KT boundary

[redeye]

The Cretaceous Tertiary extinction event is marked by a layer of geological strata known as the KT Boundary which appears to show that around 65mya the entire Earth burned.

There are several known crater formations dated around the same period, amongst them Silverpit(unconfirmed) and Chicxulub

These craters show evidence that the site was submerged at the time of formation, additionally, the Thunderbolts team have presented evidence that the Chicxulub crater and in fact all craters could have been formed by massive interplanetary lightning bolts. In such a situation, massive amounts of salt water would have been electrolytically "cracked"(I can't find the right verb) into it's constituent ions: hydrogen; oxygen; chlorine and sodium hydroxide.

There is evidence that sea levels dropped radically during this period (see Maastrichtian sea-level regression in the Cretaceous-Tertiary EE link at the top of the page). Could this increase in oxygen and hydrogen have caused the conflagration recorded in the KT boundary?

Cheers!

[webolife]

Redeye,
I've considered the catastrophic effects of hydrolysis in another post somewhere, can't remember where or if it was on the demised forum. Hydrolyze is the verb you seek. Fortunately the neutralization reaction of NaOH and HCl to form water and salt is an entropic one-way process in nature. The co-presence of Cl- and Na+ ions reverts to NaCl immediately. It takes specific lab apparati to reform NaOH from saltwater. (Please correct me, chemists, if I'm wrong.) Were it even conceivable for lightning strokes upon the ocean to create those compounds, I think there would have been significant evidence of that throughout the earth. Water electrolyzes nicely into H2 and O2, which given a good jolt will energetically recombine to form water. This is one of those properties of water which make life possible on the earth. I'm very interested in the KT boundary, as one of several events in a global deluvial scenario. I go for the meteor/asteroid impact explanation generally, but am eager to understand more about what happens both to the surface (eg lichtenberg features) and in the crust (telluric currents, fulgurites, giant cavity crystal formations, etc.) when a meteor/asteroid discharges electrically above the earth's surface, as is commonly observed.

[redeye]

Thanks for that web. That's been bugging me for months but I just didn't have the knowledge to falsify it myself...another successful exorcism!

I have to admit that I prefer an impact scenario for the Chicxulub crater, although I am slowly starting to come over to the plasma discharge camp. I always looked at plasma disharge as the mythical brother of mechanical impact, but it has recently occurred to me that it's the other way around. We have no direct evidence of an impact (save for Shumaker Levy 9s encounter with Jupiter) whereas the footage returned by the Columbia shuttle showed meteors entering the mesosphere and discharging down the length of their plumes, not to mention the tragic demise of the shuttle itself.

I also think there would be a significant electrical component to a mechanical impact as well.

Cheers!

[webolife]

Since coming to EU, I have entertained the [first possibility, then] probability that meteors discharge and/or explode above the earth surface as a general rule. To me this still qualifies as a meteoric "impact" and the resultant bolides as meteorites, as opposed to cosmic thunderbolt strikes, with their resulting fulgurites. Much of this debates rests on the question of transmutation and of planetary EDMs. I still look forward to specific scientific encounters with these mechanisms for the formation of iridium-laced glass spherules, canyon carving, and monolithic upheavals. Electric communication between Ionosphere, the ozone layer and earth surface, their cosmic causes, and crustal effects... I suppose I should put this on the Planetary Science forum?

[nick c]

Largest iron meteorite known:
[url2=http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/africa/hoba.htm]The Hoba Meteorite[/url2]
Estimated weight between 60-70 tons.
But there is something unusual!

Another enigma is the absence of any crater like structure. The meteorite was covered by a thin crust of calcrete at the time of discovery, but upon excavation no signs of the otherwise very typical temperature & pressure induced shock phenomenae, nor any burried remains of a crater structure were reported.
coloration added

Also, in the American Museum of Natural History in New York there is the 'Hall of Meteorites,' the main attraction is the Ahnighito meteorite, weighing 34 tons and part of a larger meteorite called the 'Cape York' estimated at 200 tons:
Must have produced one helluva crater!

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permane ... ighito.php

No crater associated with any of the Cape York fragments—including the largest one, Ahnighito—has ever been located. Some scientists speculate that Cape York fell when this area of Greenland was blanketed by a thick sheet of snow and ice.
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Oh well let's just assume that it landed in some remote time when the area was under ice, even though local native legends say that it fell from heaven, possibly indicating that there were human witnesses.

[...]native Greenlanders recounted a story that these meteorites were once a sewing woman and her dog who were cast from heaven by an evil spirit.
colorization added

Nick

[nick c]

With regards to my above post, I do not mean to imply that impacts cannot create a crater. I do think that perhaps some craters that we see on terrestial type bodies were created thru impacts. But that by and large most are the result of electric discharge machining, caused by planet sized bodies exchanging cosmic thunderbolts their plasma sheaths in contact.
The above cited iron meteorites didn't create craters, this was expressed as a mystery on both websites, indicating that experts expected them to form craters. Furthermore, I would be interested to know if bomb craters display morphologies that parallel crater formations observed on planets. During the 1940's and 1950's there were nuclear bombs detonated in air over land by the USSR and US, some at ground level and some in the air above, has there been any studies on those craters? I don't remember any mention of a crater at Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
With regard to the [url2=http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/ ... crater.htm]Chicxulub crater [/url2]and the KT boundary, as was stated in that TPOD, there is Cretaceous sediment on top of the crater, which would indicate that the crater was formed before the end of the Cretaceous and could not have caused the mass extinction.

Here, we report evidence from a previously uninvestigated core, Yaxcopoil-1, drilled within the Chicxulub crater, indicating that this impact predated the K-T boundary by 300,000 years and thus did not cause the end-Cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/11/3753

Nick

[redeye]

The above cited iron meteorites didn't create craters

I read that when meteors breakup in our atmosphere it is due to the fact that they are pushing a large plug of compressed air in front of them, thus leading to a build up of pressure which fragments the meteor. This also causes it to slow down considerably, I was surprised that the Peruvian meteor did not cause more damage, the crater is usually around ten times the size of the impactor.

Here, we report evidence from a previously uninvestigated core, Yaxcopoil-1, drilled within the Chicxulub crater, indicating that this impact predated the K-T boundary by 300,000 years and thus did not cause the end-Cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed.

There are so many curiosities regarding the Chicxulub crater. As I remember (and I'm probably wrong) it was Gerta Keller's team that found evidence of cretaceous lifeforms above the Chicxulub crater. These rock samples were then looked at under greater magnification and the remnants of fossils turned out to be crystal formations. It kind of scuppered Gerta Keller's claim that the Cretaceous - Tertiary extinction event was the result of multiple factors, which was a shame as this seems quite a sensible argument considering lifeforms of the time would have had to have coped with a massive impact, Flood basalt volcanism, an anoxic ocean event as well as large scale sea level regression and a breakdown in the atmospheric biosphere which may have caused widespread acid rain.

That's what the impact side of my brain thinks. The other half is even more confused! It strikes me that crater formations such as these could be formed by a meteor being electrically disrupted (I don't like this "tidal disruption" hypothesis that seems to be based around the Roche Limit) shortly before it reaches the surface causing it to split into two. The plume of ejecta which is spat out upwards from the centre of the impact would then become a discharge pathway causing a plasma strike to the centre of the crater, I also see this as being an explanation for rimshot craters when the impactor comes in at an angle the central plume is not ejected straight up, but drifts out to the edge of the crater.

Cheers!

[webolife]

If the Chicxulub crater and it's associated limestones were virtually nearly coeval, the limestone overburden could be a backwash from the "impact" event itself, regardless of whether it discharged as the result of Roche limit tidal effects, electrical pressure, or mechanical impact. A significant fact of "impact" craters -- it astounded me years ago, reading displays at Arizona's Barringer Meteor Crater museum, before I understood anything about non-mechanical scenarios, that craters are generally found without presence of significant meteorite fragments (ie significant mass), and that meteorite fragments are generally found unassociated with craters!

[redeye]

craters are generally found without presence of significant meteorite fragments (ie significant mass), and that meteorite fragments are generally found unassociated with craters!

Iridium as a marker for impacts

This thread has lots of interesting stuff relating to the same topic.

Cheers!

[Krackonis]

Unless the incoming object is relatively electrically balanced with the body it is attempting to "impact" with, it will not impact. It will discharge above the ground when the electrical potential between the two bodies is able to overcome the resistance of the earths atmosphere.

Tunguska, Bell Island (1978) Newfoundland, The great Chicago Fire...

Those were small bolides which hold small charge. The space shuttle got zapped incoming in 2002. So there is significant danger of charge differentials in space travel.

If something was large enough, it will not be destroyed, it will create a crater along the closest points of contact. Chicxulub crater shows the morphology of such an impact. If that is also the case we should see more evidence of the hit as the two bodies moved past each other.

Looking on the floor of the Atlantic you can see long straight lines. These lines are actually consisting of small craters, which is what you would expect from a discharge trying to penetrate the water. It would move easier long the ocean floor and not 'stick' like on land because the ability to maintain a plasma heated circuit over 2 miles (or 1 mile?) of water is no easy feat.

The KT Boundary is likely the effluence left over as we tore the surface of another planet onto ours and vise versa. We will likely find said planet or moon once we do enough exploration of our planetary neighbours. Could be Mercury, Jupiter? Who knows at this point. Which planet has a lot of Iridium on it's surface?

[redeye]

The KT Boundary is likely the effluence left over as we tore the surface of another planet onto ours and vise versa. We will likely find said planet or moon once we do enough exploration of our planetary neighbours. Could be Mercury, Jupiter? Who knows at this point. Which planet has a lot of Iridium on it's surface?

That's really interesting, I read recently that Tycho crater on the moon dates from around the same period as Chicxulub.

Cheers!

[redeye]

A numpty wrote:

I read recently that Tycho crater on the moon dates from around the same period as Chicxulub.

I don't know if the article I read was misleading or if I just misunderstood it (my moneys on the latter) but this is wrong.

Both the Chicxulub crater (65mya) and Tycho crater (108mya) impactors are thought to have originated from the breakup of an object called Baptistina.

Once created, the newly formed fragments' orbits began to slowly evolve due to thermal forces produced when they absorbed sunlight and re-radiated the energy away as heat. According to Bottke, "By carefully modeling these effects and the distance traveled by different-sized fragments from the location of the original collision, we determined that the Baptistina breakup took place 160 million years ago, give or take 20 million years."

How do you model the orbital paths of a bunch of debris 160/180 million years ago?

Cheers!