[meteorite-list] New, long, Carancas article II

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 15:04:31 -0500
Message-ID: <06a601c89758$4325dc10$8250e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Doug,

> to Schultz's credit, he has put
> a novel mechanism on the table...

Not only a novel mechanism but an unnecessary one.
This is just what Wild Bill Occam called "multiplying
entities without necessity."

And by your next Post, you'd noticed the gigantic Fly
in the Ointment when you asked:

> "Why don't other stony meteorites with
> TKW's over a ton do the same thing?"

In fact, there's a key word missing in that question:
"Why don't ALL other stony meteorites with TKW's
over a ton do the same thing?"

[Scribble, scribble...] If they all did, we would have
a Carancas-crater event roughly every three weeks.
(That's 170 fresh 10-meter craters since 1998.)


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2008 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] New, long, Carancas article II


Sterling W. wrote:

"Both Schultz and I calculate that the object was still supersonic when
it hit, still enclosed in a "detached" shock wave, so the sides never
ablated at any point."

Hi Sterling,

Yes, but to Schultz's credit, he has put a novel mechanism on the table
for scientific consideration of these "strange" dynamics and motivated
the issue of the role of the shock wave IMO to begin with. The oriented
case as presented by you and many others at that time was an
extrapolation IMO.

I personally like Schultz' refreshing contribution in the field. I
would rather call your thoughts the natural control for Schultz' idea,
and not anything particularly novel in meteoritical circles. While any
idea will need to be earthshattering :-), which explanation (the basic
made into a very special case or the spontaneous reorganization and its
complexity - or csome combination of ideas) at this point best complies
with Occam's Razor is not obvious to me.

However, no matter how distorted in length vs. width, if we consider
the object was over a ton, that is still a real lot of surface area to
survive down to a relatively very thick atmosphere at 4 km above sea
level at that speed. I don't think the shock wave could have powered
any deflector shields at the front of the bus - but I'm not qualitfied
at the moment to comment on that. The shear experienced by the material
at the front had to be enormous in the last 5-10 kilometers.

So this Schultz theory sounds good and a welcomed addition to
consideration vs. the highly oriented case.

Sterling - do you or does anyone know if the shock veins have been
shown by the scientists to have been caused upon impact with Earth?

Best wishes and Great Health,
Doug
Received on Sat 05 Apr 2008 04:04:31 PM PDT