[meteorite-list] Tunguska explosion

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:08:30 2004
Message-ID: <3D8F2DFB.2CE062B4_at_lehrer.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Rosemary Hackney inquired:

> Why is it called the cauldron of hell?


Hello Rosie and List,

According to my RANDOM WEBSTER's, a "cauldron" is a large
kettle or boiler. Now, wouldn't you feel like in a "cauldron of hell"
in a multi-megaton airburst that devastated more than 2,000 km^2
marshy Siberian forest within seconds, inside a cauldron where
the inner 100 km^2 of forest were leveled within seconds as if
the huge, tall trees were nothing but small wooden matches?
The TNT equivalent of the explosion is estimated at 15 megatons,
and if the projectile was a comet, the total mass was more than
7 x 10^6 tons, and the diameter of core more than 160 m. As a
comparison, the diameter of the impactor that excavated Meteor
Crater in Arizona, was about 50 meters and the energy released
about 20 to 40 megatons.


Best regards,

Bernd
Received on Mon 23 Sep 2002 11:06:35 AM PDT