Possible electrical scars on Planet Earth...

[Steve Smith]

If you're looking for information about how electric arcs excavate and sculpt the planets and moons, there are a couple dozen Picture of the Day articles that will help. In fact, the first article I submitted for publication was about Kebira Crater and how it might be the source for Egyptian "desert glass".

Over the last year there have been articles about Manicouagan Crater, Popigai Crater, Chesapeake Bay, the Zagros Mountains, Shiprock, Australia's sandstone monoliths, the Brandberg Massif, the Vercors Plateau in the Alps, the Patagonian mountains, the Amazonian tepuis (mesas), etc. All are electrical in orign -- the evidence precludes slow deposition of sediments, or the erosive effects of wind and water.

Something to consider re: the Grand Canyon is that the Colorado River most likely "adopted" the channel created by the lightning scar. The geological features of the Canyon are not those that one would expect from water erosion. The vertical walls, the terracing, the scarring on the rim, the scalloped edges, the "shadow" of another scar right next to the Canyon's trench...these are all the marks of plasma bolts rather than intertial or mechanical action.

Try this -- here are a couple 3D images of the Canyon. The top one is a "cross-eyed" 3D image. You have to look at the tip of your nose. The second image is like the "magic eye" pictures, you relax your eyes. However, the image is too big for me to see it that way. I use the cross-eyed version.

Grand Canyon

[rangerover777]

Thanks Steve,

I'll study that. Meanwhile, if you think there should be "molten evidence",
please try to point them out.

Cheers

[rangerover777]

I was lucky today to visit a client in Southern California, that told me that
at the last Christmas night it was a high wind that knock down a tree and
the tree knocked down a power line, right on and across his concrete patio.
So we went out to look at it, and here we go - exactly like the pictures Michael
Gmirkin of a lightning bolt hits concrete surface !!! http://picasaweb.google.com/mgmirkin/Li ... 5259278338
Well, not exactly the same but very similar. Same “canyon” like imprints, black vertical
walls, molten concrete rocks. I was quite ecstatic and took many high res. Pictures.
http://www.leedskalnin.net/cable-concrete-pics.htm

Seeing it on the net and see it in real life, touch it and looking from 10Cm away - is
a different story.

Immediately after recovering from this sight, I started to think about Steve Smith
picture of how the Grand Canyon was formed
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... &mode=view

Well, guess what, if Steve smith was right about a lightning bolt as a creator of the
Grand Canyon - we would have a “Black Canyon”…. When a lightning or high voltage
line are hitting the ground, so much energy they releases and so much heat is creating
that they literally melting and evaporating whatever in their way (to a certain extent of
course, depending on the duration, energy, the medium underneath and some other factors).
So far so good.

But beside creating a canyons like formations, they leave a layer of black molten matter
(in the concrete case it looks and feels like dry asphalt) on the vertical walls, along the
bottom of the canyons and actually every sq/inch is coated with this layer.
Beside that it leaves also round molten shapes, like if you spray wet asphalt on the floor
and let it dry. Also it leaves individual molten rocks (with sharp edges, like non-uniformed
crystal).

Now, in Michael Gmirkin and my pictures we can see all this on a small scale, but here
We are talking about the Grand Canyon…. Not anymore a ½” thick black layer, or ¾”
size molten rocks, but millions of tons of molten rocks, soil, minerals….
Even if it happen many millions of years ago, not even one molten rock was found in
the Grand Canyon….

So I’m asking : where are the evidence ?


Cheers

[bdw000]

rangerover777:
Well, guess what, if Steve smith was right about a lightning bolt as a creator of the
Grand Canyon - we would have a “Black Canyon”…. When a lightning or high voltage
line are hitting the ground, so much energy they releases and so much heat is creating
that they literally melting and evaporating whatever in their way (to a certain extent of
course, depending on the duration, energy, the medium underneath and some other factors).
So far so good.

But beside creating a canyons like formations, they leave a layer of black molten matter
(in the concrete case it looks and feels like dry asphalt) on the vertical walls, along the
bottom of the canyons and actually every sq/inch is coated with this layer.
Beside that it leaves also round molten shapes, like if you spray wet asphalt on the floor
and let it dry. Also it leaves individual molten rocks (with sharp edges, like non-uniformed
crystal).

Now, in Michael Gmirkin and my pictures we can see all this on a small scale, but here
We are talking about the Grand Canyon…. Not anymore a ½” thick black layer, or ¾”
size molten rocks, but millions of tons of molten rocks, soil, minerals….
Even if it happen many millions of years ago, not even one molten rock was found in
the Grand Canyon….

This seems like a good point. I'm guessing the technical specialists will have a simple answer for this, and look forward to your answers.

In my own experience, I've seen a lightning path through my own backyard: it looked just like a lunar rille in the dirt, about 3 or 4 inches wide and deep. Also, a layer of mulch about 3 feet wide on top of the dirt was blasted away perpendicular to the path of the lightning, some of it up to 30 feet away. But there was NOT any blackened material anywhere. Bark was blown off a tree, and the trunk split in two places, but no black marks. Maybe inside the tree there were burn marks?

I'm guessing that if the material can be blown away, it won't turn black. But if it is locked in place (relative to the size of the lightning bolt), like the concrete in a sidewalk, and the current flow lasts long enough, then you get burn marks. Maybe the way to put it is that if the current moves through some material, it tends to burn, but if the material is carried along with the current, burning is less likely to happen.

Electricity causes black burn marks in some situations, but not others.

Regarding melted rocks in the grand canyon or elsewhere, I believe the EU idea is that in some cases at least, the material is blown away from the contact point, just like the mulch in my backyard. Also, I have read many references in the TPOD's to rock formations that in EU eyes are electrically melted formations.

I get the feeling this is a simple technical issue that the experts fully understand.

[rangerover777]

Thanks bdw000 for the observation.

If a lightning bolt hit a dirt of grass (and dirt underneath), there is not much
resistance from the medium to the energy of the bolt. So the energy travel easily
between the grains (while separate them from each other) and scattered them out
of the bolt path, in other words it displace them.

But when a lightning bolt hits bedrock or hard surface or a boulder, it cannot
Penetrate so deep and it cannot displace it in the same manner it does to soil or
a tree. So the resistance to the energy creates heat. Not only heat, but this heat
cannot be evaporated fast enough and the only rout this marriage can take is to
melt the hard surface.

Maybe you don’t know that, but many layers of the Grand Canyon are made
Of limestone, and manmade concrete is made of lime (among other ingredients).
So similar results are expected when a bolt hit concrete and limestone. More then
That the concrete that in the pictures is 4” thick. The layers of limestone in the
GC are hundreds of feet thickness, so you would expect to even more molten
Evidence to show…



Also there are layers made of sandstone, which suppose to leave molten glass
pieces like in the Sahara desert (that if I’m not wrong the EU claim it’s a result
of a bolt hit’s the desert sand….). So why in the Sahara there are evidence and in
the GC there are non ?

Now approaching this subject logically : If we would have millions of tons of black
molten minerals in the GC, then you would say “Aha, here are my evidence”, but since there
is nothing to be found, you turn it to “we should not expect to see any molten rocks”.
So my question is : are we following a model or we following observations here ?

Cheers

[bdw000]

Hey rangerover.

As I said you have a good point that I feel should be addressed by the experts here (or point to where it has already been addressed).

But I would not assume that huge amounts of black material MUST be present in ALL electrical discharge events. I seem to remember several photos here of lab EDM experiments that show now black material.

Electricity flows all the time without burning its surroundings up. Do the wires in your house burn up as soon as current flows in them? Of course not. You have to have enough electricity relative to some amount of physical matter in certain conditions (I have no idea what those are) to get black, burned up material.

My guess is, again, that with explosive excavation, you do not have to see large amounts of blackened material in the canyons created. Keep scale in mind: a flow of current large enough to excavate the grand canyon probably treats that "solid rock" the way the lightning bolt treated the dirt in my backyard. Maybe that much electricity can move solid rock the way we push sand around with our foot.

My understanding of the glass in the Sahara is that it is scattered around the desert because it was blown away from the point where the electrical strike occurred. I also think the EU view is that sometimes with really big strikes the material is thrown into space.

I am certainly no expert here and just speculating. I would love to hear what some EU experts have to say about this "black" issue. Seems like a pretty good issue to bring up. Or, point me to where it is already discussed if you can.

[rangerover777]

Thanks bdw000 for your response,

I wish like you that Michael Gmirkin, Steve Smith or Dave Smith, will share
their view with us and clarify this issue.

About the electricity flow through wires in my house and nothing burned.
Let me remind you that opposite charges needs to meet where the medium or
resistor cannot transfer the amount of energy to a different form (mechanical, etc.),
then heat happen. So in the house wires could burned if we have such a defector
Appliance and the circuit breaker is not responding.

About the Sahara desert glass that was scattered around, I have no problem with
that, I just say that this phenomena should be consistent wherever a lightning bolt
hits similar matter or medium, whether it’s on earth, Mars or other places the model
have to give consistent answers (based on observations of course, not based on other
models).

Thanks for your honest curiosity.


Cheers.

[davesmith_au]

Giday rangerover777, an interesting and legitimate question you ask but not one I am qualified to answer with any certainty, but I will raise these points:

There is little validity in comparison of lightning strikes on concrete to those on rock, as concrete is made up of several ingredients including PROCESSED limestone. I'm not saying what you are proposing is wrong, but we must be careful when making comparisons without taking into account various differences.

However, I HAVE seen pictures of solid granite which has been subject to lightning strike, and indeed there do appear the black "melted looking" areas on said granite, so the similarity has been identified on rock. But as bdw000 hinted, there are many considerations to take into account, not the least of which are the strength of the discharge concered, and the material which the discharge hits.

IF the Grand Canyon was created by a discharge event, it would have to have been UNIMAGINABLY huge. So the ground may well have been treated like the dirt in bdw's back yard, blown out and removed from the site with little evidence remaining following eons of erosion since the event. If such a huge discharge did occur, it likely blasted most of the material clean out of the atmosphere into space... there simply is no Earthly comparison today for discharge events this huge, so it's a bit hard to imagine from our usual perspective.

I personally find it harder to believe that water/wind erosion could be responsible for such a huge canyon than an electrical discharge of mammoth proportions. I mean, how is water/wind going to carve out the many different shapes and features presented in the picture you just posted of the canyon? Water and wind just don't cut it for me, if you'll pardon the pun...

Cheers, Dave Smith.

[rangerover777]

Thanks Dave,

I agree with you that lightning bolt hitting concrete and Limestone (there are
many varieties of them), should not be compared, however it seems that the
density of the medium plays an important role here. There are several major
players that needs to be considered and several minor ones (and those I did
not think about).

Interestingly, in areas on earth where comets or asteroid impacted in the past,
it is possible to find remains of a great heat (I’m not sure if in all of them).
So beside the crater there are thermo evidences. I’m not an expert in impactology,
though I think there is a difference between a lightning bolt and an asteroid, in terms
of the molten matter they leaves behind.

I agree with you that water / erosion / weather cannot be accounted for such a
formation as the Grand Canyon. Though to me it looks like a combination of
uplifting / breaking of the earth crust, together with the geological layers arrangement.
I have to emphasized that I’m not a believer of Plate Tectonic theory and the common
explanation of how mountains, valleys, ridges, hills, etc. are made. They are just too
delicate for the crude geological theories. Including the Grand Canyon. So I don’t
have the complete answer to that and I keep my mind open.

Cheers.

[MGmirkin]

I was lucky today to visit a client in Southern California, that told me that at the last Christmas night there was a high wind that knock down a tree and the tree knocked down a power line, right on and across his concrete patio.

So we went out to look at it, and here we go - exactly like the pictures Michael Gmirkin showed of when a lightning bolt hits a concrete surface!
http://picasaweb.google.com/mgmirkin/Li ... 5259278338

Well, not exactly the same but very similar. Same “canyon” like imprints, black vertical walls, molten concrete rocks. I was quite ecstatic and took many high res. Pictures.
http://www.leedskalnin.net/cable-concrete-pics.htm

Good stuff there Rangerover777.

Yes, I can definitely see the bifurcations in several of the images. It also shows the [sometimes] characteristic darkening out to some radius beyond the actual excavation / concretion of material. As in the images I offered previously.

Good stuff. I see that black glassy material (exogenic fulgurite? essentially melted rock / sand {?}) was definitely formed in the process. I'm wagering it may be a condensation of sand and other minerals used in the concrete / cement. But, not 100% sure. Certainly bears further investigation.

I've seen similar images to the "peripheral discoloration" in shots taken by CJ Ransom of arcs to sandstone. Exact reason for the discoloration is as yet unclear. However, as someone else noted, those discharges did NOT result in blackened glassy materials. Though, I think it got close and may simply be a function of how long the material is exposed to the discharge. Getting more-or-less electrically "baked" the longer it's exposed. Just a theory.

As noted elsewhere, as well, where we see lightning strikes to grassy fields leading to true Lichtenberg figures in th grass, there is no blackening or glassy concretion to be found (err, there may be "fulgurites;" I meant to say there may not be blackened glass when lightning hits organic soil as that seems to come from rocks / minerals hit by lightning), so far as I know (not 100% sure if anyone has actually LOOKED more deeply than seeing the discolored grass itself in order to find out).

So, it may not necessarily be a requirement of a strike and excavation to create any kind of a patina or a glassy concretion. IE, if the strike is short-duration, sufficient to rip material out, but insufficient to actually discolor / glassify the material, it may still be a candidate. More study is definitely required in order to pin down the exact conditions / time frames leading to excavation, Lichtenberg formations (branching / bifurcating structures) as opposed to simply a hole in the ground with a fulgurite beneath, but no surface branching, etc.

Tentatively, there seems to be some evidence of directionality to "desert patina" in some regions of the southwest, which may inevitably lead to interesting conclusions about what formed them. Seems similar to the discoloration seen in lab pics, again of arcs to sandstone and related discoloration.

Still too tentative to say anything more definitive. Probably shouldn't even mention it. Just food for thought.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

In fact, this image:

http://www.leedskalnin.net/DSC_0056.jpg

reminds me handily of Candor Chasma...
Right down to the parallel crater chains west of Candor Chasma proceeding past the main "chasma" in much the same way we see in the concrete scar pic...

(Candor Chasma)
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-6.9264 ... r%20chasma
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-5.0471 ... p=infrared
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-5.0252 ... p=infrared

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

One is still tempted to be self-referential and refer back to a prior thread on dendritic flux avalanches, and the striking similarity to structures found on the large scale ringing Valles Marineris, many craters, etc.

(Dendritic Flux Avalanche vs. Dendritic Ridges?)
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... ?f=4&t=792
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 7371#p7371

I honestly think these things, if found related to dendritic flux avalanches (IE electrical discharges) will be a deciding factor in the discussion of Valles Marineris as an electrical discharge. I highly doubt that the usual theories anticipate these dendritic structures at the rim of Valles Marineris & "impact" craters (or "subsidence" / "pit" craters for that matter) and a number of other features formed by supposedly disparate processes. Even if so, would they predict the regularity of the depth they acieve, or should they be of all differing / random sizes, per the usual random weather / erosion processes?

Valles Marineris:
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V18551002.html
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V10901001.html
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V17041001.html
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V06233002.html

(Craters with dendritic ridges ringing their rims; view with IAS Viewer, usually the full image is in grayscale)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007735_1570
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007235_2350 (also displays e-wind effect, I think?)
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007892_1865
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_005823_1595

Pretty sure the same feature can be seen on high res shots of asteroids and/or various planetary moons where there is little atmosphere, ostensibly no weather, no internal dynamo, no volcanoes, etc.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

As suspected, similar structures are to be found on other bodies... Probably in places where thy have no business being:

Hyperion:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07740
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07761
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07742

Phoebe:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06067
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06073

I'm quite certain there are others, but these will suffice for now.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[rangerover777]

Thanks Michael,
for the answers and the pictures (I hope you have time to sleep at night…LOL),

I think there is a small detail in regard to the Lichtenberg / dendritic patterns :

1. When a lightning bolt struck a plan surface (does not matter what it is made of)
it creates Channels. Now, if you look at the overall outline of the shape, you have
clean cut pattern. But when you look inside - it’s quite a mess, even though it carry
some patterns, but not consistent and definitely not anywhere near the nice clean
cut lines of the perimeter. In the Grand Canyon - these patterns are inside as well ???

2. It seems that the discharge excavation apply only to the perimeter (which is a work
of art), though the inside have no similarity and the “digging” was done by “an untrained
lighting bolt”…LOL

3. That bring us to the next point - There are two types of imprints :
A. The trenched one (going downward w/ clean cut at the perimeter).
B. The “Ridgged” one (going upward - both the ridges and the perimeter carry clean sharp lines).
And I think there is a confusion here about these two different patterns.
When we looking at the trenched one, our brain assuming that the interior should be the same,
but in fact, it’s not. When we are looking at the Ridgged one, our mind see them
as invert of the Trenched ones - which is a mistake as well.

4. From what we’ve see so far in the Grand Canyon and on Mars we have both patterns.
Since Michael’s Pics. of the concrete are reliable and could taken as a reference point
for cooperation, then we have a problem w/ all the rest, since Lightning bolt most likely
cannot create an interior Ridgged pattern… Unless the Lightning emerging from under the earth
Crust upward…LOL

5. It make sense that a lightning bolt can excavate a clean line patterns - but it cannot
build them upward, and we already saw that it cannot clean cut the interior as nice
as the perimeter.

Waiting for thoughts.

* by the way, though it’s not the subject here : I think the simple hills, mountains, ridges
and valleys here on earth (the one that you saw millions times in your life), have a great
similarity to those “special patterns” that we are dealing here with. Though I could
not find any good explanation for them, yet. So maybe it would be wise to package
them together with this thread…

Cheers.

[MGmirkin]

Let's clarify the terminology here. you're referring to trenches and ridges, just want to make sure we're talking about the same features.

I assume that by "trenches" you mean recessed features such as the torn out concrete where the lightning bolt or power line literally ripped out material, or by theoretical proxy the grand canyon proper or Valles Marineris proper.

I assume also that by "ridges" you mean specifically the dendritic ridges that appear to ring the upper slopes of craters, and the Valles Marineris?

I agree that these might be slightly separate processes. It's still unclear the precise relationship between the two.

I think that the dendritic ridges may be either fulgurites hardened by currents along the periphery of the main bolt, OR they may be some kind of re-condensation of dust post excavation, following some pattern of discharge from the rim of the excavated region.

Either way, I know that the dendritic ridges appear to display a regularity of depth similar to that shown by the dendritic flux avalanche images. IE, most of the dendritic flux penetrates only a set distance into the {superconductor?}, with only a couple of branches intermittently extending a much further distance inside. The same formation of even depth penetration of dendritic ridges with only a few considerably larger penetrations seems to suggest (to me at least) that the processes are related. In what way exactly is as yet unclear.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin