[meteorite-list] Re: Tektites continued...Dirk Ross...Tokyo

From: drtanuki <drtanuki_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Feb 13 11:50:25 2006
Message-ID: <20060213165012.32283.qmail_at_web53206.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Norm, Steve, Sterling and List,
  Thank you for your posts on tektites. The fact is
we know very little about the formation of tektites
and where the mystery crater(s), if any, are. I have
spent almost 20 years searching Thailand, Laos,
Cambodia and the Philippines. So far, the theories
presented leave more questions and NONE of them have
led us to solving the mystery.
  My working hypothesis is that they were created by
multiple impacts...but no craters directly linked to
their formation have been found to date.
  I can accept that small Australites may have
traveled at high velocities and perhaps long
distances; but when it comes to Indochinites, some
150-200+grams with delicate tails (in drop forms) and
being glass, I cannot understand how they survived
landing on hard rocky surfaces even at free fall
velocity. Most of the tektites that I have collected
are from lateritic soils or eroded lateritic soils.
The laterites are comprised of clays, sand,large
pebbles to cobbles. In some areas the laterite is a
breccia and not a conglomerate. Other areas there is
laterite of only very fine particles and what appears
to be accreationary lapilli; yet other areas only
lateritic soils void of any tektites. The find
location and fall location in my opinion is not a long
distance apart. Glass does not withstand fluvial
transport without breakage and abrasion. Also at the
locations that I have collected in Thailand there are
populations of distinct shapes from area to area (my
paper presented in 2003 at the international symposium
held at Yamaguchi University, Japan; unpublished).
The sample size of the population was approximately
3000 tektites with a total weight of about 55kgs).
  I am convinced this puzzle can only be solved with
someone well-versed in physics and aerodynamics.
  I have done aerodynamic modeling on shape formation
and have been able to duplicate all of the splashform
shapes found in the field, at freefall formation
velocities.
  If anyone has any clues please feel free to comment.
Thank you in advance. Enigma sums up tektites.
Sincerely, Dirk Ross...Tokyo

PS: I am not addressing Muong Nong (layered tektites)
in the above, only splashform tektites. MNs have their
own separate set of problems in explanation. dr

--- Norm Lehrman <nlehrman_at_nvbell.net> wrote:

> Sterling,
>
> I too got drawn into tektites by the mystery. They
> often tell their individual stories plainly, but we
> still can't get the big picture out of them!
>
> One comment on your comments though. Tektites
> (australites) ARE very often emu gizzard stones. In
> the dry lakes where they are most abundant there are
> typically only two rock types surviving. Sharply
> angular little bits of quartz shattered by halite
> growth and the relatively smooth and conspicuous
> little australites. The latter are selectively
> picked
> by the emus. The aboriginees always check the
> gizzards of emus taken hunting for australites---and
> I
> always checked emus killed on the roadways! That
> theory is not a theory.
>
> Best regards,
> Norm
> http://TektiteSource.com
>
>
> --- "Sterling K. Webb"
> <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Steve, List,
> >
> > It's why I love tektites, as a puzzle.
> > Every theory explains some features;
> > no theory explains all the features of
> > those little devils.
> > I regard them as still a wide open
> > mystery, the only scientific mystery
> > still going strong after more than 200
> > years of hypothesis. (The first tektite
> > theory was published in 1788, long
> > before the first scientific theory of
> > meteorites, which had not even been
> > accepted as real yet.)
> > I keep a table of all the theories of
> > tektites, ancient and modern, and I have
> > 39 listed, including the one that assays
> > that they are the gizzard stones of emus!
> > There are several lunar theories. Nininger
> > (at one time) believed them to be Lunaites, or
> > ejecta from lunar meteoroid impact. Chapman
> > suggested that they were the material that
> > makes up the bright "rays" that a few young
> > lunar craters display, ejected all the way to the
> > Earth, thinking this would account for their
> > terrestrial distribution pattern (it doesn't).
> > Lunar vulcanism of the ordinary
> > volcanic variety has been suggested
> > several times, the last time by John
> > O'Keefe, who refined it to a suggestion of
> > deep hydrogen volcanoes with hypersonic
> > hot gas plumes, before moving on to another
> > theory.
> > I am not, BTW, denigrating O'Keefe
> > for changing theories in mid-stream. O'Keefe
> > put forward FIVE theories by my count, which
> > gives him more theories than any one else on
> > my list. He spent his not inconsiderable talents
> > on the problem, but all the theory buckets have
> > holes in them and leak like crazy, not just his,
> > but all of them.
> > Today, we have the impact "consensus"
> > theory, which is actually not a consensus at
> > all, because every impact theorist of note
> > has a tektite impact origin theory of his own
> > which is not compatible with any other
> > impact theorist's tektite theory!
> > But it's called a consensus because the
> > real consensus is that there is no point in
> > wasting any more time on tektites. We've
> > done them to death, performed every test;
> > it's time to move on and just accept the least
> > whacky answer by (unspoken) default.
> > Don't get me started; I wrote that post
> > chewing over the impact theories a long
> > time ago... I even have a pet theory of
> > my own (I call him Bruno and feed him
> > regularly) that manages to explain a lot of
> > tektite puzzles that the other 39 theories
> > don't, but --- guess what? My pet theory
> > has different but glaringly obvious flaws
> > all its own, so it's DOA, just like all the
> > other tektite theories.
> > They're a paradox. They're a problem.
> > They're like the jigsaw that seems to going
> > so well until somebody holds up a piece
> > you'd forgotten about and innocently says,
> > "Where's this go?"
> >
> >
> > Sterling K. Webb
> > ------------------------------------------
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Steve Schoner" <schoner_at_mybluelight.com>
> > To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> > Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 2:41 PM
> > Subject: [meteorite-list] Re: Meteorite-list
> Digest,
> > Vol 26, Issue 30
> >
> >
> > As Sterling Webb wrote, if the reasoning he
> posited
> > follows then there is no
> > way that tectites came from the moon. The
> > distribution on the earth, the
> > ablation shapes, stretch forms, and lack of cosmic
> > ray exposure pretty much
> > eliminate the moon as the source.
> >
> > Steve Schoner
> > IMCA #4470
> >
> >
> > Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 03:00:46 -0600
> > From: "Sterling K. Webb"
> > <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>
> > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Orbital debris
> > watching radar
> > To: <cynapse_at_charter.net>, "Meteorite List"
> > <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> > Message-ID:
> > <008e01c62fb2$d064d0f0$bb57e146_at_ATARIENGINE>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed;
> > charset="iso-8859-1";
> > reply-type=original
> >
> > Hi, Darren,
> >
> > I gather from the phrase about having their
> > orbits decay,
> > that by "Earth orbit," you mean "in orbit about
> the
> > Earth."
> > Orbits around the Earth only "decay" because the
> > orbit
> > touches the uppermost atmosphere enough to cause
> > drag
> > which, however minute, reduces orbital velocity.
> It
> > may seem
> > logical that materials kicked off the Moon would
> > easily and
> > immediately end up in an orbit around the Earth,
> or
> > at least
> > some of them would.
> >
> > But the truth is that it is nearly impossible
> to
> > get from the
> > Moon to the Earth, and that lunar meteorites
> almost
> > certainly
> > do not arrive at the Earth that way, however
> > illogical that sounds.
> >
> > The many simulations of transfer of materials
> > around the
> > solar system show the same result: impact
> materials
> > from the
> > Moon mostly go into eccentric solar orbits. a
> small
> > percentage
> > go into "co-orbits," that is, they enter solar
> > orbits very similar
> > to the Earth's orbit, sort of wandering along with
> > us, and it is
> > from that population that some get tangled up with
> > the Earth's
> > gravity and get pulled in. "Short" transit times
> are
> > 10,000 years.
> > When a lunar shows no cosmic ray exposure, that
> only
> > means
> > that it was less than 25,000 years.
> >
> > The reason why it's so hard to get from the
> Moon
> > to the Earth
> > is this: any object that falls to the Earth from
> a
> > "great distance"
> > achieves escape velocity by the time it gets very
> > near to the
> > Earth. And escape velocity is just that: you
> > escape. No orbiting
> > for you...
> >
> > There is a point, between the Earth and the
> Moon
> > where the
> > gravitational pull of the Earth and the Moon
> balance
> > each other.
> > Since the Earth is heavier than the Moon that
> point
> > is closer
> > to the Moon than the Earth. The point that lies in
> a
> > straight line
> > between the Moon and the Earth is the first
> LaGrange
> > Point,
> > BTW.
> >
> > But there are a multitude of points in every
> > direction where
> > equal force vectors from the Moon and the Earth
> > meet: a sheet
> > of zero gravitational potential.
> >
> > If an object is ejected from the Moon's
> surface
> > toward the
> > Earth without enough velocity to reach the zero
> > sheet, it falls
> > back toward the Moon.
> >
> > If it arrives at the zero sheet with just a
> > smidge of velocity
> > more than zero, it will fall toward the Earth,
> > ramping up to
> > escape velocity or near escape velocity at its
> > closest approach
> > then roar on out into the solar system.
> >
> > If it arrives at the zero sheet with a good
> deal
> > of velocity
> > more, it will fall on an Earth-influenced path and
> > probably
> > ramp up to a lot more than escape velocity...
> >
> > So, you see, stranger, thar ain't no way to get
> > thar from here...
> >
> >
> > Sterling K. Webb
> >
> === message truncated ===
>
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Received on Mon 13 Feb 2006 11:50:12 AM PST