Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Dec 13 2007, 07:02 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 688 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Sweden Member No.: 273 |
A real weird news story from Nature about meteor damage to pleistocene fossils:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071212/ful...s.2007.372.html If traces of this meteor shower has been found in both Siberia and Alaska as the story implies, then multiple impactors must have been involved. Such small meterites would lose speed quickly so the airburst must have occurred at fairly low altitude. |
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Dec 18 2007, 03:33 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
OK, read some more on this, and will gladly back off the lightning idea.
However, do these 'tiny bits' have sufficient range in the earth's atmosphere to pepper mammoths, but whatever accelerated them is insufficiently energetic to kill the mammoth?? I am having trouble seeing the mammoth in the 'sweet spot' of the calamity for it to wind up this way. Terminal velocity of these tiny bits in air isn't all that high (watch Mythbusters) and whatever is accelerating them is 'worse' than they are, isn't it ? {everyone loves a mystery, don't they!} Just out of curiosity, have any soft minerals on Mars examined by the microscopic imager have any features that might be interpreted as produced in a similar event ?? For instance, if a sulfate rock (if that would be comparable in hardness to tusk) has little pits on the upper surface in the size range noted in the article, whatever is doing this in Alaska might be generally operative on Mars?? |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 27th April 2024 - 02:49 PM |
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