* Please gather observations and data about "impact" craters and post them on this thread, so we can better organize and analyze the observations and determine what are the probable causes of each feature of crater formation. * You may copy the observations and data from this forum and website and from any other source, but the sources of the observations or data should be listed, so their reliability can be evaluated. * Examples of the kinds of observations needed are: Location; Diameter; Depth; Surrounding Terrain; Rim Features; Wall & Floor Features; Underlying Bedrock Condition; Ejecta Data; "Age" of Crater; "Age" of constituent rock strata; etc. * Location, at least approximate [or the name can substitute for location], is the most important datum needed, but any other observation is needed for the location to be meaningful. * I'll see how much data I can supply here, but I hope anyone else will help out. Thanks in advance.
* P.S., For this thread, Please stick to just posting observations and data and little or nothing else. Brief suggestions on how to organize the data are also welcome [maybe].
* We're looking for data on definitions #2 & #3 below from http://dictionary.reference.com [although some of the other definitions are interesting too]: 1. the cup-shaped depression or cavity on the surface of the earth or other heavenly body marking the orifice of a volcano. 2. Also called impact crater, meteorite crater; (on the surface of the earth, moon, etc.) a bowl-shaped depression with a raised rim, formed [seemingly] by the impact of a meteoroid. Compare astrobleme. 3. Astronomy. (on the surface of the moon) a circular or almost circular area having a depressed floor, almost always containing a central mountain and usually completely enclosed by walls that are often higher than those of a walled plain; ring formation; ring. Compare walled plain. 4. the bowllike orifice of a geyser. 5. the hole or pit in the ground where a bomb, shell, or military mine has exploded. 6. Electricity. the cavity formed in a positive carbon electrode by an electric arc. 7. Greek and Roman Antiquity: krater. 8. Metalworking. a depression at the end of a bead produced by welding.
simple simon
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
Hi
I can't explain crater formation, but I do have an observation about craters which contradicts the theory of their formation by impact.
Nearly every crater I've ever seen pictures of in the solar system – whether on our moon, another moon or on another planet – are perfectly circular. Surely this requires that the falling body strike the moon or planet at 90o
Yet a falling body will (I think) always strike the moon or planet at an oblique angle as gravity pulls it in and therefore will always leave an elongated impact crater. Even if only slightly.
Small elongated craters can be seen from photographs of where small meteors have hit the earth close to a handy photographer.
But I have not counted even ONE elongated crater in all the pictures that I have seen of craters on our moon, other moons and other planets.
Doesn't(/can't) this disprove/falsify the theory of crater formation by impact ?
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
xx
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
* Okay, thanks, SS. - I'll get back to you below. I was just ready to post the following. * I guess it would make sense to focus on crater features that would best help determine whether a crater was formed gravitationally or electrically. I'll think about that and welcome suggestions. I'll also try to ask some of the experts about that. * Simon, your suggestion fits in here. We can look to see where elongated craters are located and see if they seem to be gravitational impacts. The Carolina Bays appear to be elongated craters on Earth. And I think there are other locations for similar ones on Earth. I've read that low angle gravitational impacts could also make round craters, but I don't know if that's definitely determined to be true. I just read that a meteorite was observed to form a gravitational impact crater in Siberia I think in 1947. * My own thought was that the strata on crater rims that are laid down in reverse order from the strata within a crater, such as is said to be the case at Meteor Crater, seems to be a potentially defining feature of electrical formation, although I don't understand how electrical deposition could keep from mixing strata material together. And I haven't heard of rim strata data given for any other crater, so observations for that may be extremely limited. * Are there any other features that could likely only be produced electrically? - Spherules? - Shatter cones? - Central peaks? - Craters on crater rims? - Crater chains?
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
* I'll go ahead and post some data I've found so far. I did a search for craters and spherules to find the following. http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect18/Sect18_6.html - an iron meteorite made a 30 m [100 ft] crater in Siberia in 1947 - Field study of Meteor Crater in the late 1950s by Eugene Shoemaker A specially processed image made by the airborne Thematic Mapper Simulator (TMS) shows ... ejecta blanket or apron (in reds and yellows) around Meteor Crater The ejecta contain fragments of the iron meteorite which caused Meteor Crater., along with iron melt spherules. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/151621-mohenjo-daro-glass~ - Several past Pictures of the Day dealt with ... craters exceeding 100 kilometers in diameter ... some ... associated with glass spherules or large chunks of pure silica lying in broken pieces all over the desert floor. - large sheets of glass like "Darwin glass" from Australia - vitrified stone walls in Scotland - fused pottery and melted ramparts of Mohenjo-Daro http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1533.pdf Grains Formed by Impact Reaction Found at Spherules of Various Impact Craters, Meteorite Showers and Geological Boundaries. Y.Miura, S. Fukuyama and A.Gucsik.Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science, Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi ,753-8512, Japan. E-mail: yasmiura@po.cc.yamaguchi-u.ac.jp Abstract: New types of grains which show Fe-Ni-Si in composition formed by impact vapor/melt reaction are found from spherules and/or impact fragments of meteoritic craters of the Barringer, Wolf Creek, Odessa and Takamatsu in Japan, meteoritic showers of Niho, Kaba, Mocs and Mezo-Madaras, and geological boundaries of Denmark K/T, Hokkaido in Japan K/T, Spain K/T, El-Kef K/T, Hungary P/Tr and China P/Tr. There are characteristic spherules with Fe-Si or Fe- Ni-Si in composition from meteoritic showers formed by impact reaction the atmosphere, which are similar sizes and compositions to those of sea-sediments or geological boundaries. Spherules found on the Earth reported as cosmic or interplanetary dust origin should be checked by formation at Earth's atmophere of meteoroids shower as impact reaction. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1907.pdf NEWLY DISCOVERED METEOR CRATER METALLIC IMPACT SPHERULES discov-ery of large (3 mm to 1.5 cm) metallic particles 82 km from Meteor (Barringer) impact crater, on a high plain west of the Little Colorado River. The particles are nonvesicular and extremely spherical. Their location indicates that the Meteor Crater impact predated the deep cutting of the Little Colorado River. In addition, these spherules may have implications for the origin of the Mars "blueberries" at the Opportunity Landing Site. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nordlingen2010/pdf/7019.pdf Small impact craters (< 1-2 km dia.) have unique features that raise the possibility of using chemical studies to constrain the nature of physical processes that occurred during impact. Such craters are almost exclusively formed by iron meteorite impactors, with low enough kinetic energy that not all the projectile is vaporized and lost from the impact site. Fragments of unmelted meteorite material can survive, and droplets of FeNi metal are often found dispersed around the impact site and mixed with melted and fragmented target rocks. Studies of these 'spherules' show they are compositionally variable in terms of Fe-Ni-P-Co and different in composition from unaltered iron meteorites [1,2,3].
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
Earth Crater Databases * Great! Shelgehr informs me that there are already some databases started for Earth craters. * Here are links: http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/index.html http://impacts.rajmon.cz * The latter appears to be better organized for our purposes. * We may be able to find relevant data to add to what's already there.
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
* I condensed and combined data & theory from 2 TPODs about Meteor Crater below.
__METEOR CRATER A = Jan 31, 2006 - Meteor Crater in Arizona B = Nov 30, 2009 - Craters and Buttes Part One __B: MAINSTREAM IMPACT THEORY: - Meteor Crater formed from nickel-iron bolide 50 meters wide, weighing 300,000 tons, moving at 12 km per second at impact, [A] equivalent to explosion of 150 atomic bombs. __B: ED CRATER THEORY: - Meteors can provide trigger for ED. - Meteor suffers plasma flow instabilities on exterior while current surges penetrate nickel-iron core. - It builds up huge potential as meteor penetrates plasmasphere EM fields - Too high current flow breaks down metallo-crystalline matrix in violent electrical explosion. - ED leader stroke reaches from disintegrating bolide to ground and upward secondary stroke completes circuit. __A: ED Theory Restated: - A bolide entering Earth's electric field would discharge explosively. - Fragments of bolide would scatter some distance from crater. [Metal spherules were recently found on Little CO river area plateau.] - Before reaching ground they'd be already blown apart: . like comets flare millions of miles from the Sun; . and Tunguska bolide exploded high in earth's atmosphere; . and Deep Impact projectile flared when it met Comet Tempel 1. __QUESTIONS: ? [At what temperature & pressure do meteor surfaces become plasma?] ? [What speed must meteor have for surface to reach plasma stage?] ? [Do meteors become plasma more easily when traveling through plasma - i.e. the ionosphere?] ? [Do meteors become total plasma fireballs or only partial?] ? [Do fireballs lead to ED to ground?] ? [How close to ground can fireballs get before making ED to ground?] __A: METEOR CRATER DATA: - Rock beds below crater are undisturbed. - There's stratification of debris around crater. - Rocks in rim and surrounding plain are deposited in opposite order from underlying rock beds. - B: There's stratification reversal in debris around crater. __ED CRATER STRATIFICATION THEORY: - Rotating electric arc worked down from surface through layers of soil, spraying the material outward roughly in layers that reverse strata. - ED carved crater in instant, disintegrating rock strata and sending it up secondary discharge channel, sorted according to mineral content. - EC entered rock strata via conductive paths, ignored gravity and explosively carved out meandering river-like trenches or rilles [uphill and down on Moon, Mars etc].
* Here are four questions for the TB team about some TPODs.
1. The Mar 06, 2006 TPOD, "Man in the Moon", says high-velocity impact experiments do not match normal crater features. What references do you have for that statement? * That claim contradicts Dennis' recent claim that impact experiments do match crater features. Dennis, what are your references? * Can we get exact conclusions from each source and compare them to see exactly what each one found?
2. The Aug 12, 2005 TPOD, "Richat Crater Revisited (2)", says re chunks of charged material discharging in Earth's plasmasphere: "The discharges would likely fragment the chunks, and the fragments could impact around the craters. But the craters themselves are clearly from EDM because, among other distinctive features, the crater bottoms show no sign of impact fracturing." * Does this mean there are small craters around the larger ones there in and near Algeria, and the smaller ones may be bolide impacts?
3. The Oct 08, 2008 TPOD, "Gooches Crater, Australia", says "In previous Picture of the Day articles, it was suggested that electric arcs could have chiseled the bays ... a few thousand years ago." But the TPOD linked is the Mar 24, 2008 TPOD, "Dendritic Channels", which merely says "the Carolina Bays ... are also thought to be the remnants of a ""meteor storm"" that crashed into the coast long ago." * So does the TB team consider the bays to be formed by ED, or impact? Is there evidence there for ED?
4. Paraphrasing the Nov 30, 2009 TPOD, "Craters and Buttes Part One", it says: at Meteor Crater the theorized 300,000 tons of nickel-iron needed to make the crater has vanished; only a handful of tiny iron spherules are scattered around; no large fragments have ever been found. * But in the Jan 31, 2006 TPOD, "Meteor Crater in Arizona", it says: there's a 1,406 pound meteorite fragment; small balls of meteoritic iron are imbedded in ejected crater rim rocks; and there are large quantities of meteoritic iron in the form of globular "shale balls" on the rim and surrounding plain. I also read that metal spherules were recently found at a Little CO river area plateau, apparently from Meteor Crater. * Are these two TPODs contradictory, or is the amount of iron spherules found still very small? Have there been any good calculations of the approximate amount of iron and nickel at Meteor Crater? - LK
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
CRATER ANOMALIES * The Mar 06, 2006 TPOD, "Man in the Moon", has this list of crater anomalies, which are said not to be explained by impact theory, but are by E.D. Theory.
1- Lack of debris ........... Adjacent craters lack debris expected from near-ground explosions. - Comment: Which 'near-ground' explosions? How was "near ground" determined? And where are the adjacent craters? - Reply: I'm guessing they meant "on or near ground" and they likely were referring mainly to craters on the moon, Mars etc, where there are lots of craters with rims touching and there appears to be no debris in them.
2- No overlap ................ Larger craters do not overlap smaller craters. - Comment: Where's the mystery? If there are small craters inside a bigger one, the big one hit first. - Reply: With random falls of impactors of various sizes there should be some large craters that partly overlap smaller ones. I assume the E.D. angle is that E.D. would make large craters first and then progressively smaller ones, which is what the evidence may support.
3- Minimal disturbance .. There's minimal disturbance where one crater cuts into another - Comment: What experimental impact data are you using as a reference in order to define what "Minimal Disturbance" is? - Reply: I guess this may refer to adjacent craters with touching rims, which do not overlap each other etc, whereas random falls of impactors should include many that do partly overlap others.
4- Undisturbed basement .. Shattered basement rock is not found - Comment: Where? Says who? At which confirmed impact structure did they drill into the bottom with a core drill to check for shock metamorphic rock, and find none? And if they found no shocked rocks in the crater floor, how was exogenesis confirmed? - Reply: I think this is based on ground penetrating radar etc. I think the Barringer, Chicxulub and several other crater TPODs mention this claim of undisturbed basement. The Chicxulub TPOD says the supposed impactor would have produced a magnitude 10 - 12 earthquake
5- Rim craters ............... Many secondary craters occur on rims of larger craters. 6- Rim crater chains .... Chains of small craters occur on rims of larger craters. 11- Crater lines .............. Many craters are in pairs or straight line chains. - Comment: So? Many large fragments of fragmented comets such as SL-9, SW-3, or Linear are entrained with a lot of smaller stuff. - Reply: Crater chains usually seem to be craters of about the same size lined up very straight, often with rims touching, and without leaving debris in adjacent craters. Impactors would not likely fall that straight, would partly overlap and would leave debris. Rim craters appear to be too frequent for random falls, but make sense for E.D., since E.D. is attracted to high points.
7- Tangential rays ......... Rays of "ejecta" are often tangential to crater rims, as if ejected from rims. - Comment: Where? - Reply: On the moon especially, as I recall, such as Tycho.
8- Concentric rings ....... Many craters have concentric rings. - Comment: Size, and velocity comes into play here. It goes to the fluidization of the target surface. There is a threshold where the variables of size, and velocity, of the bolide combine to produce a double ring. As I understand it, it takes a big, very fast object to do that. So they would only be hard to explain in a small crater. - Reply: Many craters have more than a double ring and I think that includes some small craters.
9- Terraced walls .......... There is unexpected terracing of large crater walls, with melted floors of some terraces. 12- Steep walls ............... Crater walls are steep, instead of shallow dish-shaped. - Comment: Impact experiments have been done into a large variety of target surfaces. What is the nature of the target surface? And what experimental impact data are you using as a reference in order to define what is an "expected" result for an impact into that type of surface? - Reply: Since I didn't make the list of anomalies, and didn't get the maker's explanations so far, I can't answer what the reference was.
10- Flat floors ................. Crater floors are flat-bottomed and melted instead of dish-shaped as from impact blast. Impacts and high-energy explosions — even nuclear bombs — do not melt enough material to create flat floors. - Comment: Says who? And when? Impact science is a rapidly advancing field. Cite current sources please. But while you are looking for pertinent, and academically current source materials you might want to read IMPACT MELT FORMATION BY LOW-ALTITUDE AIRBURST PROCESSES, EVIDENCE FROM SMALL TERRESTRIAL CRATERS AND NUMERICAL MODELING. H. E. Newsom and M. B. E. Boslough Or Airbursts, And Their Contribution To The Impact Threat, Mark Boslough - Reply: Thanks for the reference. I doubt if I'll have time to look it up, so can you or anyone find excerpts that explain that impactors can melt crater floors and make them flat? Do you know if nuclear tests have ever produced melted, flat-floored craters?
13- Circular shape .......... Craters of all sizes are remarkably circular. Oblique impacts should form oval craters. - Comment: Please read: THE STRUCTURAL INVENTORY OF OBLIQUE IMPACT CRATERS S T. Kenkmann et al - Reply: Again, I'd prefer that you or anyone provide a quotation, if possible.
14- Associated rilles ....... Craters often adjoin cleanly cut gouges and rilles. - Comment: Specific locations please. And perhaps an explanation of why the mainstream take just doesn't wash for those locations? - Reply: Locations include Barringer Crater, Manicouagan and others on Earth and many on the Moon, Mars etc. Juergens found an Earth rille made by lightning that resembled lunar rilles. It struck Florida in 1949 or so and was pictured in National Geographic about that time. He also produced a table of lunar rille features which strongly suggested that E.D. is the most probable cause.
15- Cratered asteroids & comets .. Asteroids and comets are unlikely to attract so many impactors. - Comment: They don't need to "attract" impactors if they cross orbits with them. The objects that fall to Earth in the annual Taurid Meteor showers don't arrive because they are 'attracted' by the Earth's gravity well. The Earth collides with them because their short period, elliptical orbits, intersect with ours two times every year. And their orbits also take them across the orbits of all of the inner planets, and the asteroid belt. - A truly ancient object should be pitted like that. That they are all pitted with impacts is simply evidence that space isn't as empty as they've thought it was, and that collisions are normal. - Reply: This wasn't actually part of the list of anomalies, but it was mentioned in the same TPOD, so I thought I should include it on the list. I put it last, because I felt that it doesn't really contradict the popular Nebular Hypothesis.
* I'll be surprised if impact experiments can actually replicate all known features of most craters. Flat floors, no debris, unfractured basements, shocked rock, concentric rings, melted terrace floors and spherules are some of the things I'd be surprised to find from plain bolide impacts. Bulls-eye and pedestal craters I bet can't be explained as impactors either. The list above doesn't include a few important features, which I expect to post about soon.
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
E.D. FULGAMITE CRATER THEORY __OLYMPUS MONS DATA: = Jul 05, 2004 - Olympus Mons - Olympus Mons on Mars is called a volcano - It's 27 km tall, 550 km wide at the base and the largest caldera at the summit is 80 km wide. - It's almost as flat as a pancake. - Its edge is a scarp up to 6 km high. - It's a huge mound amidst several lesser ones on the Tharsis Bulge. __E.D. FULGAMITE CRATER THEORY: - It resembles a lightning blister. - Such raised bell-shaped blisters are found on lightning arrestors after cloud-to-ground strike. - They are called "fulgamites". - The material that forms the elevated fulgamite is scavenged from the surrounding surface to produce an encircling depression or moat. - Olympus Mons has such a moat, which does not match the bulge expected from upwelling magma beneath a volcano. - Earthly lightning usually consists of a number of strokes in quick succession along the same ionized path. - So a fulgamite often is hit by several progressively smaller strokes that make rimshot pits on the top of the fulgamite. - Olympus Mons has six such rimshot craters on its summit. __E.D. FULGAMITE LAB EXPERIMENT: - A laboratory example of an electric arc scar on a clay anode surface is shown. - At moderate power, the electric arc rotates (top right) and raises an extensive circular blister, seen clearly in the middle right image. - As the power is increased, the arc briefly stops moving and burns a small circular crater, seen as a glowing spot in the top image and at 4 o'clock in the bottom image. - The tendency for the arc to "stick" to one spot on the anode creates localized very high temperatures, sufficient to vaporize some of the anode surface to form smooth circular crater floors and steep terraced walls exactly as seen in the Olympus Mons calderas. __E.D. FULGAMITE CRATER THEORY: = Dec 04, 2009 - Craters and Buttes Part Two - Volcanoes on Mars are massive fulgamites. - E.D. can't make 100 km craters on Earth now, but it may on some moons. - Arc sticks to anode, causing melting and raising blister. - Fulgamite forms when E.D. pulls charged material from surroundings, dragging neutral matter with it. - Large electric arc acts as plasma tornado with very low pressure center, enclosed by powerful EM fields. - Central vortex crushes and melts substances into stone. ? [How can low pressure crush anything? Or do the E.M. fields do the crushing?] - Fulgamite scars on lightning arrestors are bell-shaped with circular crater, or craters, at summit, rising steeply from circular depression with many [concentric?] rings. - Most craters may be fulgamites with their tops electrically eroded. - Some fulgamites are left intact with no crater on top. - On Mars are vast areas where giant mounds of loose regolith have turned to stone after summits were ripped out almost down to bedrock, leaving conical shells. - Long-rayed craters like Tycho are located in highland terrain. - Plasma leader stroke came down from space. - Triggering electrons for Tycho's discharge were assembled by atmospheric breakdown from distant points in all directions. - Discharge attracted charged rocks and sand from hundreds of km. - It hauled them over surface to common collection point to mound up loosely due to like charges. - Secondary stroke jumped upward, pulling out center of mound like a rotating auger of fire. - Raised rims are remains of original mound of loose material. ? [What about inverted strata?] - As E.D. ended, thermal and magnetic effects fused remnants into stone. __SAHARA CRATER DATA: = Apr 07, 2005 - Earth's Richat Crater - Uplifted region in Saharan desert has circular crater 50 km wide with concentric terraces in layered sedimentary rock. - It has flat middle and lacks shocked rock. __E.D. CRATER THEORY: - Force that uplifted area also cut concentric crater walls. - Stationary arc can etch circular crater and machine out concentric circles in stratified terrain. __SAHARA CRATER DATA: = Aug 11, 2005 - Richat Crater Revisited - These three craters and a fourth line up and are very circular. - They're located on top of Pliocene sediments overlaying Precambrian gneisses and granites in western Sahara desert, Mauritania. - Projectiles outside crater are up to 20m long and consist of rock containing altered gneiss and granite clasts with small fractured glass inclusions on surface. - Richat Crater is very slightly oval and its major axis is in line with the two other craters. __E.D. CRATER THEORY: - Type of central "peak" depends on many factors: the narrowness, focus and intensity of the Birkeland current, the type of material being excavated and the material's current carrying capacity. - Narrow intense current excavates most material away from area, leaving deep craters with steep walls and central spikes. - Broad, less intense currents machine out shallow craters with central mounds, less steep walls, and material piled up along the edge and strewn around immediate area.
In 1920, a farmer was plowing a field near Grootfontein, Namibia when his plow suddenly screeched to a halt. Curious about what he had run into he dug in the soil to find a large piece of metal. The large metal mass quickly attracted the attention of scientists and others, who identified it as a meteorite and removed the soil around it.
Although excavated, the meteorite has not been moved from its location of discovery because of its great weight. However, many pieces have been removed for scientific study and through vandalism.
A 66-Ton Meteorite
The farmer had discovered a 66-ton iron meteorite - the largest single meteorite ever found and the largest piece of iron ever found near Earth's surface. It is tabular in shape and about nine feet long, nine feet wide and about three feet thick. It was given the name "Hoba" because it was discovered on a farm named "Hoba West".
Hoba is thought to have fallen to Earth about 80,000 years ago. It is composed of about 84% iron, 16% nickel, and trace amounts of cobalt and other metals. An abundance of iron oxides in the soil around the meteorite suggests that it was much larger than 66 tons when it landed and has suffered significant losses from oxidation.
No Crater?
It is surprising that this meteorite is not surrounded by a crater. Objects of this size should punch through the atmosphere at a very high rate of speed and hit Earth with enough force to blast a significant crater. No crater is present around the site of the meteorite. This suggests that it fell to earth at a lower rate of speed than expected. Some scientists believe that the flat shape of the object may be responsible for its low velocity at impact.
A Namibian National Monument
The Namibian government has declared the meteorite and the site where it rests as a national monument. The site now has a small tourist center and is visited by thousands of people each year.
(Highlight mine)
In summary: The world's largest iron meteorite fails to obey the most basic of physical principles predicted by mainstream scientists. Electrodynamics might provide a more cogent explanation of the observations.
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
* That's a good point, Mike: craterless impacts. I or anyone should add that to the list of crater anomalies. I'll try to do that eventually. * For now, though, I'm working on getting a few more TPOD data sets posted. * By the way, corrections of data and theory are always welcome.
2 TPODs on E.D. CRATER EXPERIMENTS * Below is data from 2 TPODs on crater experiments. * First, the History channel last night repeated an April 2005 show, "Meteors: Fire in the Sky". One of the scientists said the meteor that produced Meteor Crater didn't leave much of a meteorite, because, when it reached the ground, it became a fireball of iron gas, which expanded explosively. I think the idea was that the fireball turned from molten metal into metal vapor as it penetrated the ground and, just like water expands rapidly, as it turns to water vapor, the rapid expansion was an explosion that blasted most of the metal vapor out of the crater. So I have some questions. Would such a fireball really be a liquid that turns to gas, or would it be a liquid plasma that turns to gaseous plasma? I imagine meteor surfaces going at high velocity through the atmosphere first lose surface electrons, then lose surface ions, and I guess the process continues till the meteor is all vaporized. Could a liquid fireball reach ground without the ion trail triggering an ED? Why were manned space capsules able to return to Earth without triggering EDs? Because of using parachutes?
__E.D. CRATER EXPERIMENTS: = Jul 02, 2004 - Craters in the Lab - Craters shown in photo were made in lab by ED. - Craters tend to clump by size and occur in lines and arcs. - Ground appears burnt or discolored where discharge was strongest and craters densest. - Centers of some craters have bumps. - Dark streaks come from two larger craters. = Nov 08, 2005 - Electric Wind in the Laboratory. - Lab arcing experiments confirm ED can create complexes of craters, crater chains, gouges, trenches, and undulating channels like those on rocky bodies. - Electric "wind" generated by dark discharge (no visible arc or glow) produced all features in lab photo. - Image resembles Tyrrhena region of Mars. - Wind erosion cannot cause radial arrangement of channels. - Radial channels are surface etching by electric wind.
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
SHATTER CONES __MANICOUAGAN CRATER DATA: = Nov 26, 2007 - Manicouagan: Impact Crater or Lightning Scar? http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071126manicouagan~ - It's giant ring-shaped crater in Quebec, Canada, dated over 200 Ma. - Coordinates are N 51° 23' W 68° 42'. - It's 100 km wide with central uplift 25 km wide. - Central plateau rises 500 meters above lake, peak is 800 meters. - It has concentric rings, glassified spherules, shallow depressions, steep sidewalls and lack of debris. - Central plateau is igneous and metamorphic rocks, resistant to erosion. - Fine striations could be from glacial erosion or E.D. - Surrounding the crater are several sinuous channels. - There are melted rocks and fused breccias. - It has layering of distributed debris. - Some unique minerals around Manicouagan are in Great Britain as tiny glassified stone droplets. ? [That may be evidence for continental drift.] - Around Manicouagan site are features formed by tremendous shockwaves. - Many strata are "kinked bands" of biotite. - Shatter cones are in strata around crater. __MAINSTREAM THEORY: - One km of overlying rock was supposedly removed, including original rim three times wider than present. __E.D. CRATER THEORY: - Layering of distributed debris could be formed by spinning electric arc blasting melted slag across wide area. - Impact of big rock, even moving 45,000 km/hr, is unlikely to cause that. - Many craters have flat floors; impacts and high-energy explosions — even nuclear bombs — do not melt enough material to create flat floors. __E.D. SHATTER CONE THEORY: - Impact crater shatter cones should point upwards to point of impact. - Vredefort Dome, South Africa, shatter cones point downwards and to different points of origin, evidence of traveling underground blast, like from rotating Birkeland current. - On Mars are shatter cone patterns of incredible size. - They are dendritic ridges similar to those in Manicouagan. - Lightning strikes on pavement and in soils leave Lichtenberg figures. - Lichtenberg figures are remains of explosive E.D. through solids. - Shatter cones may be Lichtenberg figures preserved in stone. __AOROUNGA CRATER DATA: = May 03, 2006 - Aorounga Crater - It's in Sahara desert north of Chad, almost 31 km wide. - Coordinates are, N 19° 6' E 19° 15'. - Kebira is at N 24° 30' E 25° 0'. - Both craters lie in chaotic terrain, resembling surface of Mars. - Oasis crater is west of Kebira. - Aorounga has "implausible" parallel grooves and ridges, that run through surrounding landscape. - Crater pattern is similar to "pedestal craters" on Mars. - Floors of many such craters stand higher than surrounding terrain. - Kebira formation and Gilf Kebir Plateau are dated "millions of years old". __E.D. CRATER THEORY: - Parallel grooves are common signatures of electrical arcing on rocky bodies. - Multi-billion joule E.D. can make crater 19 miles wide. - Intense electromagnetic bombardment makes gamma and x-ray pulses, which would drastically alter the decay rate and isotopic ratios. - It can also form new elements within the rocks. [I may have inadvertently deleted some relevant data from this TPOD.]
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
Melts and Fulgurites __TALEMZANE CRATER DATA: = Aug 12, 2005 - Richat Crater Revisited (2) http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050812richatrevis~ - Talemzane Crater is in Algeria. - Projectiles of limestone block of up to 10m make up crest of rim. - Crater bottoms show no impact fracturing. - Several different quartz rocks have planar elements from shock, sometimes accompanied by fluid inclusions. - There's no other evidence of shock metamorphism. - Small impacts surround the crater[?]. __E.D. CRATER THEORY: - Large EDM craters formed from discharges between Earth and large intruding body orbited by charged material. - The material punctured Earth's Langmuir sheath and made ionized trails to Earth, which induced discharge arcing, which fragmented orbiting material, which impacted around E.D. craters. __AOUELLOUL CRATER DATA: - Aouelloul Crater, Diameter 390 m. located in Ordovician sandstones and quartzite in the western Sahara Desert, Mauritania. - Breccias are not found. - Glass is found on south, southeast, and north outer part of crater rim. - It's enriched in siderophile elements, has low water content, and contains lechatelierite, product of shock deformation. - Concentrations of Fe, Co, Ni, Ir and Re-Os isotope are consistent with meteorites. __E.D. CRATER MELT THEORY: - Lab bolide impacts expend most energy in shock displacement; material suddenly "flows" in starburst pattern and suddenly "freezes" again. - Energy is dissipated too quickly, so very little melting occurs. - E.D. directly heats and melts material. __QUARKZIZ CRATER DATA: - Quarkziz crater, 3.5km wide, is in western Algeria and has a central uplift structure. - External rim is 100m high and is made of strongly dipping sedimentary rocks. - Planar deformations from shock are found in quartzites in central uplift and in outer edges of crater. - Of dozens of Earth craters studied closely, only three had meteorite fragments. __KEBIRA CRATER DATA: = Apr. 24, 2006 - Libya's Kebira Crater http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060424kebira.htm - Crater lies in Egypt's western desert and is 31km wide. - Erosion by wind and water largely obscure it. - It lies within area of large broken chunks of yellow-green glass. - The glass is too pure to be impact melt. - It contains small internal bubbles with cristobalite, iridium and other platinum family elements, but no local minerals, like halite or alumina. - This type of glass is found at nuclear test sites. __E.D. CRATER FULGURITE THEORY: - The glass shards are remains of large fulgurites.
__GOOCHES CRATER DATA: = Oct 08, 2008 - Gooches Crater, Australia http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch ... ooches.htm - Elliptical arc-shaped beaches on East coast of Australia are reminiscent of Carolina Bays. - Gooches crater in Australia has many vertical sandstone cliff walls and haystack-shaped structures known locally as "pagodas" within the rim wall. - Pagodas are multiple layers of sandstone interlaced with harder mineral called "ironstone." - Nevada desert has comparable sandstone figures called "beehives" in the Valley of Fire, but without ironstone sheets. - Ironstone often encloses the more abundant sandstone in oblate casings. - Some ironstone casings are hollow and fall out of pagodas like eggs. __E.D. CRATER FULGURITE THEORY: - Ironstone casings are probably fulgurites.
Lloyd
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
__KT BOUNDARY & CHICXULUB CRATER DATA: = Jan 30, 2006 - The Mystery of Chicxulub Crater http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060130crater.htm - Chicxulub crater is circular structure 300 km wide. - Half is under shallow water off Yucatan Peninsula in Gulf of Mexico. - Gravity anomaly map of Chicxulub Crater area is shown. - Crater has multiple concentric rings. - Crater, global iridium layer and Gulf tsunami debris are dated to KT boundary, time of dinosaur extinction and other ecological catastrophes. - [The crater seems to have since been dated to "300,000 years" before the KT boundary.] - Iridium, melted spherules, shocked quartz are in KT sediment worldwide. ? [Is KT sediment on seafloors?] - Spherules [of carbonate?] show accretion like hailstones. - Above spherule bed is thick layer of all sized rocks in fine matrix. __KT - CHICXULUB ANOMALIES: - Large bolide impact would shatter basement rock with magnitude 10 to 12 earthquakes, but basement is intact. - Iridium layer does not conform to expected drift of debris cloud. - Inside crater are undisturbed layers laid down after impact, containing Cretaceous fossils supposedly wiped out by the impact. - Supposed impact tsunami deposits in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize show long-term layering with two layers of KT spherules separated by thousands of years, when lime accumulated and ocean invertebrates burrowed in it. - Odds of KT continental flood basalts and impacts happening simultaneously as per current theory are miniscule. ? [What if "impacts" triggered flood basalts?] __E.D. THEORY SOLUTIONS: E.D. Theory resolves all contradictions in the evidence. - Spherules show accretion like hailstones, because they formed in atmosphere from E.D. vaporized carbonate rocks. - KT layers resulted from widespread millennia-long E.D., which also occurred on Mars, Venus and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. ? [By millennia-long, do you mean occurring constantly, or frequently, over millennia? What would sustain E.D. for millennia?] - Primary discharge excised rock inside crater and left central peak without shattering underlying rock. - E.D. lasted longer than an impact and melted large amounts of material and formed vast clouds of spherules. - Spherules are a key signature of E.D. - Spherule-producing ability of E.D. is demonstrated in lab. - More than 99 percent of global iridium layer is spherules condensed from vaporized rock. ? [How thick is KT layer? Does it cover seafloors? How much of the KT spherules came from meteor and how much from Earth rock?] - 1 percent of KT layer is dust of pulverized rock. - EM pinch effect in E.D. channel generates extreme pressures, enough to shock quartz crystals. - Axial acceleration of E.D. pulls debris away from surface high into atmosphere, even into space. - Fallout of material was influenced more by electrical factors than by lower atmospheric circulation. - Size of impact crater depends on mechanical energy of impactor. - Size of electrical crater depends on amount of charge transferred. ? [Can charge be transferred via long lasting Birkeland current via ion trail?] - Large craters are most likely from close approaching planetoid, which also induces massive ground currents, causing flood basalts. - Electrical craters often appear in connected chains. - Gravitational anomalies of Chicxulub show it may be center of buried crater chain. - Dinosaur megafauna died after alteration of Earth's gravity during KT event.
GaryN
Re: Help Us Explain Crater Formation!
Excellent work, Lloyd, can't argue with much of what you propose so far. I only have one comment at the moment, and that would be about the Carolina Bays. I believe they may have been produced by a combination of impact and electricity, from large, icy and charged 'hailstones' produced within the ionosphere. We don't give electronic cooling processes enough credit for either past or present events, IMO.
