[meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011 02:21:52 -0500
Message-ID: <DA7D1E0EE7204A518BE5694E6A3C5346_at_ATARIENGINE2>

John, List,

> look at the Gulf of Mexico...

Take a look at this website:
http://www.scotese.com/

Here the PaleoMap Project is archived. The maps show
the configuration of the Earth's land masses in different
eras. You're talking about 66 million years ago as if
the layout of the continents was the same as it is now.
But take a look the map at:
http://www.scotese.com/K/t.htm

At the time of the Chicxulub event, what there was of
Central America ended at Yucatan and Chicxulub.
Western America was a long peninsula from Canada
down to Chicxulub. There was an ocean gulf separating
Eastern and Western America. The North Atlantic had
just started to separate from America; Europe was mostly
underwater. There were no western American mountains
at all, no Rockies, no Andes. North and South America
had 1000 miles or more of open ocean between them as
did Africa and the little pieces of Europe. North America
was tilted and rotated from its present position.

The shapes you're describing didn't exist then. There was
no round shape there. In fact, there was no "there" there.
If you save all paleomap images to disc and number them by
age, you can flip through 600+ million years of the Earth's
history like a flickering slide show, and watch the continents
waltz like drunken mice.

One thing, though. There's always been more water than
land, and that means a giant ocean, a "Pacific." Giant oceans
always have rift zones that generate and spread new crust,
which is pushed away to either side. The west edge of the
Americas is one chunk of crust after another drifting east
and piling up on the earlier pieces, hundreds of "cratons"
jammed up together.

Central America has been built up that same way from Pacific
blocks. The lands IN the Caribbean, the mountainous islands,
have been pushed from "behind," right off Central America and
into the Caribbean. Probably they will continue to move in
the direction of their present movement and end up out in
the western Atlantic!

If there IS an Atlantic, that is. Since Chicxulub, the Atlantic
has opened up, closed again, and opened up again. Western
Scotland is a piece of New England that stuck to Europe the
last time it opened, and parts of Georgia are pieces of North
Africa that did the same (both about 200 million years ago)..

In 150 million years, the western Atlantic will be gone and
the "Mid-Atlantic" ridge will run along the coast of both the
Americas, close than the rift zone that eges Japan today. In
another 100 million years after that, the two Americas, Africa,
Europe, and Asia will be welded together in one gigantic
continental landmass like the Gondwanaland and Pangea
of 250 million years ago.

In half a billion years, a supercontinent can break apart and
drift away in every direction until the pieces circle the globe
and meet up on "the other side" to form a new supercontinent.
(There's no reference frame, so "the other side" is a relative
term.)

Since we live less than a century, we think of the Earth as
a stable, reliable, almost unchanging place, very secure,
but if we lived for say, a billion years, Earth would appear
to be a restless, chaotic, unstable, and quite unpredictable
world, an utterly insane planet.

I like it, though...


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Lutzon" <jl at hc.fdn.com>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates


>
> Sterling,
>
> My ball-peen hammer and Schwinn are ready to go.
>
> On a serious note, i'm All for trying to figure out what's going on
> and has gone "out there"--however, i also believe "we" should fund
> many more studies to figure out what has already happened "here". For
> many years people discarded the puzzle fit of S. America and
> Africa--well lo and behold the Palisades + Europe. Now, just look at
> the gulf of Mexico--is it possible that this was a major impact site
> and the Chicxulub impact was secondary??.
>
> John
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "John Lutzon" <jl at hc.fdn.com>
> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 11:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates
>
>
>> John,
>>
>> You got one of those funny little hammers?
>>
>> We're running low on those hammers. All the monofuel
>> Humvees are checked out for months in advance. However,
>> there are five solar-powered inflatable-box RV's sitting
>> in the shed having the dust cleaned off. They're available.
>>
>> They make about 250 klicks a day with their 30 square
>> meters of panel. They follow the GPS Autotrails, and if
>> you see anything interesting, you can stop and let it
>> charge while you bike over and check it out. With those
>> high fat knobbly tires, you can cover a lot of ground in
>> 0.37 gee just by pedaling.
>>
>> If you decide to stay out past the 30-day mark of the RV's
>> supply inventory, the flyers can drop you a Supply Ball,
>> but you have to chase it down after it finishes bouncing!
>>
>> The RV's hold four, so bring a couple more geologists and
>> a paleontologist. Maybe you'll find the first fossil.
>>
>>
>> Sounds good, doesn't it?
>>
>>
>> Sterling K. Webb
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "John Lutzon" <jl at hc.fdn.com>
>> To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
>> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 9:16 PM
>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates
>>
>>
>>>I have next weekend open---Beam me up Sterling
>>>
>>> John
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
>>> To: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>;
>>> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>>> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 10:12 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates
>>>
>>>
>>>> EP,
>>>>
>>>>> All the theories in the world added together do not amount to one
>>>>> fact.
>>>>
>>>> But since we do not have ANY facts about the impact
>>>> rates on the Moon (or Mars or Titan or Ganymede or
>>>> anywhere at all and only inferential data for our own
>>>> home planet), the sum accumulation of facts is... ZERO.
>>>>
>>>> We ain't got one fact.
>>>>
>>>> And the contribution of reason / inference from
>>>> known quantities amount to considerably more
>>>> than zero.
>>>>
>>>> Am I not the the one who is always saying, about
>>>> endless speculation about the geology of Mars or
>>>> asteroids, that we will never know until we have
>>>> "boots on the ground," 100 geologists on Mars-suits,
>>>> carrying those funny little hammers, and scooting
>>>> around in monofuel Humvees, living in solar tents?
>>>>
>>>> Until then...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sterling K. Webb
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
>>>> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>>>> Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 6:55 PM
>>>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Moon/Earth impact rates
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Sterling -
>>>>>
>>>>> Usually, you are spot on, but in this case...
>>>>>
>>>>> In fact, no one knows if the Earth sweeps stuff up for the Moon,
>>>>> or the Moon pulls in more stuff that hits the Earth. NASA's
>>>>> garbage estimates for ELEs are a perfect example of how bad their
>>>>> "modeled" impact estimates are; NASA's estimated human ELE rates
>>>>> are even worse - they appear to be off by two orders of magnitude.
>>>>>
>>>>> Earth impact rates need to be determined from Earth data. Then a
>>>>> more general model may be worked out, using accretion data from
>>>>> all bodies in our solar system.
>>>>>
>>>>> All the theories in the world added together do not amount to one
>>>>> fact.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as the effects of hyper-velocity dust goes, I seem to
>>>>> recall parts of Surveyor being examined after lunar surface
>>>>> exposure.
>>>>>
>>>>> all the best,
>>>>> E.P. Grondine
>>>>> Man and Impact in the Americas
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________________________
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>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>
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Received on Mon 04 Jul 2011 03:21:52 AM PDT