[meteorite-list] Scientists Excited About Potential Impact Crater Site in Missouri

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun May 22 23:15:11 2005
Message-ID: <200505230248.j4N2mFS13901_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://springfield.news-leader.com/news/today/20050522-Scientistsexcit.html

Scientists excited about potential site of meteorite
By Mike Penprase
News-Leader.com
May 22, 2005

The crash millions of years ago of what could have been a 900-foot-wide
meteorite in St. Clair County could provide lessons for today if a small
meteorite evading current detection methods hits Earth, an Austrian
scientist told colleagues at a meeting Saturday at SMS.

"It's not a question if it will happen again, it's a question of when it
happens again," University of Vienna researcher Christian Koeberl said
after a group of researchers who study meteorite impacts described
research from South America and Africa to near the Arctic Ocean.

Koeberl, who talked about a multinational research effort at the
Bosumtwi Impact Crater in Ghana, said he's looking forward to possibly
working with Southwest Missouri State University geology professor Kevin
Evans and other university researchers on what's now called the
Weaubleau-Osceola Structure.

Koeberl doesn't predict when meteors might become meteorites and strike
the Earth; he describes what happens when they hit, he said Saturday
before members of the Society for Sedimentary Geology. They were
attending a research conference at SMS and will today move from their
lecture room to climbing around shattered rocks in an area along
Missouri 13 between Osceola and Weaubleau.

If a meteorite created the structure, it hit some 300 million years ago
when mid-Missouri was part of an ancient Jurassic Age sea. The strike
obliterated plant-like crinoids, Koeberl said.

A similar event today would be cataclysmic, he said.

"Today, if something like this would happen, you'd have a kill zone of
50 to 100 kilometers," he said, an area equivalent to 31 to 62 miles
around the impact site.

U.S. Geological Survey scientist Jean Self-Trail of Virginia said she's
looking forward to today's field trip.

"The evidence looks fairly compelling to me," said the scientist working
on studying an impact site in Chesapeake Bay. The Missouri site is one
of several some scientists say run in a line from Kansas to Indiana.

Whether impact can be added to the Weaubleau-Osceola Structure or not
depends on more intensive research, Evans said.

But Evans is confident a theory will become accepted fact.

"It's pretty well accepted, actually," he said. "We still have a lot
more work to do. The impact community is pretty well behind us."

But discussing how ??? or whether ??? meteorites created the growing number
of craters found around the world can be intense.

Austrian scientist Koeberl wants more evidence before declaring the
Weaubleau-Osceola site about 60 miles north of Springfield a meteorite
impact site.

"At this point, there really is no confirming evidence," he said.

Twisted layers of rocks and an impact-related stone called breccia are
present, but Koeberl wants to see direct evidence a meteorite hit by
detecting bits that survived an impact so violent it could have caused
the inland sea to recede for a time, Koebel said.

That's why Evans said he and others are working on a grant application
to better fund research and have an acknowledged expert in his field
like Koeberl participate.

People like Evans are fascinated by the idea that a giant rock fell on
the Earth, but he said researching meteorite impacts can affect
non-scientists, too.

The most obvious way is providing information on what might happen when
a meteor flying through space becomes a meteorite when it strikes Earth.

And there actually are benefits from such cataclysmic events, Evans said.

Major oil and mineral deposits have been found near impact sites.

The meteorites themselves didn't create oil, zinc, or gold, but they do
create the conditions needed for those minerals to be deposited, he said.
Received on Sun 22 May 2005 10:48:15 PM PDT