Including Original "Paul H. Letters" Copyright © 1996-2024 Paul V. Heinrich / website © 1996-2024 Dirk Ross - All rights reserved.



Thursday 29 December 2005

Meteorite Impact Observed the Moon

Meteorite Impact Observed the Moon

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 28 17:06:24 EST 2005

An Explosion on the Moon: So you thought nothing ever happens
on the moon? Dr. Tony Phillips, Science at NASA, [

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22dec_lunartaurid.htm?list109322

"December 23, 2005: NASA scientists have observed an explosion
on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT,
occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on
Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed
into the ground traveling 27 km/s."

Wednesday 21 December 2005

Wikipedia and Meteorites

Wikipedia and Meteorites

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 21 00:26:08 EST 2005

Recently, there was a study in Nature, which compared the
quality of articles in Wikipedia to the quality of articles in the
Encyclopedia Britannica. One news article was:

Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica
Nature study covered side-by-side comparison of scientific
topics, CNN News, December 15, 2005, at:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/12/15/wikipedia.ap/index.html

Nature paper discussed in this article is;

Giles, Jim, 2005, Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature.
vol. 438, no. 7070 pp 900. doi:10.1038/438900a at;

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html and
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/box/438900a_BX1.html

This article stated:

"Wikipedia has become the 37th most visited website, according
to Alexa, a web ranking service."

If Wikipedia is the 37th most visited website, then it would certainly
be a place where members of this list can educate the public about
various aspects of meteorites. Looking at the meteorite-related
articles on Wikipedia, there are many articles, which could use some
input from members of this list. If a person looks up the Canyon
Diablo meteorite and pallasites, a person finds only a bear stub of
an article. Examples of woefully incomplete articles are.

Canyon Diablo meteorite at;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon_Diablo_meteorite

pallasite at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallasites

Howardite at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howardite

Many of the categories linked at "Meteorite classification are missing
articles or have the next to nothing in them as can be seen by checking
the links for them at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorites_classification

Given the traffic that this site gets, it might be worth the effort to
create some decent entries in the Wikipedia about various aspects
of meteorites,

Best Regards,

Paul

Sunday 27 November 2005

Odessa Crater (Texas) Determined to be About 63, 500 Years Old

Odessa Crater (Texas) Determined to be About 63, 500 Years Old

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 26 10:37:28 EST 2005

In December 2005 issue of “Geology” the below article about
the Odessa Crater in Texas has been published.

Holliday, Vance T., Kring, David A., Mayer, James H., and
Goble, Ronald J., 2005, Age and effects of the Odessa
meteorite impact, western Texas, USA., Geology. vol. 33,
no. 12, pp. 945–948.

This article noted that optically stimulated luminescence
dates of sediments filling it demonstrate that this crater was
created about 63,500, plus or minus 4,500, thousand years
ago.

Its full abstract can be found at:

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-current-toc&issn=0091-7613

The same issue of Geology also has the following articles:

Collins, Gareth S., and Wunnemann, Kia, 2005, How big was
the Chesapeake Bay impact? Insight from numerical modeling.
Geology. vol. 33, no. 12, pp. 925–928.

They concluded that the original transient crater was only 40
km in diameter. The full abstract can be found at:

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2FG21854.1

and

Sephton, Mark A., Looy, Cindy V., Brinkhuis, H., Wignall,
Paul B., de Leeuw, Jan W., and Visscher, Henk, 2005,
Catastrophic soil erosion during the end-Permian biotic
crisis. Geology. vol. 33, no. 12, pp. 941-944.

Its abstract can be found at:

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2FG21784.1

Best Regards,

Paul

Wednesday 2 November 2005

Correction to "Re: Last Word (from me) on the Crackpot Theory, I Think..."

Correction to "Re: Last Word (from me) on the Crackpot Theory, I Think..."

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 1 12:32:57 EST 2005

In my last post at
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2005-November/178653.html ,
my thinking and argument drifted from TL dating to OSL dating.
My paragraph concerning the TL dating should have read:

"One significant problem here is that thermoluminescent dating
presumes a steady level of radiation damage over time by the
decay of radioactive elements trapped in the chert. Irradiation
strong enough to have altered the isotopic composition of the
uranium in chert would have also caused extensive radiation
damage to the microcrystalline quartz composing the chert.
Therefore, had what Firestone and his colleagues claimed to
have occurred, actually happened, any thermoluminescent
dates from the effected site should have also been altered to
the point of providing apparent dates considerably older than
the associated Paleo-Indian artifacts. The fact, that the
thermoluminescent dates are only slightly older, which is
common due to incomplete thermal resetting of the chert,
than age of the culture affiliated with the Paleo-Indian
artifacts, strongly refutes the idea that these sites were
irradiated at all. Had these sites been irradiated as much as
proposed by Firestone, then the ages given by the
thermoluminescent dates would have given apparent dates
significantly older than the artifacts actually are, which was
not the case."

I apologize for this brain fart.

Best Regards,

Paul

Re: Last Word (from me) on the Crackpot Theory, I Think...

Re: Last Word (from me) on the Crackpot Theory, I Think...

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 1 12:05:13 EST 2005

Sterling Webb wrote:

" The clustering I mentioned came from a
complete list of dated carcases. Most dates
were single and isolated times, but there
were several dates clustered around the
two time periods Firestone found (elsewhere)
anomalies for. It was a very weak association
and I probably shouldn't have even suggested it
supported even vaguely the isotopic timetable.
And it was the one from the "talkorigins"
website you recommended, Paul."

The fundamental problem. as I pointed out in my last post in
detail, is not that the clustering is "weak". This problem is that
given few number of dates available, it is impossible to know
at this time if it exists at all. A few data points selected from
a larger population of data points can be and usually is quite
misleading. In case of the 30,000 to 35,000 BP period is
absolutely no clustering of dates in that time period.

Sterling Webb wrote:

"When I referred to the megafauna extinction
at 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, I was referring
SOLELY to North America and said so. I
specifically mentioned that the extinctions took
place at other times on other continents. What
Paul called this "old misstatement of the facts,
which has been endlessly recycled on various
catastrophist web sites despite having been
long known to be quite false" was mostly taken
from the web site of the American Museum of
Natural History in New York, New York..."

One problem is that just because something is posted on a web
page does not make it true. Unfortunately, even the web pages
of reputable museums are often **not** peer-reviewed and
sometimes prepared by publicists and other non-scientists, who
repeat what they learned years ago in school and not what is
now known about the subject. As a result, old, outdated
material is recycled with the best of intentions, regardless of
whether the information in it is still supported by the current
research.

Apparently, whoever wrote the Natural Museum of Natural
History web page, like the catastrophists and other people, who
also repeat this claim their web pages, mindlessly repeated
Paul S. Martin and H. E. Wright in their 1967 book "Pleistocene
Extinctions " when they stated:

"A sudden wave of large animal extinction,
involving at least 200 genera, most of them
lost without phyletie replacement,
characterized the late Pleistocene."

Unfortunately for whoever prepared the Museum of Natural
History web pages, they, like various catastrophists, failed to
research what they were writing. Had the done this, they would
have found that in the 38 years since book "Pleistocene
Extinctions " was published, research has conclusively proved
that Paul S. Martin and H. E. Wright were totally wrong about
there being a single and sudden wave of extinctions. They
occurred at different times in different places over a period
of tens of thousands of years as demonstrated by the articles,
which I cited in my previous papers.

The disproved nature of Martin and Wright's "200 genera"
statement is important because, the fact there was **not** a
single wave of extinction greatly contradicts the idea of using
a supernova to explain such extinctions. (Also, it reflects badly
one a person's scholarship to use antiquated and long discarded
and disproved ideas to support a person's hypothesis.) The
multiple waves of extinction, which occurred on different
continents at different times over a period of tens of thousands
of years is **not** the pattern of extinction that would be
expected from a supernova, which would have caused a single
synchronous extinctions event of global extent. An extinction
event associated with a supernova would have more resembled
the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary because of the amount of
irradiation proposed by Firestone and his colleagues based on
his chert data and many other nasty aftereffects of a supernova.

It is impressive that 15 genera of mostly megafauna became
extinct at the end of the Pleistocene in North America.
However, this is far too localized to have been caused by a
supernova. Also, as noted in papers discussed in my previous
post, i,e, Stafford et al (2005) paper in the same conference,
which found that it actually consisted of two waves of
extinction, which is inconsistent with a supernova or any
other instantaneous event. A supernova or similar cosmic
event also cannot explain why horses in Alaska were being
subject increasing environmental stress before they became
extinct in Alaska before elsewhere and why remnant
populations of mammoths survived on St Paul island a
couple of thousand years past 10,000 BP.

Sterling wrote:

"Here is the problem with my attempting
to deal with the data (the isotopic anomalies).
People seem to consider me instead a
supporter of various theories, whacky or
not, Firestone's or any other's, about
extinctions. I have no brief for these
theories. I am interested only in what
exterior astronomical events created
these isotopic anomalies. They require
an explanation."

There is nothing wrong with this. However, a person needs to
carefully vet what they find on web pages to separate fact from
either fiction; antiquated and disproved conclusions; and
misstated and mangled facts. Basing your conclusions on ideas,
i.e. Martin and Wright's "200 genera" statement, which have
been disproved is not the way to this.

...text deleted...

Sterling wrote:

"Marco mentions the vagaries of radiocarbon
dating and so forth. It's obvious nobody is
reading the reference I gave for Firestone's
earlier paper on them:
<http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.html?a=36 >

It derives, among other things, from
trying to calibrate those vagaries.

As a geochronologist, he was (apparently)
called in to examine material from a group of
paleoindian sites that, in varying degrees,
yielded anomalous dates.

Below a strata well-known to date geologically
to 10,000 BP (before present) are artifacts with
thermoluminescent dates of 12,400 BP but with
radiocarbon dates that are almost recent, 2880 BP.
There are a number of these sites, including
one where there is an area with an archaic
cultural items whose radiocarbon date is 160
years old!"

Sterling wrote:

One signifcant problem here is that thermoluminescent dating
presumes a steady level of radiation damage over time by the
decay of radioactive elements trapped in either quartz or
feldspar comprising the sand. Irradiation significant enough
to have altered the isotopic composition of uranium in chert
would have also caused extensive radiation damage to the
quartz and feldspar in the sand surrounding. Therefore, had
what Firestone and his colleagues claimed to have occurred,
actually happened, any thermoluminescent dates from the
effected site should have also been altered to the point of
providing apparent dates considerably older than the
associated Paleo-Indian artifacts. The fact, that the
thermoluminescent dates are only slightly older, which is
common due to incomplete bleaching of the sand, than age
of the culture affiliated with the Paleo-Indian artifacts, strongly
refutes the idea that these sites were irradiated at all. Had
these sites been irradiated as much as proposed by Firestone,
then the ages given by the thermoluminescent dates would
have given apparent dates significantly older than the
artifacts actually are,which was not the case.

Sterling wrote:

"This indicates an large excess of
radiocarbon, which is normally formed
in the upper atmosphere by the solar
wind (protons) and cosmic rays (also
protons) at a relatively constant rate,
but in fact is produced in variable
qualtities. But these excesses are far
beyond mere variation, much larger."

The fundamental problem here is that Firestone and his
colleagues, although they cite texts on geomorphology and
pedology, failed to understand that although Paleo-Indian
archaeological deposits may occur at depth in Wisconsinan
deposits that predate Holocene sediment buildup that it does
not mean that these deposits are undisturbed by pedogenesis,
weathering, and other processes. In case of the Paleo-Indian
sites, which they mentioned, they have greatly misjudged, as
did the archaeologists, who originally dug the sites, by greatly
underestimating the degree to which these sites have been
modified by pedogenesis, including bioturbation. The fact
of matter is that it is quite possible, in fact probable, that
the charcoal and other organic matter, which gave the
anomalous dates was mixed into the Paleo-Indian levels by
bioturbation. The claim that the archaeological sites, form
which he cited C14 data have **not** been altered in any
way by pedogenesis, specifically bioturbation, is simply
false. It is impossible for them to claim that the C14 dated
material could not have been introduced by bioturbation.

Sterling Webb wrote:

"Firestone finds other isotopic anomalies.
The soil itself is radioactively enhanced.
The uranium content of the flint implements
is very abnormal. This whole area of the
upper Midwest US has been, more than
once, irradiated on a massive scale. Go
to the link; read the details.

Everything indicates a massive radiation
exposure. This is not a minor occurrence.
The dose is "comparable to being irradiated
in a 5-megawatt reactor more than 100
seconds," in other words, instantly lethal."

This paragraph states a fundamental problem with the supernova
idea. Such an event would have obliterated entire ecosystems in
an area, if not the entire world. In case of a supernova, the
irradiation would have lasted more than 100 seconds. The initial
burst of gamma rays would have destroyed Earth's ozone layer
by creating massive amounts of nitrous oxide and other
chemicals. As a result, the sky would have turned brown with
the entire Earth shrouded in a brown toxic smog and ultraviolet
radiation, 50 times above normal, powerful enough to killed
exposed life, would have bathed the Earth. Even if the initial
burst of gamma rays was by some mysterious process localized,
such a supernova would cause a global disruption of ecosystems.
More than just mammoths and mastodons would have become
extinct. Not just the Midwest would have been effected.

Just in the Midwest, there are more than a couple dozen cores
from lakes and ponds, which have yielded pollen records
recording environmental changes back into the last glacial and,
in a couple case, the last interglacial. In none of these records is
there indication of the type of catastrophic ecological
disruptions, which such an event would have caused, for the
past 14,000 years, and in a couple of cases, more than the
past 100,000 years.

Although Firestone and his colleagues talk about random
anomalies in Be and other elements as evidence of their having
been a supernova, this proposal makes absolutely no sense in
the fact that the buildup of cosmogenic nuclides, i.e. Be10,
Al26, and Cl36, within the upper one meter of the land's
surface has been and is being used to date various types of
landforms, i.e. glacial moraines, river terraces, and alluvial
fans, which are hundreds of thousands of years old. The fact
that cosmogenic dating works as well as it does, is strong
evidence that the steady accumulation of these isotopes in
the ground's surface, including dates form the Midwest, have
not been disturbed by being irradiated by a supernova event.

For details, look at "Cosmogenic Exposure Dating and the Age
of the Earth" at

http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/tcn.htm

The fact that Cosmogenic Exposure Dating works as well as
it does indicates to me that the isolated and quite random
isotope anomalies, from which Firestone and his colleagues
base their ideas have a far different cause than they have so
far proposed.

The reason nobody really pays an serious attention to Firestone
is that he has done an extremely poor job of understanding the
consequences of what he proposed and of explaining why none
of the obvious consequences of his hypothesis can be found in
the enormous amount of paleoenvironmental data that has been
published in the scientific literature.

Best Regards,

Paul

Tuesday 1 November 2005

Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory







The Carolina Bays and the Llandudno flamingo on one leg, or rather Alice trying to play croquet with a flamingo??? Ask the hedgehogs.
Original illustration (1865) by John Tenniel (28 February 1820 - 25 February 1914), of the novel by Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 31 11:55:27 EST 2005

t is true that there is a lot of interesting stuff on the
Internet. However, if a person goes back to the primary
literature, they often find that some of this material, as
interesting as it might be, is based a odd collection of
misinformation, urban legends, and outright fiction.
Where documented facts are cited, too often they have
been very badly garbled by the author of the web page
citing them or they have been edited as to specifically
omit the evidence that conflicts with whatever pet theory
is being discussed. Thus, a person has to carefully to
evaluate what is being said on any one particular web
page.

In one example, Sterling K. Webb wrote:

"However, radiocarbon dates from frozen
mammoth carcasses cluster in two groups: one
around 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and another
about 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. Fairly
coincidental. The more recent ones are New
World mammoths; the older group are
Siberian mammoths."

One problem with this is that there exists a substantial amount
of evidence, which refutes any connection between these mammoth
mummies and a single catastrophic event. Unfortunately, various
web authors automatically presume that these mummified mammoths
are clear evidence of a catastrophe without understanding that
their formation is perfectly explainable by conventional processes.

Another problem is that the clustering of mummified mammoths
about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and 11,000 to 13,000 years
ago is non-existent as can be seen in the dates listed "Woolly
Mammoths Remains: Catastrophic Origins?" By Sue Bishop at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html

Looking at it, it is quite clear that the dates on mummified
mammoths are spread over a range of radiocarbon dates starting
from greater than 50,000 BP to 32,000 - 34,000 BP. Of these
dates, the only mammoth, which lies in this so-called 30,000 to
35,000 BP "cluster", is a clump of mammoth hair from Alaska.
The other mummified mammoths in the older group predate
this older "cluster". There is also a mummified bison that
dates to 31,000 BP. However, two data points fail to constitute
a "cluster".

There is a group of dates consisting of mummified
mammoths, which fall in the 11,000 to 13,000 BP range.
If a person includes a mummified mammoth from Fairbanks
and one from Yuribe, Siberia, a person can argue that the
cluster actually ranges from 9,700 to 15,400 BP. If dates from
a mummified musk ox is included the range can be extended to
17,000 BP. Such a range would it make it impossible for the
mummified mammoths and other mammals to have been
associated with Firestone's catastrophe since there is a
mammoth mummy,which fromed 2,400 years before this
event is alleged to have happened and they continued to form
long after it was over. In fact, an 8,000 year-old mummified
reindeer is known from the permafrost of the Fairbanks region.
This extends the period during which mummified mammals
were formed into the Holocene Stage and well past the time of
Firestone's proposed catastrophe.

Two recently found Siberian mammoth mummies, the Jarkov
Mammoth and the Fishhook Mammoth both fall well outside
of either the 30,000 to 35,000 BP cluster and the 11,000 to
13,000 BP cluster. They are the Fishhook Mammoth, which
dated at 20,620 BP and the Jarkov Mammoth, which dated at
20,380 BP. Neither of these dates lend any support to the
existence of either cluster. They do show that the formation
of mammoth mummies occurred at times outside of either
alleged "cluster" and there is a lack of any relationship of the
mammoth mummies to any known radiocarbon anomalies.

Sterling K. Webb also wrote:

"The extinction at 11,000 to 13,000 years
ago is not called a mass extinction, but it
involved the loss of more than 200 species,
mostly megafauna (large mammals -- 75%
were heavier than 44 kilos). Because of that,
it is widely suspected that Man The Hunter
was the extincting agent!"

This claim is an old misstatement of the facts, which has been
endlessly recycled on various catastrophist web sites despite
having been long known to be quite false. It is true that more
than many genera of mostly megafauna have become extinct
during the Pleistocene. However, it is quiet false to say that
all of them became extinct between 11,000 to 13,000 BP.
It is now well established that the extinction of these genera
occurred at very different times during different extinction
events on different continents as documented in a number of
published papers including:

Anthony D. Barnosky, Paul L. Koch, Robert S. Feranec,
Scott L. Wing, and Alan B. Shabel, 2004, Science.. vol. 306,
no. 5693, pp. 70-75 , 1 October 2004.

By carefully analyzing available radiocarbon and other dates,
they found that four genera of megafauna became extinct in
Europe between 20,000 to 50,000 years and four more became
extinct between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago. It was after 10,000
years ago that mammoth and Irish Elk became extinct in Siberia.
Also, mammoths became extinct on St. Paul Island in the Bering
Sea after 10,000 BP (Guthrie 2004). In Australia, six of these
genera became extinct more than 80,000 years ago, six genera
became extinct between 40,000 to 51,000 years ago, and one
genera became extinct between 28,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Roberts et al (2001) showed that the last extinction event in
Australia occurred around 46,000 BP, which fits none of the
C14 calibration anomalies. It is clear form the available data
that megafauna extinctions were occurring at very different
places at very different times, which argues against a single,
or even two, global cosmic catastrophes having produced
the extinction events, which occurred at various times during
the Pleistocene.

The most striking of these extinction events is North America
between 10,000 and 12,000 BP when 15 genera of megafauna
became. However, detailed research lead by Dr. Thomas Stafford
has demonstrated that this terminal Pleistocene extinction event
actually consisted that were **two**, not **one**, distinct
periods of megafauna extinction. Stafford et al. (2005) stated

"Direct radiocarbon dates on extinct New
World megafauna are evidence that the
extinction occurred as two distinct events.
Non-proboscidean megafauna species went
extinct ca. 11,400-11,300 RC yr. BP,
whereas Mammuthus and Mammut
survived until ca. 10,900 RC yr. BP."

(Note: Another similar discussion of the complexities of
Pleistocene extinctions can be found in Elias (1999).

Looking at both Stafford et al. (2005) and Elias (1999), a
person has to wonder how a supernova can first wipe out the
non-proboscidean megafauna species and then 400 years later,
wipe out the the last of the mammoths and mastodons and
leave remnant populations of mammoths on Wrangle Island
in Siberia and St. Paul Island in Alaska.

In case of American horses, Guthrie (2003) showed that there
was a rapid decline in body size prior to becoming extinct about
12,500 BP in Alaska. Thus, not only did horses become extinct
in Alaska long before Firestone's proposed catastrophe but were
also being subject to some sort of environmental stress, which
Guthrie (2003) rejected as being human hunting, thousands of
years before it. Given the multiple and diachronous nature of
Pleistocene extinctions, cosmic catastrophes simply do not fit
the facts despite being wonderful and poetic Deus ex Machina
that many people use to explain them.

Reference:

Guthrie, R. D., 2003. Rapid body size decline in Alaskan
Pleistocene horses before extinction. Nature. vol 426, pp
169-171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02098.

Guthrie, R. d., 2004). Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene
mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island. Nature.
vol.429,pp. 746-749.

Elias, S. A., 1999, Quaternary Paleobiology Update Debate
continues over the cause of Pleistocene megafauna extinction"
in the The Quaternary Time: Newsletter of the American
Quaternary Association. vol. 29 no. 1, (May 1999) at:
http://www4.nau.edu/amqua/v29n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htm

Roberts, R. G., Flannery, T. F., Ayliffe, L. K., Yoshida, H.,
Olley, J. M., Prideaux, G. P., Laslett, G. M., Baynes, A.,
Smith, M. A., Jones, R., and Smith, B.L., 2001, New Ages for
the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction
About 46,000 Years Ago. Science. vol. 292, no. 5523,
pp. 1888-1892.

Stafford, T. W., Jr., Graham, R., Lundelius, E., Semken, H.,
McDonald, G., and Southon, J., 2004, 14C-Chronostratigraphy
of Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinctions in Relation to Human
Presence in the New World. Clovis in the Southwest: Technology
Time and Space October 26-29, 2005, Columbia Metropolitan
Convention Center, Columbia, South Carolina.
http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/stafford.html

Also, the claim that conventional scientists, as a rule, regard
humans as the sole cause of these Pleistocene extinctions is
simply not true. In fact, there now exists a wide divergence of
opinion and a lack of any real consensus as to what, if any role,
humans played in any the several extinction events, which
occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch. Good examples of this
are Gutherie (2003), Stafford et al. (2005), and Barnosky et
al. (2004) cited above.

As far as Firestone's claim that the Carolina Bays were produced
by his hypothesized terminal Pleistocene catastrophe, a person
should read through "An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence
Presented By ''Gateway to Atlantis'' for Terminal Pleistocene
Catastrophe" at;

http://thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=86

Best Regards,

Paul

Tuesday 25 October 2005

Very small Majuba impact site discovered!

Very small Majuba impact site discovered!

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 25 09:20:14 EDT 2005

Norm wrote:

"While trying to replicate their luck at the
Majuba, Nevada find area, I recovered what I
think may go down in history as the smallest
Majuba granule likely to ever be recovered.
With a maximum dimension of about 4 mm
and a weight of about 0.5 gms, this one is
really, really small.

Story and photos at:

http://tektitesource.com/Majuba5.htm "

In this wonderful write-up, I noted that Norm wrote:

"For about 3 years, whenever possible, I have
searched all over the area without any luck (except
for about 20 nice gold nuggets)"

It says a lot about collecting meteorites when it is
easier to find gold nuggets than meteorites. :-)

Paul

Saturday 22 October 2005

Scam Alert

Scam Alert

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Oct 22 20:28:44 EDT 2005

Darren Garrison wrote:

"Sorry, last post that I'll make on this topic, but
I think this recent (two days ago) article is
important for anyone selling on the internet
to be familiar with. The last page lists the
types of 419 scams:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-scammers20oct20,1,1799691.story?track=mostemailedlink&ctrack=1&cset=true


The many forms of 419 scams

Advance-fee frauds, also known as 419, appear
to offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich
or find the girl of your dreams. The scams can
involve phony websites, forged documents and
Nigerians in America posing as government
officials. Here are some of the most popular:"

A repository of various types of Nigerian 419 scam emails can be found in
"Nigerian 419 Scams" at:

http://www.joewein.de/sw/419scam.htm

and http://www.internet-secrets.org/

The former web page has a listing of "Main storylines of advance fee
fraud and other Nigeria-related fraud emails".

One of these story lines is:

"Over-sized cashier's check: Someone wants
to buy your car, bike, horse, boat, trailer, etc.
and will send you a check larger that the
sticker value, asking you to wire the balance
to a "shipping agent" or some other person.
Other examples include appartment or holiday
home rental, purchasing land, hiring a wedding
photographer, getting violin lessons, etc."

Nigeria is not the only country used as a pretext for a 419 scam. For some
reason, many of the 419 scams, which I receive do not involve Nigeria as
the place where either the "next of kin", "laundering crooked money",
"business commission" or "crude oil" scam is based, Rather the country
of choice is Iraq as noted at:

http://www.joewein.de/sw/419-iraq-scams.htm

One example of the "laundering crooked money", is " New 419
scam - Iraqi money" at:

http://www.tumanov.com/entry/207

Also, I have received 419 scams involving Yukos oil breakup in Russia

Best Regards,

Paul

Tuesday 11 October 2005

New Impact Hazard Book Now Available Online

New Impact Hazard Book Now Available Online

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 11 08:48:26 EDT 2005

New online book on impact hazards available. It is:

Geoffrey S. Sommer, G. S., 2004, Astronomical Odds
A Policy Framework for the Cosmic Impact Hazard.
RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138,
Santa Monica.

The 8.8 MB PDF file can be downloaded from

http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/2005/RAND_RGSD184.pdf

"This document was submitted as a dissertation in
June, 2004 in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis
at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty
committee that supervised and approved the
dissertation consisted of Steven Popper (Chair),
Steven Bankes, and Calvin Shipbaugh."

Yours,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Saturday 1 October 2005

10,000 Illegal fossils handed back to China

10,000 Illegal fossils handed back to China

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Oct 1 21:07:43 EDT 2005

Australia Returns Fossils to China
Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2005,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093000647.html

Illegal dinosaur fossils handed back to China
Advertiser Adelaide, Australia, Sept. 30, 2005
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,16774163,00.html

Australia returns 20 tons of confiscated fossils to China
People's Daily Online, Sept. 29, 2005
http://english.people.com.cn/200509/30/eng20050930_211844.html

Sunday 25 September 2005

Crackpot impact theory

Crackpot impact theory

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 25 12:32:29 EDT 2005

Darren Garrison, Sat Sep 24 22:42:22 EDT 2005, wrote:

"Here's what another real scientist
http://www.thesolarsystem.org/davidmorrison.html
has to say about his new "theory":"

Scientists say cosmic debris killed mammoths
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Saturday, September 24, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/24/BAGG9ET78M1.DTL

The article stated:

"The particles appear to be of cosmic origin,
judging by their chemical contents, which include
titanium, iron, manganese, vanadium, rare earth
elements, thorium and uranium. Such chemical
composition is similar to lunar rocks brought
back to Earth by astronauts. It also resembles
meteorites of lunar origin that fell in the
Middle East 10,000 years ago."

Given that the Moon consists of material virtually
identical to that composing parts of the Earth and
very
likely largely came from the Earth, Firestone and West

by noting that their particles are similar in
composition
to lunar material are presenting evidence that
actually
refutes their claim that the particles of cosmic
origin.

Marco, Pleistocene archaeologist, wrote:

"The other point is, that mammoths did *not* get
extinct all at once at ~13 000 BP. On Wrangel Island
in the arctic for example, they survived untill 4000
BP.
In Eurasia, they disappear between ~15000 and 12000
bp, in what seems to be a gradual process."

This is an excellent point among others. In addition,
in
"Quaternary Paleobiology Update Debate continues over
the cause of Pleistocene megafauna extinction" in The
Quaternary Times Newsletter of the American Quaternary

Association, vol. 29, no. 1, May 1999 at
http://www4.nau.edu/amqua/v29n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htm
,
it is stated:

"It now appears that the major megafaunal exinction
event took place at 11,400 14C yr B.P. This event
included the extinction of camels, horses, giant
sloths,
Pleistocene bison, and all other genera of megafaunal
mammals that did not survive beyond 11,400 14C yr
B.P. , with the exception of the proboscideans.
Mammoths and mastodons persisted beyond 11,400 yr
B.P. Stafford et al. have dated the extinction of
North
American mammoth and mastodon to 10,900-10,850 yr
B.P. So it now appears that there were two distinct
extinction episodes."

Also, a person can look at "14C-Chronostratigraphy of
Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinctions in Relation to
Human Presence in the New World by Thomas W.
Stafford, Jr., Russell Graham, Ernest Lundelius,
Holmes Semken, Greg McDonald, and John Southon
for the Clovis in the Southeast Technology Time
and Space October 26-29, 2005 conference at:
http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/stafford.html
and http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/speakers.htm .

In terms of megafauna in North America, there were two

extinction episodes separated by 500 years. The event
argued for by Firestone and West does not make any
sense in terms of how such an event would selectively
cause the extinction of camels, horses, giant sloths,
Pleistocene bison, and other genera of megafaunal
mammals about 11,400 BP and then 500 years later
wipe out North American mammoths and mastodons
some 500 years later.

They have a lot of questions to answer about their
theory.

People can also look at "Evidence of a Catastrophic
Impact Event at the End of the Clovis Era" at:
http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/firestone.html

Best Regards,

Paul

Wednesday 21 September 2005

Update on Meteorites Seized in Poland

Update on Meteorites Seized in Poland

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 21 09:24:21 EDT 2005

In "Seized Sikhote Alin 176kg",
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2005-September/177641.html
,
Meteoryt.net wrote:

"They say that this meteorites have numbers,
so its possible that they was stealed from any
collection."

and in "Seized Meteorites - report",
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2005-September/177646.html
,
Stan wrote:

"What you should be doing now is making
every effort to finding out what the story is
behind these meteorites - if they arent stolen
then there is a good chance that they will be
auctioned off as seized assets, at least thats
how things work here in the us."

According to a Russian geologist with whom I
shared the URL for the Polish customs report
and has investigated this matter, the numbers
indicate that some of these meteorites quite
likely were stolen from the Laboratory of
Meteoritics at the Vernadsky Institute of
Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry in
Moscow. If these meteorites were stolen from
them, it is quite likely that the Russian
government will make a formal request that
they be repatriated / returned to them

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Thursday 15 September 2005

One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl

One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 15 10:44:15 EDT 2005

Darren Garrison posted:

"September 13, 2005
One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl
By DENNIS OVERBYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/13/science/space/13plan.html?pagewanted=all
"

Related web pages are:

The discovery of 2003 UB313, the 10th planet.
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/

What is the real story about the hasty announcement
and the reports of "hacking"?
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/#hack

The electronic trail of the discovery of 2003 EL61
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/ortiz/

Best Regards,

Paul

New google Search Engine for Blogs

New google Search Engine for Blogs

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 15 09:01:25 EDT 2005

There is a Google new search engine for searching
blogs. An article about it is:

Google Launches Tool to Search for Blog Updates
Associated Press, September 15, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-blog15sep15,1,4950803.story?coll=la-headlines-business

Google blog search engine is found at
http://blogsearch.google.com/

using it a person can find all sorts of meteorwrongs.

:-)

A good example can be seen at:

http://www.markcarey.com/mars/discuss-15539-french-blueberries.html

Paul H
Baton Rouge, LA

Friday 9 September 2005

Space Shuttle Launch Delayed to Fall 2006 ??

Space Shuttle Launch Delayed to Fall 2006 ??

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Fri Sep 9 09:37:17 EDT 2005

Storm left space agency 'beaten up'
Many workers at 2 shuttle facilities are now
homeless, By MARK CARREAU, Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3345948

+++++

Hurricane Damage May Delay Launch of Shuttle

>From Associated Press, September 9, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shuttle9sep09,1,3156457.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

"Griffin downplayed an internal memo written Sept. 1
by acting shuttle program manager N. Wayne Hale Jr.,
who indicated that a launch before fall 2006 might not

be possible given the hurricane damage and the
ongoing effort to prevent foam insulation from falling

off shuttle fuel tanks."

Thursday 25 August 2005

Meteorite Hunter by Roy A. Gallant - Is it Worth Buying ????

Meteorite Hunter by Roy A. Gallant - Is it Worth Buying ????

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 25 23:30:49 EDT 2005

I was browsing through the books that Edward
R. Hamilton Booksellers had for sale and came
across "Meteorite Hunter: the Search for
Siberian Meteorite Craters at:

http://www.edwardrhamilton.com/titles/5/0/9/509688x.html

Is this book worth buying for 5.95 dollars?

Best Regards,

Paul

Sunday 21 August 2005

Unexpectedly ‘Young’ Chondrules Found in Meteorite

Unexpectedly ‘Young’ Chondrules Found in Meteorite

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 21 23:32:05 EDT 2005

Monkey Wrench in Solar System Evolution
RedNova.com, August 18, 2005
http://www.rednova.com/news/space/212521/a_monkey_wrench_in_solar_system_evolution/index.html
http://www.rednova.com/news/space/213706/discovery_of_young_material_in_meterorites_defies_linear_theory_of/

"Toronto -- A U of T scientist has found unexpectedly
‘young’ material in meteorites – a discovery that
breaks open current theory on the earliest events
of the solar system."

Chondrules younger than thought
Science Daily (press release) - August 19, 2005
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050819-14253600-bc-canada-chondrules.xml

Discovery of ’young’ material in meterorites defies
linear ...
innovations report, Germany - August 19, 2005
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/geowissenschaften/bericht-48033.html

The paper dicussed in the above articles is:

Krot, A. N., Amelin, Y., Cassen, P., and Meibom, A.,
2005,
Young chondrules in CB chondrites from a giant impact
in the early Solar System. Science. vol. 436 No.
7053,
pp. 989-993.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7053/abs/nature03830.html

Yours,

Paul

Thursday 21 July 2005

New Paper on Richat Dome, Mauretania in Geology

New Paper on Richat Dome, Mauretania in Geology

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 21 13:19:36 EDT 2005

Guillaume Matton and Michel Jébrak, 2005,
Resolving the Richat enigma: Doming and
hydrothermal karstification above an alkaline
complex. Geology. vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 665–668.

http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2FG21542.1

The abstract concluded:

"The circular Richat structure and its breccia
core thus represent the superficial expression
of a Cretaceous alkaline complex with an
exceptionally well preserved hydrothermal
karst infilling at its summit."

Other web pages:

August GEOLOGY media highlights
I-Newswire.com, Press Release, July 19, 2005
http://i-newswire.com/pr37017.html

"A model is proposed in which the intrusion
of an underlying magmatic body resulted in
the bulging of the overlying crust and
production of fluids, thus creating a favorable
setting for the dissolution of sedimentary
rocks. Formation of voids has led to the
collapse and brecciation of overlying units.
Thus, Matton et al. suggest that this unique
structure had a terrestrial origin, ultimately
forming from the effects of an intrusion
originating from Earth's mantle."

Richat Structure in Mauritania
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10789
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/aster_richat_lrg.jpg

Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980105.html

Yours,

Paul

Monday 18 July 2005

Shirokovsky..Answer

Shirokovsky..Answer

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Mon Jul 18 14:02:05 EDT 2005

on July 18, 2005, Marcin quoted from previous post:

>

>>I think a few (including myself) may have

>>believed a man-made origin after seeing

>>that pic. Whether it was deliberately

>>manufactured or a by-product of an

>>industrial process..... well..... I guess we

>>will probably never know.


Marcin wrote:


>Jeff, list...

>After this photos I think none can have any

>doubts if this is natural or man-made product.

> Http://www.meteoryt.net/ebay/shiro1.jpg

> Http://www.meteoryt.net/ebay/shiro2.jpg

> Http://www.meteoryt.net/ebay/shiro3.jpg

> Http://www.meteoryt.net/ebay/shiro4.jpg

> Http://www.meteoryt.net/ebay/close-up.jpg

>

>Grey surface is iron that become mat after

>etching in normal 10% solution. No any

>visible etching pattern. White squares is as I

>believe not dissolved nickel pieces that fall

>down to bottom and not have time to

>dissolve in iron-olivine solution.


After I forwarded pictures of non-etched
slices of Shirokovsky and compositional data
concerning the lithic fragments found in its
iron-nickel matrix to a metallurgist friend,
who prefers to remain nameless, I received
this comment:

"Based on the information given I would
concur that this is a man-made material,
probably derived from a furnace and quite
possibly part of a furnace lining, i.e. a
refractory brick that has been strongly
altered by reaction with the molten contents
of the furnace. This is supported by the
very iron-rich composition of the olivine
and the presence of magnesiowustite and
magnesioferrite. This conclusion is also
supported by the reported "eutectic" nature
of the metal-oxide intergrowth."

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Sunday 10 July 2005

Re: Now for the next scary space thing

Re: Now for the next scary space thing

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Jul 10 13:25:41 EDT 2005

Darren Garrison posted

"Now for the next scary space thing July 09,2005

http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=33352&Section=Opinion


Now for the next scary space thing July 09,2005

There is a category of worries called Bad Stuff from
Outer
Space, currently being ably exploited by the sci-fi
film
"War of the Worlds" where the bad stuff is aliens."

There is "More Bad Stuff from Outer Space" involving
meteorites in
"Undead" at;
http://horror.about.com/od/internationalhorror/gr/intl_undead.htm

Promos for some prime time commercial TV series
suggests that
in addition to "War of The Worlds", we are in for a
spate of Bad Stuff
from Outer Space in the form of body snatchers and
other alien
invaders this Fall.

Best

Paul

Thursday 23 June 2005

Expeditions to Foreign Countries was "To all interested Parties"

Expeditions to Foreign Countries was "To all interested Parties"

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Jun 23 23:36:53 EDT 2005

Altmann at Meteorite-Martin.de
Thu Jun 23 14:31:03 EDT 2005

John wrote as quoted:

>>As for Oman and Meteorites it's still not

>>exactly clear if the government wants to

>>control the export of meteorites!?


Martin Altmann wrote:

>That's almost the point!

>I think, it was clear, as also before John was

>leaving a license for hunting and an export

>permit was obligatory.

>Could he knew before? I think it was possible.

>At least I see now reason to condemn the whole

>Oman country like on the webpage to be

>dangerous or even terroristic, only because he

>was caught in violating some laws.

>I guess that John knew before, that meteorites

>are bjects of scientific and monetary value and

>come on how naive must one be not to suppose,

>that collecting such objects in another country

>and to take them home from there, might be

>not a delicate issue?


Having visited either professionally or as a tourist
various countries, collecting and export permits
are not the only matters people need to worry about.
In several countries, specifically ones with internal
security problems, it can also be illegal to possess /
use Global Positioning System units, specific types
of radios, topographic maps of specific types and
scales, and so forth. In planning any sort of
expedition, a person needs to make sure that the
equipment, which they plan to use is not in
violation of a country's law. Although it seems
unfair, it is the responsibility of the person going
to a foreign country to know what is and is not
illegal. Ignorance of the law, as in the United
States and as far as I have found, is universally
never considered an excuse.

On the other hand it can be at times very difficult,
if impossible, for an outsider to completely
ascertain what is and is not illegal in any foreign
country. Foreign countries operate by written and
unwritten rules, customs, and regulations, which
only a native will know. It is quite easy for a
person in planning from afar a visit to visit a
foreign country to overlook some of these laws,
customs, and regulations, which are common
knowledge to the local people. Also, it is difficult
to know from afar the tipping point, at which
authorities will go from ignoring infractions
of the law to enforcing them. It is, unfortunately
very easy for someone to not know what they
should have known when planning a trip from
afar. However, as in the United States, ignorance
is not typically going to be accepted as an excuse
despite such ignorance being unavoidable. This is
unfair, but life is not fair.

(In case of Islamic, Arabic-speaking countries,
geologist friend, who have worked in them, tell
me that the difference in culture and language
increase the potential for mis-communication,
misunderstandings, and very, very unpleasant
experiences by several order of magnitude outside
of the "Cocoon" of guided tours and resorts that
normally surround tourists visiting them.)

About the main solution to this very real problem
is to have someone, who lives in the country, to
which you are going, involved in planning your
trip. Only someone, who lives in the country and
knows the language and customs, will have a
knowledge of the laws governing what you are
doing; what laws are not enforced; what laws are
enforced; the tipping point at which specific laws
will be enforced; and how not to attract unwanted
attention. Finally, I can vouch, from personal
experience, having a citizen of the country, which
are visiting with you and following their advice,
can not only prevent an unpleasant situation, but
also mean the difference between an "adventure",
which you can joke with your friends about over
a beer, and a very, very unpleasant experience.

In [meteorite-list] Meteorite hunting in Oman,
Robert wrote:


>Or who knows? Maybe the Sultan had

>had enough of seeing westerners boasting

>of their martian and lunar meteorite finds

>from Oman in cyberspace and on his TV

>and declared, "I've had about enough of

>this! We're being robbed of our treasure

>and it's time to put a stop to it." We could

>hardly fault him if this is his view.


With 20-20 hindsight. I can see some hint of this
in "Oman Is A Bank Of Meteorites By Hasan
Kamoonpuri, Oman Observer 290801" at:

http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/features/oman_meteorites.htm

In this article, a person can sense the national
pride invested in the meteorites being found in
Oman by the Oman government.

Also, there are these notes:

"According to Dr Hofmann since the year 2000
several precious meteorites have been discovered
in Oman. But many of them are not available for
scientific study because they are in unknown
private hands.'"

and

"One of the biggest concerns bothering the
meteorite experts is that most of the meteorites
are being collected by private collectors for
sale in the open market.""

Unfortunately, likely the main way for anyone to
have known of the type of change in attitude in
a country, of which Robert speculated above about
and would have caused a change from non-
enforcement to enforcement of laws, would have
been by inquiring with someone living in the
country in question. Such changes are not reported
in international news and not considered significant
by the Department of State and, even, the embassy
to be worth reporting given more immediate and
pressing matters of peace, war, and commerce. Most
embassies have far bigger fish to fry and preoccupied
with dodging larger rocks than whether or not laws
about relatively "minor" matter, i.e. collecting
meteorites are being enforced.

Yours

Paul

Friday 27 May 2005

Online Paper About Sept. 2003 Orissa (India) Meteorite Shower

Online Paper About Sept. 2003 Orissa (India) Meteorite Shower

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Fri May 27 13:46:07 EDT 2005

An article about the September 27, 2003 meteorite
shower and the meteorites recovered from it is
available online for downloading. The article is:

Mohanty, M., Sahoo, K. C., Jena, S. K., Dash, P. C.,
and Mohanty, B.K., 2004, Meteoritic shower in
coastal Orissa. Current Science. vol. 28, no. 4,
pp. 228-230 (25 August 2004)

A PDF file of this article can downloaded from:
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/aug252004/428.pdf

Table of Contents for vol. 28, no. 4 (25 August
2004) issue of Current Science is at:
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/aug252004/contents.htm

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Saturday 21 May 2005

3,700 (1.46 tons of) meteorites from Oman

3,700 (1.46 tons of) meteorites from Oman

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat May 21 21:53:08 EDT 2005

In ‘1000 kg of meteorites from Oman?", at:
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2005-May/174081.html
, Darren Garrison wrote:

1000 kg? Can that number be right?

http://www.timesofoman.com/newsdetails.asp?newsid=15610&pn=local

1,000kg of meteoric rocks collected from Dhofar and Wusta regions

MUSCAT — The geological activities carried out by the Directorate-General of Minerals at the Commerce and Industry Ministry to preserve meteorites have resulted in collecting 1,000kg of meteoric rocks in Dhofar governorate and the Wusta region.

Go look at the below article, which I noted in:
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2005-May/173997.html

Oman’s lunar meteorite sparks exciting cosmic secrets
By Conrad Prabhu, 17th August 2004, Oman Observer
http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/features/lunar_meteorite.htm

In this article, it stated:

"SaU 169 was one of an estimated 3,700 meteorites
discovered during a series of joint field search
campaigns undertaken between January 2001 and
January 2003, says the Omani geologist. "We invested
a total of 339 man-days in the search, which yielded
some 1,334 kg of meteorites, which may have come
from an original 150-200 individual falls. Meteorites
commonly break up in the atmosphere into many
smaller fragments."

According to this article, they collected 1,334 kg
(2935 pounds, 1.46 tons) of meteorites.

Go see Kilogram < > Pound Conversion Engine at:
http://www.escapeartist.com/Conversions/Kilograms_Pounds.html

Yours,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Wednesday 18 May 2005

Article About Sayh al Uhaymir 169 (Oman Lunar Meteorite)

Article About Sayh al Uhaymir 169 (Oman Lunar Meteorite)

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed May 18 10:41:27 EDT 2005

Dear Listmembers,

Oman’s lunar meteorite sparks exciting cosmic secrets
By Conrad Prabhu, 17th August 2004, Oman Observer
http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/features/lunar_meteorite.htm

"A close-up of Sayh al Uhaymir 169, which is believed
to have come from the Imbrium Basin of the Moon."

Table of contents for this and other articles about
Oman can be found at
http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/features.htm .

Best regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Monday 16 May 2005

Two Articles on Oman Meteorites

Two Articles on Oman Meteorites

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun May 15 16:32:50 EDT 2005

Dear Friends,

During a quick Google search, I came across the below
article about Oman.

UT, Oman Strike a Deal
The Torchbearer, University of Tennessee,
Spring 2005 Volume 44 No. 1
http://pr.utk.edu/torch/article.asp?id=710

Part of this brief article stated:

"Concerned about losing these valuable stones to
smugglers, the government of Oman recently put
a stop to meteorite collection and export."

Another article, which I found, is:

Oman Is A Bank Of Meteorites
By Hasan Kamoonpuri, Oman Observer 290801
http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/features/oman_meteorites.htm

The Oman Directorate General of Mineral of their Geological Survey, has a lot of information posted at their web site at:
http://www.geooman.org/geodatabase.html ,
http://www.geooman.org/research_done.html ,
http://www.geooman.org/geotourism.html ,
and http://www.geooman.org/.

Best regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Friday 13 May 2005

Looking for Buried Iron-Shale with a Metal Detector

Looking for Buried Iron-Shale with a Metal Detector

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu May 12 23:43:17 EDT 2005

Dear list members,

If by some chance I had a hunch where I might
find some buried iron-shale, is it possible to find
highly weathered meteorite (iron-shale) with a
metal detector?

If so, what is the approximate relationship between
size of a piece of iron-shale and the maximum depth
at which it can be detected? Also, are there any
special tricks to using a metal detector to look for
buried iron-shale?

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Saturday 7 May 2005

NASA Sued Over Deep Impact Project

NASA Sued Over Deep Impact Project

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Fri May 6 21:42:35 EDT 2005

Astrologer to sue NASA over comet plans
A Russian court has ruled that an astrologer can
proceed with a
lawsuit against the US National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) for its plans to bombard a
comet.
ABC News, May 7, 2005
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1362134.htm

and

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050506/sc_afp/russiausnasaspace


Moscow City Court upholds consideration of lawsuit vs.
NASA.
ITAR-TASS, Russia, May 7, 2005
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2008223&PageNum=0

Wednesday 4 May 2005

Re: O'Keefe Articles...Anyone have a list of?

Re: O'Keefe Articles...Anyone have a list of?

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue May 3 00:53:09 EDT 2005

Mark wrote on May 1, 2005:

"I was wondering if anyone has a
list of John O'Keefe's tektite
articles. (I think) I have four
different articles, then his book
and Povenmire's book(s)."

That is a question that I do not have a complete
answer to. If you count all of his publications, both
tektite and non-tektites and including abstracts, I
would **guess** that O'Keefe has 70 to 80
publications.
Of these publications, the articles, not including
obvious abstracts, which pertain to tektites in some
form or fashion are:

Barkatt, A., Boulos, M. S., Barkatt, A., Sousanpour,
W., Boroomand, M. A.; Macedo, P. B., and 'Keefe, J.
A., 1984, The chemical durability of tektites; a
laboratory study and correlation with long-term
corrosion behavior. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 361-371. (February 1984)

Barkatt, A., Saad, E. E., Adiga, R., Sousanpour, W.,
Adel-Hadadi, M. A., O'Keefe, J. A., and Alterescu,
S., 1989, Leaching of natural and nuclear waste
glasses in sea water. Applied Geochemistry. vol. 4,
no. 6, pp. 593-603. (December 1989)

Hochman, J., and O'Keefe, J. A., 1960, Non-terrestrial
origin of the tektites. Geophysics. vol. 25, no. 5,
pp. 1145-1146.

King, E. A., and O'Keefe, J. A., 1980, Late Eocene
rings around the Earth?; discussion and reply. Nature.

vol. 288, no. 5786, pp. 103-104. (November 06, 1980)

King, E. A., Martin, R., Nance, W. B., and O'Keefe,
J. A., 1970, Tektite glass not in Apollo 12 sample
Science. vol. 170, no. 3954, pp. 199-200.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1958, Origin of tektites. Nature.
vol. 181, no 4603, pp. 172-173.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1959, Origin of tektites. Science.
vol. 130, no. 3367, pp. 97-98. (July 1959)

O'Keefe, J. A., 1960, Tektites and the Cyrillid
Shower.
Astronomical Journal. vol. 65, p. 495.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1961a, Tektites and the Cyrillid
shower.
in T. Page and L. W. Page, eds., pp. 237-242.
Neighbors
of the Earth--Planets, comets, and the debris of
space.
Macmillan Company, New York.

Okeefe, J. A., 1961b, Tektites as natural Earth
satellites. Science. vol. 133, no. 3452, pp. 562-566.

O'Keefe, J. A., ed., 1963. Tektites. The University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1964a, Water in tektite glass. Journal
of Geophysical Research. vol. 69, no. 17, pp.
3701-3707.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1964b, Tektites and impact fragments
from the Moon. Scientific American. vol. 210, no. 2,
pp. 50-57

Lowman, P. D., and O'keefe, J. A., 1966, Terrestrial
origin of the igast objects. Nature. vol. 209, no.
5018,
pp. 67-68.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1966, The origin of tektites. Space
Science Reviews. vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 174-221.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1967, Tektite sculpturing. Geochimica
et Cosmochimica Acta. Vol. 31, no. 10, pp. 1931-1933.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1969a, The microtektite data -
implications for the hypothesis of the lunar origin
of tektites. Journal of Geophysical Research. vol. 74,

no. 27, pp. 6795-6804.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1969b, Origin of tektites. in C. A.
Randall, ed., pp. 57-85, Extra-terrestrial matter.
Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1970a, Tektite glass in Apollo 12
sample. Science. vol. 168, no. 3936, pp. 1209-1210.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1970b, Correction to paper by J. A.
O'Keefe, 'The microtektite data; implications for
the hypothesis of the lunar origin of Journal of
Geophysical Research. vol. 75, no. 20, pp. 4087.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1970c, Tektites and lunar sialic
rocks.
Meteoritics. vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 217-219.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1971, Physical chemistry of the
Aouelloul glass Journal of Geophysical Research.
vol. 76, no. 26, pp. 6428-6439.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1972, Geochemical Evidence for the
Origin of the Moon. Naturwissenschaften. vol. 59,
no. 2, pp. 45-52.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1973, Tektite sculpturing [with
comment] in Tektites, pp. 251-253, Dowden,
Hutchinson and Ross.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1976, Tektites and their origin.
Developments in petrology, vol. 4. Elsevier Scientific
Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands

O'Keefe, J. A., 1977, Asian tektites. Lapidary
Journal.
vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 142, 144, 146, 148. (April 1977)

O'Keefe, J. A., 1978a, The terminal Eocene event;
formation of a ring system around the Earth? Nature.
vol. 285, no. 5763, pp. 309-311. (May 29, 1978)

O'Keefe, J. A., 1978b, The tektite problem. Scientific
American. vol. 239, no. 2, pp. 116-125. (August 1978)

O'Keefe, J. A., Natural glass, 1984, Journal of
Non-Crystalline Solids. vol. 67, pp. 1-17.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1985, The terminal Cretaceous event;
circumterrestrial rings of tektite glass particles?
Cretaceous Research. vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 261-269.

O'Keefe, J. A., 1987, Zhamanshin and Aouelloul;
craters produced by impact of tektite-like glasses?
Meteoritics. vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 219-228. (September
30, 1987)

O'Keefe, J. A., 1994, Origin of tektites. Meteoritics.

vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 73-78. (January 1994)

O'Keefe, J. A., and Adams, E. W., 1965, Tektite
structure and lunar ash flows. Journal of Geophysical
Research. vol. 70, no. 16, pp. 3819-3829.

O'Keefe, J. A., and Ahrens, T. J., 1981, How could
a large meteorite impact kill off the dinosaurs?
Impact
mechanics of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction
bolide.
Twelfth lunar and planetary science conference, pp.
37-42. Houston, TX, United States, March 16-20, 1981.

O'Keefe, J. A., and Ahrens, T. J., 1986, Oblique
impact; a process for obtaining samples from other
planets. Science. vol. 234, no. 4774, pp. 346-349.
(October 17, 1986).

O'Keefe, J. A., and Lowman, P. D., 1965, Tektites as a
guide to the structure of the moon. Tectonophysics.
vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 319-332.

O'Keefe, J. A., Taylor, S. R., and McLennan, S. M.,
1980, Chemical relationships among irghizites,
zhamanshinites, Australasian tektites and Henbury
impact glass; discussion and reply. Geochimica et
Cosmochimica Acta. vol. 44, no. 12, pp. 2151-2158.

O'Keefe, J. A., Adams, E. W., Warmbrod, J. D., Silver,
A. D., and Cameron, W. S., 1973, Tektite Ablation;
Some Confirming Calculations. Journal of Geophysical
Research. vol. 78, no. 17, pp. 3491-3496.

Sepri, P., Chen, K. K., and O'Keefe, J. A., 1981,
Diminished tektite ablation in the wake of a swarm.
Journal of Geophysical Research. B, vol. 86, no. 6,
pp. 5103-5111. (June 10, 1981)

Taylor, R. W., Koeberl, C., and O'Keefe, J. A., 1994,
The origin of tektites; discussion and reply.
Meteoritics. vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 739-744 (September
1994)

Urey, H. C., and O'Keefe, J. A., 1971, Tektites from
the Earth. Science. vol. 171, no. 3968, pp. 312-314.

It is certain that this is **not** a complete list,
but it shows that Dr. O'Keefe has published
extensively about tektites.

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Sunday 1 May 2005

Re: ?Shocked quartz?

Re: ?Shocked quartz?

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 30 01:06:32 EDT 2005

gian paolo gallo gallo wrote:


Buenas noches , List. Have any of you a picture of shocked crystal quartz ?. I
would really appreciate if some one send us a picture to see how they looks like.


To see shocked quartz, a person needs to first make a petrographic thin sections of the material, which a person suspects contains some.

A page that explains what shocked quartz is "WHAT IS
"SHOCKED QUARTZ"?" at:
http://www.scn.org/~bh162/shocked_quartz.html
http://www.scn.org/~bh162/shocked_quartz.jpg
http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/esu801/esu801page03.cfm
http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/esu801/images/esu801_p3_shocked_quartz_b.gif

Pictures of shocked quartz can be found at:

1. CHESAPEAKE BAY IMPACT STRUCTURE.
http://www.wm.edu/geology/virginia/cbis.html
http://www.wm.edu/geology/virginia/cbis-izett-shockedqtz.gif

2. Lecture 5 Debate 1: What Killed the Dinosaurs?
(cont.)
http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a204/lecture5.html
http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a204/images/shocked_quartz.gif

3. The Extinction Of The Dinosaurs
http://www.priweb.org/ed/ICTHOL/ICTHOLrp/34rp.htm
http://www.priweb.org/ed/ICTHOL/ICTHOLrp/34rp_files/image006.jpg

4. Research Interests - Dr. Jared R. Morrow
http://esci.unco.edu/faculty/morrow/Morrow_UNC_home_files/Morrow_Research.htm
http://esci.unco.edu/faculty/morrow/Morrow_UNC_home_files/Research%20Photos/shock_qtz_gr.jpg

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Thursday 21 April 2005

Possible Asteroid Belt Found Around Distant Star

Possible Asteroid Belt Found Around Distant Star

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 20 22:33:18 EDT 2005

Asteroid belt found round distant star
Guardian, UK, April 20, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1464446,00.html

"(Charles) Beichman and his colleagues used an
infrared
spectrograph aboard Nasa's space telescope Spitzer
to look at 85 sun-like stars. Only HD69830 showed
a thick disk of warm dust in the inner section of
the star system. The guess is that every 1,000 years
or so, two asteroids in the belt collide and pulverise

each other."


NASA Spots Possible Asteroid Belt
San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/04/20/national/a181043D58.DTL


Wednesday 20 April 2005

Iridium Found At Serpent Mound Structure

Iridium Found At Serpent Mound Structure

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 19 08:54:17 EDT 2005

Rock samples from beneath mound contain rare metal
Associated Press, April 17, 2005, The Beacon Press
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/11419260.htm

"CLEVELAND - Scientists studying recent
rock samples taken from beneath an
ancient earthen mound are trying to
determine what caused unusually high
concentrations of a metal rarely seen
anywhere but near Earth's molten core
or in asteroids and comets."

(rest of article not posted)

Asteroid Rained Glass Over Entire Earth, Scientists Say

Asteroid Rained Glass Over Entire Earth, Scientists Say

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 19 08:56:47 EDT 2005

Asteroid Rained Glass Over Entire Earth, Scientists
Say
Hillary Mayell, National Geographic News, April 15,
2005
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0415_050418_chicxulub.html

"The scientists concluded that minute
droplets of superhot liquid rock condensed
in the vapor cloud as it expanded and
cooled, and then rained down all over
Earth."

Sunday 17 April 2005

Distribution of Meteorites Around Small-Size Craters?

Distribution of Meteorites Around Small-Size Craters?

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 16 17:25:15 EDT 2005

Has anyone studied how the meteoritic material found
at impact craters such as Wabar, Boxhole, Henbury,
Odessa, and Morasko was distributed? I am curious if
either the main mass or the major amount of the
meteoritic material was either found inside the main
crater or otherwise directly associated with it in
some
fashion. Or was the meteoritc material simply
scattered
haphazardly about the primary crater in a manner
lacking any discernable association with the largest
crater and pattern?

Any suggestions of published papers relating to this
topic be would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Re: is this for real? ("Elko Crater Field")

Re: is this for real? ("Elko Crater Field")

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 16 20:39:06 EDT 2005

This is what I have seen written about the "Elko Crater Field".

Bob’s Findings
by Robert Verish

Abstracts presented at - The 34th Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference (LPSC - 2003)
http://meteorite-recovery.tripod.com/2003/apr03.htm

++++

Bob’s Findings
by Robert Verish

The "Elko Crater Field" Revisited - A Reconnaissance
Report
http://www.meteoritetimes.com/Back_Links/2002/November/Bob's_Findings.htm
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2003/pdf/1572.pdf

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA

Friday 15 April 2005

Torino Scale Revised

Torino Scale Revised

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 14 08:34:00 EDT 2005

Torino Scale Revised
Universe Today, April 14, 2005
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/torino_scale_revised.html?1342005

"Summary - ( Apr 13, 2005 ) Astronomers searching
for potentially destructive Earth-crossing asteroids
have revised the scale they use to communicate the
risk of impact to the public. The Torino scale, which
still goes from 0 (no chance of impact) to 10
(collision
is certain) has the same classifications, but it's
been
rewritten to give the public a better idea of the
risks
associated with different space rocks. Instead of
"meriting concern", lower risk objects now "merit
attention by astronomers", explaining that
astronomers will be making further observations."

Asteroid to pose close call in 2029

Asteroid to pose close call in 2029

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 14 08:34:40 EDT 2005

Asteroid to pose close call in 2029
Indianapolis Star, By Guy Gugliotta, April 12, 2005
http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/236149-7307-010.html

"Near-Earth object' should miss striking Earth, but
discovery still highlights risks."

Thursday 14 April 2005

Re: Croplands May Cover Ohio Crater

Re: Croplands May Cover Ohio Crater

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 13 10:21:36 EDT 2005

Ron Baalke wrote:

"
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1113298229177151.xml

Croplands may cover NW Ohio crater
by Bill Sloat, Plain Dealer, April 12, 2005"

What this article is about is the proposed Liberty
impact
crater. Some web page, which discuss the evidence for
this proposed crater are:

1. LIBERTY CRATER INDEX
http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/Stierman/RES/LibC/IX.htm

2. Liberty Township, Seneca County, Ohio
http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/Stierman/RES/LibC/Maps.htm

3. GEOPHYSICAL INVESTIGATION OF A SUSPECTED
IMPACT CRATER, LIBERTY TOWNSHIP, SENECA COUNTY,
OHIO by Donald J. Stierman, Bradley B. Trytten, and
Scott Gurney Department of Earth, Ecological & Environmental

Sciences - The University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
43606
http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/Stierman/RES/LibC/report.pdf

Best Regards,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA