[meteorite-list] More articles on Peruvian Event and PossiblePicture
From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:17:14 -0500 Message-ID: <0f3101c7fd5d$f2e0e7c0$a025e146_at_ATARIENGINE> Hi, What's fascinating to me is that what we have at this point is (maybe) just one notch above the kind of accounts we find in folklore and ancient myth: a roaring glowing object falls from the celestrial seat and smashes into the earth, foul vapors issue forth and the people are sickened, cows miscarry, a boiling miasma is seen in the hellish pit, evil influences are emitted (radiation), and so forth. The usual, more or less fitted to the local cultural conceptions. Only the UFO's are missing. And we are no more able, on the basis of the data presented so far, to judge this event than we are able to judge the likelihood of a real event behind the stories found in ancient annals, legends, and myths (a topic that has recently come up on this List). I do note, in the NYTimes photos, evidence that some sections of the rim are upturned or tilted, evidence of a mildly explosive event below the surface. Note also that the "crater" is only 600 yards from the very large Lake Titacata and the water in the crater is likely ground water that flowed in shortly after formation. Lake Titacata's level has been dropping for a long time (you can see elevated ancient shorelines on the hills around it). The initial "bubbling" reported could be explained as turbulance from water that came flooding in from an underground stream or source. Likewise, the reported odors could be from mineral salts (the accumulation of which in soils of the irrigated platform agriculture of the ancient civilization that was once quite extensive in the area doomed it). Purely ad hoc hypotheses put forward in case this turns out to be the real deal... I will have to say that the crater looks more like a large "impact pit" than a crater. The 3:1 width/depth ratio is characteristic of very loose materials (like soil and sand) in mild impacts. Harder target materials and higher velocities produce deeper transient craters that then slump and rebound to shallower depths. The material seen in the photos is good old Altiplano dirt and an occasional flat rock. Despite its size, the "crater" looks like a low-energy event, and not a thermal event, but the result of a large and slow (for a cosmic body) impactor. Simple holes in the dirt are called impact pits; one is described here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek/ellemeng.html "A witness saw a 970 gram weight fragment of the meteorite, measuring approximately 10 centimeters in diameter, impact in a meadow: this fragment generated a half meter deep impact pit." The diameter of the pit is not given, but would (or should) be 1 meter or more. The fragment was intact. Scaling that event up to the size of the reputed Peruvian pit, also in dirt) you get an 0.8 to 1.0 meter meteorite (which would weigh about 1.0 to 1.3 tons, by the way) sitting there, or one helluva lot of fragments. Do you see it (or them) in the photos? The Jilin "main mass" of 1.77 tons produced an impact pit 6 meters deep, only slightly bigger than this pit. The one-ton Sterlintamak "crater" of 1990 is roughly the same size as the Peruvian Pit. Hard to miss a one-ton meteorite, I would think. Interestingly, the other vital datum -- the WIDTH of the impact pit -- is seemingly never reported, I discover after hours of Googling. It is never present in either historic accounts nor contemporaneous ones, even by "scientists," or even accounts of actual finds made by otherwise wise, wonderful and virtuous members of this List. Both numbers matter, guys. Useful fundamental data going to waste. Here's an interesting article of fundamental research on impact carried out in a high-tech sandbox: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:7oX3prQ_bsAJ:www.nature.com/physics/highlights/6938-1.html+impact+pit+meteorite&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=31&gl=us Sterling K. Webb ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul" <bristolia at yahoo.com> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 9:10 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] More articles on Peruvian Event and PossiblePicture Some recent articles of interest about the Peruvian explosion. 1. Meteorite causes a stir in Peru: The explosion near Carancas frightened and awed residents and (they say) made them sick. Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-meteor21sep21,1,5605341.story?coll=la-headlines-world This article has some detail about local reaction, including hopes to bring in tourists. 2. In Peru, a Crater and Questions By Mike Nizza and Mike Nizza New york Times bloggers, who visited the crater, September 20, 2007, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/in-peru-a-crater-and-questions/index.html?hp%20 3. Peruvian Meteorite Has Sci Fi Twist By Bill Christensen, Space.com, September 19, 2007 http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070919_technovel_peru_meteorite.html 4. Space object or meteorite that fell in Peru causes sickness http://www.enjoyfrance.com/content/view/1043/31/ This has a untitled picture, which may or may not be of whatever fell in Peru. 5. Meteorite Likely Caused Crater in Peru http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isWWHSxCh_u0yUNU9Gpk1qfg996A Correction: Peru Meteorite Story, Associated Press http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iTC-v8oroqXSVoaVRtSnCVvHJcyg Yours, Paul ____________________________________________________________________________________ Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. http://sims.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Received on Sat 22 Sep 2007 05:17:14 PM PDT |
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