[meteorite-list] Boom, Poof, or Sizzle!

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:04 2004
Message-ID: <400DE914.6050307_at_fascination.com>

Dear Sterling;
Thank you very much, this was a very interesting reply. Yup, I sell
rocks, rocks that have been throw even. I also sell rocks at the local
gun show a number of times a year. Quite fascinating to sell rocks at a
gun show. Maybe some day I sell guns at a "personal protection
lazer-phazer" show.
Thank you for the wisdom,
Dave Freeman

Sterling K. Webb wrote:

> Hi, Dave,
>
> The gas can't explode unless mixed thoroughly and in the
> proper proportion with oxygen: two O2 for every CH4. Of course, if
> you wreck the piping, the gas could escape and mix with the
> atmosphere and if it were ignited you'd a gas well fire of
> tremendous size, I guess.
> But the energy released by the complete combustion of 100
> billion ft3 of gas is a pop in the bucket compared with the
> kinetic energy released when an impactor arrives unexpectedly. In
> all the hullabaloo, you would never notice the 100 billion ft3 of
> gas exploding. Of course, if you're close enought to notice, your
> noticing days are probably over.
> The key term is the velocity. You could throw a baseball (I
> imagine) about 30 m/sec. But kinetic energy goes up as the square
> of the velocity. A space rock arrives at 30,000 m/sec, 1000 times
> faster, which means 1,000,000 times more energy.
> The average 100 meter stone impactor coming in at 20,000 m/sec
> has enought kinetic energy to:
> a) crush 10,000 times its own mass of rock, or
> b) melt 100 times its own mass of rock, or
> c) vaporize 10 times its own mass of rock, or
> d) accelerate 100 times its own mass to 2,000 m/sec. (In real
> life, it does some of all these things.)
> But let's say you had a nice space based rail gun that could
> accelerate a rock up to a lousy 1% of lightspeed (3,000,000
> m/sec). It would easy to do if the railgun was long enough.
> That object would have 100,000,000 times more energy than the
> "normal" space rock and could cause the same damage even though it
> only weighed 1/100,000,000 of what the "normal" space rock did.
> Or, to put it another way, at that speed, you could make a
> full-size model of the Barringer Crater with a lump of iron that
> weighed one kilo (2.2 pounds).
> The significance of the squaring of the velocity term is so
> great that you could easily have a moving object whose kinetic
> energy per unit weight exceeds the energy per unit weight released
> from the reaction of the core material of a thermonuclear bomb. A
> suficiently fast moving rock would make "the bomb" seem like a
> fire cracker.
> Kind of interesting for a species whose first weapon was
> thrown rock that the ultimate weapon could well be a rock thrown a
> lot faster!
>
>
> Sterling
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> David Freeman wrote:
>
> Dear Listees;
> I came across an interesting bit of reading material
> that noted an area
> here in SW Wyoming is used as a natural gas underground
> storage unit.
> The formation has natural gas pumped into it under high
> pressure and
> the rock formation acts as a natural "tank" if you will.
> This tank holds
> over 110 Billion cubic feet of natural gas (picture an
> arasol can 10
> miles big a mile down). We have another field not far
> to the east,
> just as big, and major coal and coal bed methane
> occurrences in between
> and all over the place, many being developed at a fever
> pace.
> Now to the good stuff that prompted the boom, poof and
> fizzle......
> If the surface injection wells, and the piping down to
> the depth of the
> gas reservoirs were blasted by a meteorite like the
> Barringer Crater
> incident, what would be the odds of an explosion of the
> gas being held
> there? I am sure the gas would escape the "tank"
> formation. A shock of
> this nature could unleash the coal bed methane in
> explosive levels as
> well. There are over 8 major (meaning full capacity
> and 30" diameter)
> natural gas transfer lines through this area supplying
> natural gas to
> all of our friends in other states, we have 25% of the
> US proven
> reserves (out side of Alaska that is).
> Sudden impact barbecue possible?
> inquiring mind wants to know.
> Dave Freeman
>
>
>
Received on Tue 20 Jan 2004 09:51:00 PM PST