Mars - Craters

[starbiter]

Hello Lloyd: You can plainly see craters. I see roundish areas at the bottom of the large crater that could be craters.

crater challenged, michael

[starbiter]

Hello again Lloyd: I'd be happy if there were craters on the rim. I believe craters on the rim can only be electrical!!! Steve Smith has shown us many examples with the Tpods. The crater under discussion doesn't seem like a slam dunk to me. But i haven't been there.

friend of crater rim craters, michael

[GaryN]

Hi michael,
To my eyes, the most obvious craters run on the outer rim from SSE to about SW. Granted, most are not round, more elongated, but I believe these to be electrical excavations. Crater rim glows have been reported on the moon for centuries, I believe, and St Elmos fire from mountain tops, and other sharp or pointy features, on the earth. The charge density would be higher on the sharp edge of the rim, making for a more attractive location for charge equalisation.
Slightly off topic. I was looking at some of the Olympic mountain peaks through my bins. this morning, from here on Vancouver Island, just to see how the snow/ice was doing, and I got to wondering about the 'bowls' that the glaciers sit in. All around them are some very jagged pointy peaks, which suggest (through electrical eyes anyway!) a 'sucking up' of these peaks, rather than a pushing up from colliding plates. If so, could the snow/ice bowls also have been from electrical forces? I'll have to have a look on Google Earth and see if I can spot anything supporting the idea.
Although I haven't made comment on your posts in the other threads michael, I have been observing, and you have given me much to think about on the origins of Vancouver Island, and the features found thereon. I'm hoping to post some observations and proposals, in the appropriate areas, at some future date. Anything that gets the ol' brain cells churning is good, thanks michael!

[starbiter]

Hello Gary: I agree they could be craters. I want them to be craters. Just not classic examples like the rest of the Solar System provides.

Blowing snow creates dunes. They [the snow dunes] reproduce the original shape of the mountain before erosion. I think most of the erosion was electrical.

Sand does the same thing to the Namib Dunes. The mountains that underlie the dunes are electrically eroded dunes. The sand then recovered the mountains [fossilized dunes] recreating the original shape. The original process was probably wet [precipitation]. Today there is no water to erode the round basins. Look at the ridges.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UT ... 2&t=h&z=14

I hope this isn't jibberish.

michael

[webolife]

Gary,
The cirque geology you observe in the Olympics is fairly well understood by the dynamics of weathering and erosion from ongoing glacier formation. At the head of the glacier, the ice "eats" away [by alternate expansion/contraction] at the sides of the mountain producing amphitheatre shaped "cirques" ultimately carving the summit back to the "horn" shape so well exemplified by the Swiss Matterhorn.

[GaryN]

Hi webo,
I don't doubt there are many formations attributable to 'regular' weathering conditions, but the Olympics, viewed from some altitudes in Google Earth, do seem to take on that electrical look. I had a quick browse, and found what I think are questionable features, from the standard point of view. The resolution is not that good, but there is a ridge just below center image here that I think shows 3 or 4 'bowls' along the ridge.
Pure speculation of course, but when so much of science seems to be pointing us in the wrong direction on many fronts, I have to be open to alternatives.

http://www3.telus.net/myworld/eneverse/olympics1.jpg

[starbiter]

Hello Matt: I was referring to the cornice, not the bowl. I spent a lot of time in Mammoth CA. The ridge of the snow bowl reforms every year with a snow dune.

http://www.google.com/images?expIds=256 ... 40&bih=642

http://www.google.com/images?expIds=256 ... 80&bih=683

Many mountains have snow ridges that mimic the original uneroded ridgeline, IMO.

michael

[webolife]

Hey Gary,
I had the pleasure of two trips to Hurricane Ridge [above Port Angeles] this summer, where you get to observe the cirques close up and personal. Hurricane Ridge is in a cirque, so it is easy to see the erosional process in front of your face. I'm warming slowly to the concept of electrical cratering, but mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges does not appeal to my sense of Occam. I think it does a disservice to the unifying power of EU to push its extreme characteristics beyond the range of observability.

[Shelgeyr]

Gary,
The cirque geology you observe in the Olympics is fairly well understood by the dynamics of weathering and erosion from ongoing glacier formation. At the head of the glacier, the ice "eats" away [by alternate expansion/contraction] at the sides of the mountain producing amphitheatre shaped "cirques" ultimately carving the summit back to the "horn" shape so well exemplified by the Swiss Matterhorn.

Webolife, two things:

1) My understanding (such that it is) is that weathering tends to soften things, not sharpen them, and at a glance I'd have to categorize the Matterhorn as "sharp" (as opposed to the Appalachian Mountains in America, which are old and soft). That’s hardly a scientific opinion, I realize, and I’ll readily admit I’ve done no experiments to back this up, but isn’t that the general understanding?

2) Regarding the Matterhorn specifically, I’ve read from several sources that the “horn” itself is not native to the (immediate) area – that it rests on dissimilar strata and was either moved to its current location by glaciers (one view, the accepted view), or thrown by EM forces (another view, and one I think likely while acknowledging that it is not a proven fact). Also, the horn is upside-down, i.e. the geologic column of fossils is reversed, with the oldest on top and the youngest on bottom.

This may be neither here nor there regarding your comment about the Olympics, and I apologize if my comment is a moot side-issue to yours, but you had previously said:

Gary,
I'm warming slowly to the concept of electrical cratering, but mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges does not appeal to my sense of Occam. I think it does a disservice to the unifying power of EU to push its extreme characteristics beyond the range of observability.

I think the key issue here is “…beyond the range of observability”. I know there is no need to lecture you about “scaling” – I’m pretty sure you’re clear on the subject. But like it or not, we happen to be living in a NON-mega-auroral, NON-EDM excavating age (at least locally). This may skew the application of Occam’s Razor.

I mean, if we spent out lives dodging auroras randomly flashing into arc mode, and seeing asteroids blasted from space before they ever got close to the atmosphere, and had to have the concept of “glaciers” patiently explained to us since we’d never heard of such things, the supposition that glacial weathering COULD produce cirques would garner Occam-inspired gut laughter. We don’t live in that world, obviously, but I propose to you that since we have reproducible experimental reasons for believing such phenomena are well within the bounds of the “historically possible”, and that the application of Occam is so individually subjective, that it would be inadvisable to dismiss “mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges” as failing the “simplest explanation” test. It might actually BE the simplest feasible explanation, if all things are actually considered.

Personally, I start with the assumption that all solid bodies in the universe (and I include stars and gas planets in that description) are "essentially fulgurites", and work backwards from there. So I’d naturally ask “why should I believe that such-and-such a geologic structure was created by something other than EM forces, since the whole planet was? Or: Why consider glaciers in this particular case when we have a simple EM explanation already built in?” I’m not saying “Glaciers” is the wrong answer – I’m not saying glaciers didn’t carve Hurricane Ridge – I’m saying I’d personally want some pretty strong evidence if I was going to override my tendency to naturally attribute its formation to EM forces.

That’s “bias”, I admit, but I don’t think it is an unreasonable one.

Occam's Razor operates within the bounds of the assumptions of its wielder.

[GaryN]

I'm warming slowly to the concept of electrical cratering, but mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges does not appeal to my sense of Occam. I think it does a disservice to the unifying power of EU to push its extreme characteristics beyond the range of observability.

Beyond the range of observability? I'd say the observability is there, it is the willingness (OK, maybe naivety ) to interpret the observed for what it (IMVHO) really is, that is the issue.

[webolife]

Eeesh. Read my last post on the "Duning" thread, if you care to. I'm think I'm finished over there, maybe this time for good.

[Shelgeyr]

Eeesh. Read my last post on the "Duning" thread, if you care to. I'm think I'm finished over there, maybe this time for good.

Webolife, I hope I didn't offend you - that was certainly not my intention at all. For what it is worth, I value your input and enjoy reading your posts.

[webolife]

No offense taken. Neither unwillingness nor naivete are my problems.
I understand very well that observation is always through the colored spectacles of personal perspective.
Even the most "objective" observation will be tainted by an underlying belief. Glowing gas to one, Birkeland currents to another. The first Russian cosmonaut declared unequivocally that there was no God in space, while the first American astronaut quoted, "The heavens declare the glory of God." O-ists see nothing but objects in motion, while ID-ers see order and purpose. There are IMO true facts in the universe, and it is only through dialogue with folks of a different viewpoint that we are able to increase the scope of that perspective toward true understanding. Hence my signature line.

[GaryN]

The hexagonal craters are electric. I couldn't post the images, but at the linked page you will see a well defined, hexagonal electrostatic discharge crater. An example of scaling, too, as it is magnified 27,000X.
One of the images also reminds me of some excavations with an 'outlet', like the ones formed by water when mars was supposedly warm and wet. I won't say Mars was never warm and wet, perhaps its surface, along with the water was ripped off and landed on us, but I don't think any of the present features were water formed.
http://solutions.3misrael.co.il/wps/por ... ng/Photos/

[seb]

Good photos. The middle photo on the bottom row, to me, looks the most interesting. It shows electrical damage forming rift features like the Valles Marineris.

Has anybody put any numbers to how high a voltage, what current, the distance, and the length of time needed to form craters and scars of the size we see on the Moon and Mars? A lot is made of the scalability of plasma, and small-scale structures give very attractive examples of the possibility of electric craters, but I suppose the question is whether the numbers are plausible and add up when looking at scars that are miles, or even hundreds of miles, across.

If such numbers could be found, so the amount of electricity needed to explain everything could be quantified and suitable plausible sources identified (or preferably predicted), then it would help the EU cause quite a lot. At the moment I think that the biggest problem that people have with the EU theory is the disbelief of mind-boggingly large electrical events having happened when the worst we experience in our daily lives is rather mild atmospheric lightning, not to mention the argument that it couldn't be electrical because consensus theory doesn't allow for so much electricity to occur. Electrical discharge damage is pretty much inevitable and unavoidable on a small scale in the universe; ideally a good scientific argument is needed to show that the universe is agnostic to scale and so it is inevitable and unavoidable on all scales up to and beyond the planetary and galactic scales. I think a lot of EU-sceptics are willing to accept the similarity between EDM and extraterrestrial features, and they're willing to accept the scalability of plasma, they're just not willing to accept that the scalability has ever manifested itself.