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Biggest Meteorite that Hit the Earth?

A friend from France just sent me the June issue of the credible and
serious "Sciences et
Avenir" entitled: The Biggest Meteorite of the World.

Apparently, geologists who were
re-analyzing Landsat 2 pictures of Rochechouart and Bizeneuille, two
adjacent areas of
south-western France, discovered that the two already known 20 km-wide
craters were
in fact 200 to 300 km wide!  There shock waves actually touched each
other, as their
impats were 140 km apart, 200 million years ago.

The Rochechouart impact is said to be
the biggest meteorite that has crashed on Earth!  It is
taken for granted that the two impact structures came from the same
asteroid, and only a
few seconds separated them.  Further research has revealed that other
200 million year
old impacts have the same latitude:  Manicouagan (Québec) and
Saint-Martin (Canada).
Red Wing (USA) and Obolon (Ukraine) are also located on the same path
that can be
traced between Manicouagan and Rochechouart.  Remember the multiple
impacts on
Jupiter?  Same phenomenon here, they say.

This chain of impact is thought to be one of the five most important
catastrophes that have
happen on Earth.  They estimate the Rochechouart meteorite measured 15km
and the
Bizeneuille one perhaps even bigger.  The suggest that the impacts were
the equivalent of
40 million Hiroshimas (yes 40 million), affecting thousands of square km
in the Northern
hemisphere.  They would also explain the presence of the purest quartz
found on Earth.  It
is used by Nasa and other aerospace manufacturers.

As for the origin of these two meteorites, the article mentions the
theory of the tenth
planet, an outsider-kind of a planet, at the limit of our solar system.
It could be
responsible for "fishing out" comets from the Oort Cloud where they are
thought to be
circulating in great numbers.   Apparently, this theory is
controversial.  Perhaps, someone
on the list could tell us more about this intriguing Oort Cloud?  I
would like to know more
about it.

The article ends on a question mark:  will an even bigger meteoritic
impact be found on
Earth?  They seem to point to Manicouagan in Northern Québec, where they
found a 70
km-wide core.  The further study of satellite images will tell us, it
concludes.

If anyone is interested, I could scan and put the entire article on the
list.  It is in French.  Let me know.

A la prochaine!
--
Pierre-Alex Vachon - avachon@src-mtl.com
Réalisateur - Director
Emission Branché - http://radio-canada.ca/branche/


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