[meteorite-list] Please help save the gigantic crater buried deep under the ocean and solid rock!

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:06:00 -0400
Message-ID: <muu784lpl08os0a6043jrp7ku056b0adph_at_4ax.com>

If we don't act now, the whole thing could be destroyed with only trillions of
dollars and hundreds of years of concerted effort by the entire global
population! So act today!

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/07/20/3556594.htm

NASA calls for protection of asteroid impact zone in Mexico

(EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mexico City, Jul 20 (EFE).- NASA is
advocating that the Mexican zone of Chicxulub, where 65 million years ago a
large meteorite impacted, changing the course of evolution on Earth, be declared
a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

"It's a site unique in the world" where a phenomenon occurred that "changed the
evolution of the Earth," Dr. Isabel Hawkins, an Argentine-U.S. astronomer with
the University of California at Berkeley and contracted with by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, to work in the zone, told Efe.

A meteorite calculated to have been 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) in diameter
created the Chicxulub crater - a feature 200 kilometers (124 miles) wide - when
it struck the spot just at the point in time separating the Cretaceous and
Tertiary Periods.

The characteristics of the crater are still being investigated by scientists.

Seventeen years ago, NASA began sending missions to the zone to analyze the
stratigraphy and geology there with an eye toward comparing the data with other
verified meteorite impact sites, about 200 of which exist all around the globe.

The special aspect of the Chicxulub impact is that "the dinosaurs that had ruled
the Earth for 250 million years really disappeared" after the blast, Hawkins
said.

It was at that point that another group of vertebrates, the mammals, "who were
smaller and could not compete with the dinosaurs, could gain ground, increase
their strength and gain importance" evolutionarily, she said.

Now, a scientist for NASA, Colombian Adriana Ocampo, is pushing UNESCO to
declare the zone a scientific World Heritage Site to preserve the impact
evidence and bring it to light.

"She wants to support the Mexican government to promote a Unesco initiative,"
she added.

Hawkins says that her colleague "as a first step, obtained the support of the
Yucatan government."

During the past week, NASA experts held open scientific-educational sessions in
the zone to win the confidence of the local residents - about 3,000 of whom live
in the immediate area - and make them aware "of the risk" for the area and the
benefits that could result if better scientific protection is implemented there.

Authorities are also speaking about fostering tourism and building a science
museum to explain the landmark event that happened here millions of years ago.
EFe

act/bp
Received on Sun 20 Jul 2008 11:06:00 PM PDT