[meteorite-list] Bad Science on ancient meteorite impactor?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:22:23 -0500
Message-ID: <04b301c89375$5024e0f0$b35ee146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

It's not an entirely new theory, exactly...

The pair are at the University of Bristol, UK:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2008/212017945233.html
Credentials of the authors are found on this page.

The press release is because it's one of a series of articles
in a forthcoming book that ties the 3123 BC event to myth,
Bible history, etc., so this is a book promo at heart. Read:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/31/kofels_asteroid/

There have been numerous "interpretations" of the meaning
of this tablet since Western publication 1880. These are
summarized here, with a excellent drawing of the tablet:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ioXXW15VWGgC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=K8538+Planisphere&source=web&ots=EOIz7ZpM75&sig=rodh5jTEt4y08bFcTiBc_iNWpl8&hl=en
This 2006 book has a long and elaborate explanation of the
tablet that does not include any impactors.

A recent paper on Koefels uses to 10Be dating to determine the
giant landslide has a history of thousands of years of multiple landslides:
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU2007/02177/EGU2007-J-02177.pdf
However, the altitude makes the use of 10Be dating uncertain.

Here's an Austrian presentation of the feature. I note that they
mention that the landslide contains unexplained "fused rock"!
Hmmmm... How do you fuse rock in a slide?
http://info.tuwien.ac.at/geophysik/research/landslides/1997_pr01/structure/koefels.htm
It also states that the uncalibrated radiocarbon date is 8700 year BP.

Sumerian scholars are not overwhelmed by the new interpretation:
    "Academics were also quick to disagree with the findings, which
were published in A Sumerian Observation of the K?fels's Impact
Event. John Taylor, a retired expert in Near Eastern archaeology at
the British Museum, said there was no evidence that the ancient
Sumerians were able to make such accurate astronomical records,
while our knowledge of Sumerian language was incomplete. 'I remain
unconvinced by these results,' he added."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

This source discusses the state of quartz grains in the "landslip":
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4934527

Here's a quote:
    "The crystalline quartz fragments in the pumice are severely
annealed and numerous tiny water bubbles are precipitated on
the dislocations. Pure silica glass is also detected between the
quartz grains. No defects characteristic of shock metamorphism
are detected although the landslide process must have released
an energy comparable with the impact of a large meteorite (?
30 m wide) reaching the earth at ? 20 km/s. Our observations
thus confirm that landslide processes release their energy much
more slowly than impacts in such a way that this energy is
dissipated in the form of heat without radiation or shock wave
effects. The pumiceous glass of K?fels formed by usual high-
temperature melting and not by shock metamorphism as previously
suggested by some authors."

As you can see, the suggest of an impact is not new. Personally,
I fail to see how a landslide could generate enough heat by friction
to melt quart into pure silica glass (like a tektite).

See, I started out sceptical, and now I'm not so sure...

This collector considers "k?felsite" as an impactite:
http://www.somerikko.net/collection/index.html
    "Age between 8000 and 16000 years is from glass.
Theory has been recently presented that k?fels has been
formed during a giant landslide about 9000 years ago.
That landslide was so huge that rock melted because
friction. So there is still a possibility that K?fels is not
an impact structure. However, there is lots of big landslides
in Alps but no other similar cases is found yet. Also PDF's
in quartz has been reported in samples from K?fels, and
PDF's are produced only by impacts. "
http://www.somerikko.net/old/geo/imp/refer.htm

There has been iridium analysis, but it's inconclusive.

I'm going to stop Googling now (2350 hits)


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "McCartney Taylor" <mccartney at blackbearddata.com>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 2:33 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Bad Science on ancient meteorite impactor?


I don't agree with most of these conclusions. I motion to have this
work peer reviewed by meteoriticists. Do I hear a second?

-mt

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/uob-cct033108.php


Cuneiform clay tablet translated for the first time
A cuneiform clay tablet that has puzzled scholars for over 150 years has
been translated for the first time. The tablet is now known to be a
contemporary Sumerian observation of an asteroid impact at K?fels,
Austria and is published in a new book, 'A Sumerian Observation of the
K?fels' Impact Event.'

The giant landslide centred at K?fels in Austria is 500m thick and five
kilometres in diameter and has long been a mystery since geologists
first looked at it in the 19th century. The conclusion drawn by research
in the middle 20th century was that it must be due to a very large
meteor impact because of the evidence of crushing pressures and
explosions. But this view lost favour as a much better understanding of
impact sites developed in the late 20th century. In the case of K?fels
there is no crater, so to modern eyes it does not look as an impact site
should look. However, the evidence that puzzled the earlier researchers
remains unexplained by the view that it is just another landslide.

This new research by Alan Bond, Managing Director of Reaction Engines
Ltd and Mark Hempsell, Senior Lecturer in Astronautics at Bristol
University, brings the impact theory back into play. It centres on
another 19th century mystery, a Cuneiform tablet in the British Museum
collection No K8538 (known as "the Planisphere"). It was found by Henry
Layard in the remains of the library in the Royal Place at Nineveh, and
was made by an Assyrian scribe around 700 BC. It is an astronomical work
as it has drawings of constellations on it and the text has known
constellation names. It has attracted a lot of attention but in over a
hundred years nobody has come up with a convincing explanation as to
what it is.

With modern computer programmes that can simulate trajectories and
reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago the researchers have
established what the Planisphere tablet refers to. It is a copy of the
night notebook of a Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the
sky before dawn on the 29 June 3123 BC (Julian calendar). Half the
tablet records planet positions and cloud cover, the same as any other
night, but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough
for its shape to be noted even though it is still in space. The
astronomers made an accurate note of its trajectory relative to the
stars, which to an error better than one degree is consistent with an
impact at K?fels.

The observation suggests the asteroid is over a kilometre in diameter
and the original orbit about the Sun was an Aten type, a class of
asteroid that orbit close to the earth, that is resonant with the
Earth's orbit. This trajectory explains why there is no crater at
K?fels. The in coming angle was very low (six degrees) and means the
asteroid clipped a mountain called Gamskogel above the town of
L?ngenfeld, 11 kilometres from K?fels, and this caused the asteroid to
explode before it reached its final impact point. As it travelled down
the valley it became a fireball, around five kilometres in diameter (the
size of the landslide). When it hit K?fels it created enormous pressures
that pulverised the rock and caused the landslide but because it was no
longer a solid object it did not create a classic impact crater.

Mark Hempsell, discussing the K?fels event, said: "Another conclusion
can be made from the trajectory. The back plume from the explosion (the
mushroom cloud) would be bent over the Mediterranean Sea re-entering the
atmosphere over the Levant, Sinai, and Northern Egypt.

"The ground heating though very short would be enough to ignite any
flammable material - including human hair and clothes. It is probable
more people died under the plume than in the Alps due to the impact
blast."

                                  ###
The full translation of the tablet together with the analysis supporting
these conclusions can be found in the book, 'A Sumerian observation of
the Kofels' impact event' published by Alcin Academics, ISBN 1904623646,
priced at ?12.99.



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Received on Mon 31 Mar 2008 05:22:23 PM PDT