and describe all of the above and other diagnostics and ancillary remarks regarding the Pleistocene. George you have my permission to give my email to registered Tusk users for this purpose.
But mainly, Aubrey, you talk like my students that haven’t read the text book assignments. Go spend some time with G E and study what might have happened there. Like Jesus said: I speak to them in parables because they have eyes to see but don’t see and ears to hear but don’t hear. Now not having the abilities of Jesus I don’t know parables, so therefore I am trying to do what he said don’t do: Give you the straght dope, above and in my write-up if you ask for it.
Jim, I may look at those sites if you post map coordinates. Example: 9.8 N, 114.4 E, or 9.8,114.4, is the center of the Spratlies crater. Or in the Chilean Tierra del Fuego/ Magalanes region Monte Burney is the center of a crater which I believe is related to the Eltanin ejecta found by Frank Kyte, dated to 2.588 Ma, the official date of both the Pleistocene start and the Matuyama-Gauss geomagnetic reversal. Monte Burney is at map coordinates 52.3 S, 73.4 W, or -52.3,-73.4.
Herman: Mt Burney is further north and west of the site I’m looking at. Here are the coordinates as best as I can cipher: 60W & 120S
Do you mean 56 S, 61 W? S of the Falklands?
Can’t be more than 90 S, so 120 S is impossible!!!
Herman; Yes! Basically it’s the Drake Passage. That was my first attempt at latitude and longitude. I guess I need more practice.
Herman; I’ll try one more time. Try 58.58S latitude and 65.91W longitude. Now you know why I never went into the navy.
Jim: Could you accept 58.85 S, 69.65 W for the center of a 500 km diameter crater?
Google Earth has the exact coordinates at lower right in degrees and minutes. Convert minutes to decimals if you divide minutes by 60.
Those seafloor craters are much larger than the same impact would be on land, because the water wave “keeps on rolling along,” by seat-of-the-pants fluid dynamics. Expert help & some formulas would be great.
Jim, drop that last one, sorry. These seafloor maps are so low res! Try -56.05,-61.40 for a more definite circular outline. Is that the one you had in mind?
Herman; I believe you have it. The computer I’m on at work won’t allow me to download google earth. I’ve been scrolling off your Spraightly island image. Convenient backdoor, but it doesn’t show the long’s and lat’s in the lower corner. I’m sure you’re in the right place. There is one big one and possibly 3 smaller ones just to the north and behind the main impact. I believe the furthest east one was the first in then the big one then the 2 smaller ones last covering the raised center on the largest one. All 3 of the smaller hits have raised center cones. What’s your opinion on these.
Does this help?
http://pos-map.appspot.com/en/coordinates60.html
Cevin; On 11-14 you posted and mentioned a crater being indentified in Antartica, Where at was it located? I have found an area just north of Antartica in the Drake passage that has a very promising look to it.I’m wondering if it is the same place?
Jim
It is the Wilkes crater
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkes_Land_crater
Cevin; Not it. I just figured the exact coordinates for it -58.6’45.7698″ lat & -30.56’15”. It’s an ocean “impact” One large and 3 smaller “craters” Appears to have torn Antartica away from the tip of South America. Check it out if you get a chance.
between Antarctica and South America is a long and winding dirt trail, and proof only that somethings have moved . everything else is theory and assumptions..
George, Herman, Steve, Etc; I came across a website called Malaga Bay. It deals with Tektites and their origins. If you haven’t read any of it, Its very interesting theory back by some science and evidence.
LIttle; You are so right. That’s why I,ve posted coordinates and general directions. Maybe some else will see the same as I do. If not they can possibly tell me why I’m wrong
http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/the-tale-of-the-tektites/ Gentlemen; Here is the correct link to those articles I mentioned earlier
Jim ,
That is a very interesting site you linked to, but did you follow the link the site about the gulf of Mexico?
Oh my,
The gulf of Mexico as a possible impact structure leading to the Permian extinction. The author makes a pretty decent argument.
cevin; Yes I did go to the MALAGABAY site and read quite a bit there. Thee some very interesting concepts out there. I hadn’t heard about the beaufort sea impact and what it did. Again very interesting. I like the idea of a gulf impact but I’m not sure about it passing clean through the earth to the SE Asia area.
Cevin Q you will want to do a little bit of searching and reading on Canarian observed eye witnessed and recorded history and ie ‘stories” about how a comet made their Volcano, then you might want to like a puzzle, piece the Caribbean Islands where they once were before you decide that the gulf made billion and billions of years ago in some made up concepts like a “Permian extinction” that never happened .
Jim personally I think those skid marks between Antarctica and South America only prove that stuff happened very fast and not slowly.
Science-tism wants to tell us that caboose you see ( which is only proof of movement )and those tracks ( skid marks) were created by this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handcar over billions and billions of years.
The that same kind of hand cranking over and over and over is what got them the years they stole to create the theory of evolution.
Chicken little
Really, permian extinction, a “made up concept”,
I would suggest you do a little reading.
And what does canarian mythology have to do with an event some 250mya.
I’m not discounting the value of possible first hand accounts of indigenous people, but to claim that humans actually witnessed the formation of the gulf is , well , just ludicrous.
Watch it, Chick. I’ll let you cluck — but one cruel rant — and time to pluck.
I got your back, GH…
George; Twice in the last couple of days I’ve posted comments and they were accepted by the captcha and posted. I would come back the next day and they were gone. Is there a problem with my posting content or is it just my lack of tech expertise.
Not at all, Jim. Not sure what happened because they are not in my “unapproved” box. Sorry about that — let me know if it happens again.
Chickie baby; The last thing I was inferring was that those skids were anything but an impact. No way do you take out a land bridge in slo mo. Does anyone know what effect a large impact has on the co2 levels in the atmosphere? Will it spike the levels up or down?
what Jimmy Darlin ..
SO maybe you are thinking way to tiny ?
SO what if the same mechanisms that moved South American( and north america ) moved Antartica….. and that is why the skid marks are the same both one north and south of where they once met up once . if they once met up there ( what you are calling the impact site )and moved away from there. the skid marks would create the exact same structures both north and south of where they met up if they moved at all away from that point .
So maybe you or someone can prove to me that any impact that tiny makes those kind of skid marks that long and then how they will maintained there in that place . If that whole zone was rock no tiny meteor is going to make that long a skid or that looks like that if it is rock. if it is sand and such a shallow hit into sand that can’t be there billions of years . not in those water ways .
maybe we need think BIGGER…. Now what if those two continents can/could/did make huge skid marks because they are moved.. no don’t want to lose you here now Darlin..
What if they were pushed very quickly and a very long ways from where they started off . now considering they both probably occupied the same spaces at one time .. or were at one time connected or even part of each other . or maybe had lands under peru as connections.. that might also explain those marks that look like that .
but if you put south America or at least the surface of it back to where it was ( pangea-ish concept , not their fauxtime timelines ) against or under central Africa you can see where they were both connected at that spot . After you adjust it for Africa’s rotation from probably the same impact it all fits quite nicely .
Now one strangely cool thing is that Antarctica I suspect it rolled out to where it is now. rolled out from under something huge.. which means the giant object was probably moving one direction but spinning another direction maybe . Just like balls on pool tables and when two round objects hit each other it causes them to spin at least the smaller one will spin. I mean you plan for the spin when dealing with round objects on a pool table so why not impacts ? especially of large objects . it is so cool to unroll Antarctica, obviously it was spun into place. which kind of blows tectonic theories all to heck and back.. now just roll Antartica up against where is Peru is now and you can see how some of their (SA) mysteries become solved.
I can see how they moved away from each other at one date and then moved in the same direction on another date . which could be up to three major impacts but it was very very very large objects and were probably spinning around objects , which like a tube of toothpaste can put things anyplace in any configuration , unless someone saw the event from the heavens. only then might they know the laws of it.
but it is probably just two impacts and I can’t figure out how it happened that way yet.. yet! but I love puzzles .
I am more than willing to learn something..
but someone has just got to prove to me how that can be a meteor and how that small a meteor made that big a bumps/underwater mountains of rock dirt and or sand.. or even sand that goes that far .. and that deep for that far ! that is a long long long ways .. How that little thing made those giant skid lines hundreds of miles of giant/tall and long (underwater mountains ) and how they can still be there after multiple billions and billions of years in those waters ? Because with that tiny thing( there isn’t even a hole of an impact site and it . it has to be sand and and sand don’t impact like that .. . and it is maybe a special kind of sand ( maybe like sands that washes off of continents that moved from their places quickly even ) both from beneath and above ground dirt. BUT mounds that can still be that large and uniform and survive after an impact and being pushed/ then washed away by water for billions of years ? I mean the rest of the ocean is all nealy level why because water levels sand.
so I’m not buying..
So since we here on turtle island have a ‘sterile layer” of moon dirt from one side of turtle island to the other side and down into at least brazil over all the way to the middle east . I know big stuff hits us .. I’m sticking with a moon impact to at the very least North America … then we also have ” sterile sand ” layers deposited as it got pushed along and sand washed over sterile moon layer in places.. some places and moon dirt is visible now in other places … and all on top of turtle island is the only thing that can make sense to me and the the rest of the almost or just smart enough . I have no idea what hit Antartica but it was big and it was probably spinning..
Chances are the Atlantic ocean( as we know it and call it now ) isn’t billions of years old.. it was probably formed in one day.
and so was Antarctica ( as we know it and call it now ) and getting here inche by inch doesn’t explain why we have the Caribbean islands at all.
the skid marks probably prove at least north and south america moved very fast to where they are now . and if they prove that then they prove Antarctica moved by the same exact same laws. and not billions of years ago .
Sure there was tiny little strikes around where something huge hits us, like cb’s filled with sand. etc . like the stuff falling off of what hits us .. but those things can be used to make time and lies .. but they will never explain what is happening. and what was happening in recorded history.
There will never be enough billions to explain it .
because any kinds of real billions has it’s own effects too.
Excuse me Darlin ..
( sorry I don’t have time to fix all that needs fixes )
I have animals to take care of before dark.
Chicken little; Your concept of the land masses spinning away from each other is deffinitely plausable and is a possibility. I’ve been looking at maps of continental positions around 33 million yrs ago. The ocean floor in that area has been dated to that time. The continents were pretty much in modern positions by then. In none of the images of Panagea are the continents of Antartica and south America shown in contact with each other. The curves on the tips do not show up until about 65 mya. The only way I can think of the impact moving all that mass is that it came in at somewhat shallow angle but at incredible speeds. Bring your idea into the newer time frame and who knows. Soon as I get home tonight I’ll be feeding the critters also.
Dennis; I’ve been going over more data on the Drake passage. It appears there were at least 4 –5? impacts. The first weree just on the North edge of the main trench. They are approx 200mi dia each. The main impact is approx 600 mi dia with a 200 mi dia 4th impact behind #3 partially filling it in. The main trench is approx 1500 mi long and fairly consistent depth of 4000m. There appears to be a 2nd fairly shallow trench in conjunction with the first 2 impacts. Both trench lines show forward sliding of sea floor sediments to the east. I’ll pass along any more tidbits as I come across them.
OK. What is the recommended name of the proposed crater?
Dennis and Jim –
I am open to this idea, but there is a long way to make it stick.
I looked up a great deal on “crater chain” the other day, and have been digesting it since then. The more I look at this “plate” the more I think it does resemble a slightly arced crater chain. Arced ones are not the norm, from what I’ve seen so far, but they do exist on moons and terrestrial planets.
With all the island arcs and submerged arcs in this region, these are features that I am guessing that the standard interpretation of the Scotia Plate does not address. But with all the arcs, it looks a LOT like a crater chain. And as such someone in the academic community should HAVE TO provide reasons to NOT consider the crater chain explanation of the features present. I’d love to hit one of them with this in person and watch them speculate and call their speculation “scientific.” FYI: Speculation has NO business in science other than as a way of choosing a direction. A speculation can never stand in real science, unless turned into a hypothesis by being backed up with empirical evidence.
That last circular feature to the east – that is illustrated partly by the Sandwich Island arc – also has a continuation of that arc in the bathyspheric info displaying not only on Google Earth but on scientific pages about the Scotia Plate. It is really a true circle. Also look up “Scotia Plate” on Google Image and look at what the various images from articles and papers show. That circle appears to be about 600 km in diameter.
There is also the HUGE circular feature midway along the chain. It appears to be at least 1100 km in diameter. On the south edge there are two concentric arcs about 80 km apart, and the 1100 is measured to the inner arc.
Overlapping that one is one slightly centered to the ESE about 250 km and about the same 600 km diameter of the Sandwich Island “crater.” It is about 770 km from the Sandwich Island circle on a heading of about 285°.
Then there is the last one, tangent to Cape Horn and SE of it. That one appears to be about 400 km in diameter.
There appears to be another, slightly overlapping one, about 400 km SE of that one, and it is about 400 km diameter, too. That is about 470 km west of the smaller middle crater.
All these cannot be explained simply by the Antarctic Plate dragging the S American plate tip to the east into the southern edge of the Atlantic Plate. Such forces should not be forming arcs and circles, but sheared linear features and ones only running west to east.
MANY of the crater chains on planets and moons show overlapping craters.
Once again, I will point out the temporal element (which I discussed without conclusion on comments about Michigan and the Saginaw impact). Besides moving through the solar System at about 30 km/sec, the Earth also rotates at basically 1° every 4 minutes. At that latitude 1° of longitude equals about 60 km. So, figure about 15 km per minute.
Given the center-to-center distances between these (east to west) – 770 km at 385°, 250 km W, 480 km west, 400 km NW – the longitudinal distances are about 750 km, 250 km, 480 km, and 280 km. Translating to time (at 15 km per minute) those would be about 50, 17, 32, and 19 minutes apart, roughly calculated.
For comparison, those are not nearly as separated in time as the SL-9 fragments, but probably within what might be a normal range of fragments. Did it break up recently before impact? On its last flyby? Or on its way inbound? I think it would be more likely top have been the earlier flyby.
All this assumes that it was an impact as suggested by the circular features. There are other impact features on Earth that are less obvious circles, so this is a good possibility, IMHO. And if so those numbers will be reasonably close.
All these cannot be explained simply by the Antarctic Plate dragging the S American plate tip to the east into the southern edge of the Atlantic Plate. Such forces should not be forming arcs and circles, but sheared linear features and ones only running west to east.
MANY of the crater chains on planets and moons show overlapping craters.”
yes there is no evidence that any kind of circular plate movement going on there because there is not any kind of plate movement on the NewZealand or on the African side of the drag ( south or north )but probably south . . you would think that it would be more evident on the NewZealand side if and impact really happened like that on the South American side. and any spin of some kind would be apparent there too and it is not and no tracks of it even being washed over either. . but there is exactly the same “tracks” of proof of movement on the far side where part of Antarctica went farther south. smaller tracks but the land mass/ crust was moved 3 or 4 thousand miles. I doubt much sand was left by then.
George; I think the drake passage impact should be referred as the Drake Crater Fields. Don’t want to confuse any of gradualist population with any quick change of nomenclature
George; Do you have an e-mail address for MR. Boslough? I have a question I hope he can answer if he is so inclined.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=un-heeds-astronaut-advice-on-shielding-earth-from-asteroids
Good get, Barry!
I particularly found one comment amusing, where the commenter seemed to think Hollywood moveies like “Meteor” and “Deep Impact” were evidence that “THE THREAT IS REAL”.
Even if I agree with him that the threat is real, let’s all just make sure we don’t have tinfoil hats on.
Steve,George, Dennis; I came across and article in the Antarctic Sun ( funded by the NSF) about research being done by 2 scientists Dr. David Barbeau from the University of South Carolina and Dr.Ian Daziel from the university of Texas. They are both trying to date the Drakes Passage opening. Both men have made some interesting findings. Dr Barbeau has found that sediments on the South American side of the passage are basically the same as sediments from elsewhere in South America. And sediments from the Antarctic side of the passage are pretty much in line with sediments from around antarctica. Dr Daziel was studying sediments from the bottom of the passage by dragging net baskets and analyzing the bottom rocks. Many drop stones but the Scotia plate lithography is totally different from any deep ocean plate composition. Analyzation of findings are still going on at this time and results will be released as they are available. If George can direct me as to how to get the article on the tusk I will do so
Steve, George, Dennis; With further snooping I found that Dr Daziel has determined that the Scotia plate lithosphere is made of volcanic discharge. He’s calling it a slab window. He also claims that it is sinking and the volconoes that created it are now dormant and under water. I’m starting to think that this similar to the Deccan, Siberian traps and the Snake river basalts in that they were most likely created by extremely large impacts that cracked the earths crust and allowed magma to flow on to the surfaced for millions of years until the crust finally healed it self.The Deccan and Siberian traps have craters of the proper time frames. I believe the Yellowstone hot spot is left over from the snake River flows. And that leaves Drake Passage as a good possiblity. Now Dr Daziel dates Drake Passage at approx 12m yrs. If he is using bottom rock dredgings for dating he may be going too young and need to go deeper to get to the true basemant age. It would be nice to see another 34 million yr age. But for now this will do.
Steve; In your post on 1-10-14 you mentioned the Temporal element in refernce to Michigan and Saginaw bay. Would you go over that again for me? Back in November — December you also mentioned you were reading into the Kankakee Torrent and would back about that. Anything cooking there?
George; I plugged some num,ber into the calculator provided by Pierson Barretto and the results were interesting. I know the approximate volume of the crater but was looking for possible impactor size and speed. What I found was that according to the program the crater created was almost 1/2 refilled with blast melt. When I was reading Dr Daziel’s paper he mentioned that the basement floor he was finding on the Scotia was volcanigenic. Could blast melt pass for volcanic activity?
Jim –
I have not done any work on all of that since back then. It was making my head HURT! I had to take a breather.
Here is what I said then:
“Once again, I will point out the temporal element (which I discussed without conclusion on comments about Michigan and the Saginaw impact). Besides moving through the solar System at about 30 km/sec, the Earth also rotates at basically 1° every 4 minutes. At that latitude 1° of longitude equals about 60 km. So, figure about 15 km per minute.
Given the center-to-center distances between these (east to west) – 770 km at 385°, 250 km W, 480 km west, 400 km NW – the longitudinal distances are about 750 km, 250 km, 480 km, and 280 km. Translating to time (at 15 km per minute) those would be about 50, 17, 32, and 19 minutes apart, roughly calculated.”
1. As fragments come in hours or minutes apart, the target – the Earth – is rotating under their path. At 60°S that surface’s rotation amounts to about 60 km per minute.
2. Once caught in the Earth’s gravity well, the fragments are in a geocentric system – no longer in the Sun’s control as much as n the Earth’s. They are all falling toward the Earth’s center of gravity (C.G.), basically toward the center of the Earth.
3. That CG is moving, but once caught in its gravity well, the fragments are moving with it (while spiraling around it/toward it).
4. There are 5 craters in the crater chain, meaning four gaps between them. Measuring their distances and translating those into time, I came up with the numbers shown. The measurements are rough. The centers are indistinct, but I tried to get as close to the centers as possible.
5. Since the centers were not all on the same latitude, I did a bit of trig to come up with E-W distances to use for longitudinal differences.
6. Once those longitudinal differences were established, those also translated to TIME – how much time between impacts.
7. If I did the math right, then the fragments were sequentially about 50, 17, 32, and then 19 minutes apart.
8. THOSE times are translatable to the distance the fragments had between them before impacting.
As to Michigan and Saginaw:
A. IF Saginaw and the Michigan Basin both happened in the same onslaught, then since the path is NE-SW there is some E-W vector involved (meaning longitude and, thus, time).
B. However, if they came in on the same path, the Saginaw impactor and the Basin impactor would seem to have come in at the same time. Time differential = zero. (This is in contradiction to SL/9, which impactors hit at very DIFFERENT longitudes – which was due to their spacing.) I DO assume the Michigan Basin impactor came in at the same heading. (The If I am wrong on that the math still holds, IMHO.
C. SL/9 fragments WERE on the same path, so we can make a reasonable guess that Saginaw and the Michigan Basin impactors were also on the same path as each other.
D. Why not separate impactors at different times? Ah, that NE-SW angle would be essentially impossible to replicate at the same latitude and longitude on a spinning Earth. The odds that the second one came at some other time in history is ZILCH. With even ONE MINUTE giving a longitudinal difference of about 75 km, and the two axes being essentially the same, I am led to conclude that they arrived together.
E. YES, there IS a slight axes difference. That could be worked out as to timing (in a joint impact event) or misalignment of orbital paths. But I think they came in within a minute or two of each other. Thousands of years apart? Not a chance. Not in the same place like that.
I hope that answered your questions, Jim.
Hi Jim
If we imagine that there was a thick layer of ice on the ground, can we imagine that the impactor and the crater would be higher?
regards
pierson
Sorry Jim, I was referring to the Saginaw carter……
George; Do you have any contact with Herman Burchard? I would like for him to read the piece I found about MT Ashmore off the Australian coast. I was also wondering if he ever got any dating on the crater he located in the Spratly Islands. If he did and it was within the 34mya time frame we might be looking at a whopping global impact series.
Jim,
at age 81 my interest is now in philosophy. Download my latest paper here (it’s free):
http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=62862
About dates, you should ask a geologist they are good at that.
Thanks Herman I’ll do that. I do want to thank you for getting me going on impact searches. It’s been a very rewarding endeavor.
Good lord, people. Stop the sidebar chatter and check out that new paper!
I second that George.