[meteorite-list] Peruvian bolide message rehash, #2

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 14:56:27 -0800
Message-ID: <A8044CCD89B24B458AE36254DCA2BD070321B5EF_at_0005-its-exmp01.us.saic.com>

Hi All,

Here was my reply to the first message from yesterday:

- - - -
Sent: 3/1/2007 11:15am PST

Hi Randall,

> Do you really believe that a dust-devil the size of a F3* tornado,
> eyewitnesses to a streak leaving a trail, and a 4.0 earthquake event
> just happened to occur simultaneously at exactly 12:00 is just a
> coincidence? Isn't that stretching Occam's Razor just a tweak?

I'm not saying all three pieces of "evidence" are unrelated; I'm saying
that all THREE cannot be due to the fall/impact of a meteorite.

> It give a rough approximation to the expected effects of a large
> mass impacting the earth's surface. I tried adjusting the variables
> to approximate a 4.0 seismo.

> The results are at the lower levels of impact. This program indicated
> that there probably would not have been impactites created but would
> have produced small cratering. It also indicates that meteorites would
> have a much higher velocity than you stated. You indicated a couple
> of hundred meters per second. The actual velocity I believe would
> be closer to 15 kilometers/sec.

Pardon my saying so, but you are obviously well out of your area of
expertise. There is absolutely NO WAY a meteoroid with cosmic velocity
hit the earth in Peru without the entire world knowing about it. Do you
have any idea how large an object has to be in order to retain much of
its cosmic velocity and impact the ground at even 5 km/sec, let alone
15 km/sec? As I wrote earlier, you wouldn't be talking about a puny
1 kiloton event. The shock wave would have killed your witnesses.

The seismometers could have measured only three things: an earthquake,
a manmade explosion (less likely if the 4.0 reading is to be believed),
or
the terminal explosion of a bolide. As I wrote earlier, all you need to
do
is look at the timing of the shock waves at the geographically dispersed
seismic stations. In 30 seconds I could tell you just from inspection
whether the network detected an atmospheric (acoustic) event, or a
seismic event. You claim you have this data, so why speculate about
farfetched scenarios? --Rob
Received on Fri 02 Mar 2007 05:56:27 PM PST