[meteorite-list] interesting speculation Pacific "Basin" origin

From: Gerald Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:30:44 -0500
Message-ID: <00cd01c743ec$bcbcc860$6402a8c0_at_Dell>

Just for fun, before we understood about plate tectonics
and thought that land only moved up and down, not back
and forth, it was widely believed that the Pacific Ocean was,
not an impact feature, but an "outpact" feature, the place
where the Moon spun off the Earth, leaving what would be
the largest "basin" in the Solar System (if it were true, that is).
Sterling Webb
Hadn't heard this before but often considered the "break up" of Pangea etc.,
a result of impacts.
A "string" of cometary material similar to that which impacted Jupiter in
the late 90"s might do a superb job of "perforating" the continents into a
myriad of interesting shapes.
Or as the multiple "strings of impact craters" seen on the Martain surface
describe.
Not that impacts are needed to explain such phenomena. "Ordinary" tectonic
gyrations probably provide an ample source for the stretching and contorting
going on worldwide today.
Jerry Flaherty
Received on Mon 29 Jan 2007 04:30:44 PM PST