[meteorite-list] Re:Comet hit Britain in mid sixth century, AD?

From: Paul Barford <pbarford_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jul 21 14:36:59 2006
Message-ID: <014201c6acf4$54351340$1f85cf57_at_chello.pl>

> And not be recorded historically except in the most obscure and oblique
> fashion? And not leave any apparent geological or botanical effects? I'd
say
> the parameters you are looking for would be supernatural.

I think it pretty obvious that if something this size had landed on Ireland
in 530 AD, we would have heard about it from a lot further afield!!

Sorry, in an effort to remain brief, I was not making myself clear. As far
as I am concerned the sixth century comet/meteorite impact explanation of
the observed effect is not a good one (there is another much more basic
explanation, IMO everything suggests the genetic sampling at the core of the
problem was faulty). I posted it here to see whether list-members had any
comments on the idea as such. Some historians in the UK are discussing this
and last time I looked some of them were apparently taking it seriously.

My later question concerned the implications of the (IMO faulty) suggestion
that a meteor "might" have done it. Remembering the all-too-vivid Japanese
video we saw here a few weeks back (!) I was just curious what size body
would have had the effect these historians are apparently proposing in all
seriousness.

The Arizona earth-impact program tells us "what happens if a body this size
and speed hits at such an angle?" and so on... but I wanted to start from a
hypothetical kill-zone 300 km radius to work back to what size body these
historians would be imagining. Just out of curiosity, I was wondering
whether anyone here had an idea.

Paul Barford
Received on Fri 21 Jul 2006 02:34:39 PM PDT