[meteorite-list] clusters of holes on the ground on Mars and Earth...

From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 21:29:16 -0500
Message-ID: <20110801222916.SYK1T.878248.imail_at_eastrmwml39>

In ?clusters of holes on the ground on Mars andEarth...? at
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2011-July/078736.html
Dennis Cox wrote;

>Thanks Sterling,
>I know what sinkholes look like too.
>The New Mexico craters number in the thousands.

Back in the early 1980s, I worked as a geologist for
the Denver Office of Placid Oil Company before it
crashed and burned as its owners managed to turn
billions of dollars into millions of dollars. A good chunk
of New Mexico was part of the area, in which I was
responsible for looking for oil and gas. Also, a friend of
the family once had a ranch within Lincoln County, New
Mexico. As a result, both as a part of my job and for
pleasure while pretending to be a cowboy, I got to see
close up and personal a lot of rocks, including some of
your so-called "craters" in person. The depressions,
which you claim to be "craters," in person, I know from
personal experience that they are classic sinkholes.

Dennis Cox continued,
>I've been checking the Geologic record, and
>digging into the literature, for more than a
>year now. I have written to many of the top
>planetary scientists at NASA. None of them
>has been able to tell me of any actual science
>that's been done there.

The problem is that planetary scientists and NASA are the
wrong people to ask anything about various mundane
aspects of the general geology of New Mexico. They have
absolutely no reason to get involved in the everyday details
of New Mexico geology in which you are asking them about.

The people, who have studied the geology of various parts
of New Mexico in great detail, are the geologists and
geohydrologists of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology &
Mineral Resources. They are the people, who literally
have been literally the geological boots on the ground for
decades preparing detailed geologic maps and doing other
research. They are the geologists that either you or anyone
on this list can contact for an expert answer about the
origin of the depressions that you claim to be ?craters?.

Contact information is:

New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources
New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
801 Leroy Place
Socorro, NM 87801-4796
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/

Descriptions of the regional geologic context of your
alleged ?craters? can be found in:

Johnson, K. S., 1997, Evaporite karst in the United
States. Carbonates and Evaporites. vol. 12, no. 1,
pp. 2-14.

Johnson, K. S., 2005, Subsidence hazards due to
evaporite dissolution in the United States.
Environmental Geology. vol. 48, pp. 395-409.

McLemore, V. T., 1999, Bottomless Lakes. New Mexico
Geology. vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 51-55.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/state/bottomless_lakes/home.html

Motts, W. S., and R. L. Cushman, 1964, An appraisal
of the possibilities of artificial recharge to ground-
water supplies in part of the Roswell Basin, New
Mexico. Water-Supply Paper no.1785, U.S. Geological
Survey, Reston, Virginia, 86 p.

Mourant, W. A. 1963, Water resources and geology
of the Rio Hondo drainage basin, Chaves, Lincoln, and
Otero Counties, New Mexico. Technical report no. 28.
State Engineer Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

One specific geologist, who is an expert on the
pertinent geolgoy is:

Dr. L. Land
New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral
Resources, and The National Cave and Karst
Research Institute,
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology,
1400 Commerce Dr., Carlsbad, NM 88220, USA

Specific papers of his that pertain to the subject at hand:

Land, L. A., 2003, Evaporite karst and regional ground
water circulation in the lower Pecos Valley, in Johnson,
K.S. and Neal, J.T. (eds.), pp. 227-232.Evaporite Karst
and Engineering/Environmental Problems in the United
States. Circular no. 109, Oklahoma Geological Survey,
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Land, L. A., 2006, Hydrogeology of Bottomless Lakes
State Park, in pp. p. 95-96, Land, L., Lueth, V., Raatz, B.,
Boston, P., and Love, D. (eds.), Caves and Karst of
Southeastern New Mexico. Guidebook no. 57, New
Mexico Geological Society, Socorro, New Mexico.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/nmgs/guidebooks/57/

Land, L. A., and B. T. Newton, 2007, Seasonal and long-term
variations in hydraulic head in a karstic aquifer: Roswell
Artesian Basin, New Mexico. Open-File Report no. 503,
New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources,
Socorro, New Mexico, 27 p.

Land, L. A., and B. T. Newton, 2008, Seasonal and long-term
variations in hydraulic head in a karstic aquifer: Roswell
Artesian Basin, New Mexico. Journal of the American
Water Resources Association. vol. 44, pp. 175-191.

Land, L. A., and Huff, G. F., 2010, Multi-tracer investigation
of groundwater residence time in a karstic aquifer: Bitter
Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA.
Hydrogeology Journal. vol. 18, pp. 455?472.

Land, L. A. V. W. Lueth, W. Raatz, P. Boston and D. W.
Love, 2006, Caves & Karst of Southeastern New Mexico.
New Mexico Geological Society Fall Field Conference
Guidebook no. 57, Mexico Geological Society, Socorro,
New Mexico.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/nmgs/guidebooks/57/

Stafford, K. W., L. Land, and A. Klimchouk, 2008,
Hypogenic speleogenesis within Seven Rivers
Evaporites: Coffee Cave, Eddy County, New Mexico.
Journal of Cave and Karst Studies. vol. 70, no. 1,
pp. 47?61.

Stafford, K. W., L. Land, A. Klimchouk, and M. O. Gary,
2009, The Pecos River Hypogene Speleogenetic
Province: A basin-scale paradigm for eastern New
Mexico and West Texas, USA. Advances in Hypogene
Karst Studies NCKRI Symposium no. 1, 15 pp.
National Cave and Karst Research Institute, Carlsbad,
New Meixco.
http://speleogenesis.info/institute/libpdf/Stafford%20et%20al_2009_The%20Pecos%20river%20hypogene%20speleogenetic%20province_NCKRI%20Symp_121-135.pdf

These papers make it quite clear that New Mexico
does contain lots and lots of karst. Stafford et al. (2008,
2009) illustrate in detail one of the small local cave
systems, which is associated with the New Mexico karst.

New Mexico Geologic Maps

In addition, the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and
Mineral Resources has produced a number of 7.5-minute
geological maps. Some of these maps indicate that the
depressions, which you claim to be ?craters,? are nothing
more than rather ordinary karst. The nature of this karst
is illustrated and discussed in either the text or reports
that accompany these maps.

Some geologic maps, which illustrates the abundance of
sinkholes that you claim to be some sort of ?craters,? are:

McCraw, D. J., G. Rawling, and L. A. Land, 2007, Geologic
map of the Bitter Lake quadrangle, Chaves County, New
Mexico. Open-file geologic map. no. 151. scale 1:24,000,
New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.
Socorro, New Mexico.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/details.cfml?Volume=15 http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/downloads/151/Bitter_Lake_Report.doc1
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/downloads/151/Bitter_Lake_v2p-02.pdf

Rawling, G., and D. J. McCraw, 2010, Geologic map of
the Bottomless Lakes quadrangle, Chaves County,
New Mexico. Open-file geologic map. no. 126. scale
1:24,000, New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral
Resources. Socorro, New Mexico.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/details.cfml?Volume=126
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/downloads/126/Bottomless_Lakes_v2p-00.pdf

McCraw, D. J., 2008, Preliminary Geologic Map of the
South Spring Quadrangle, Chaves County, New Mexico.
Open-file geologic map. no. 171. scale 1:24,000, New
Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.
Socorro, New Mexico.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/downloads/171/South_Spring_final.pdf
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/maps/geologic/ofgm/downloads/171/South_Spring_report.pdf

Dennis Cox continued,
>Although, the discovery of a single interconnected
>cave system that covers thousand of square miles
>would be just as big a deal as clusters of small
>impact craters covering the same area. They are
>found in a large enough quantity, and variety of
>terrains, to rule out karst collapse as the cause
>with a fair degree of confidence.

It is scientific nonsense to argue that sinkholes, as seen
in parts of New Mexico, must be connected to a single large
interconnected cave system. The sinkholes as found in
New Mexico likely are typically connected to, at best, a
number of separate and local cave systems. There is
nothing about karst that requires that these sinkholes be
part of a single cave system. An example of one such New
Mexico cave system is illustrated in great detail in two of
Dr. L. A. Land?s papers, Stafford et al. (2008, 2009), which
are listed above.

However, not all of your craterwrongs are sinkholes.
Looking at your web pages, you have misidentified a wide
variety of rather mundane and pedestrian landforms of
varying origins. One of my favorite ?craterwrongs? are the
longitudinal dunes, which are misidentified as ?impact
ejecta.? Superimposed on the longitudinal dunes are
blowout or parabolic dunes. These sand dunes, which
have been horribly confused with impact ejecta, are a
mixture of vegetated Pleistocene and reactivated Holocene
sand dunes that lie within the Red Rock River valley.
They are part of the Centennial Sandhills of Beaverhead
County, Montana. Typical examples of these sand dunes
can be found at 44.644033, ?112.076880 .

The origin of the sand dunes of the Centennial Sandhills
is breifly discussed in:

Lesica, P., and S. V. Cooper, 1999, Succession and
Disturbance in Sandhills Vegetation: Constructing Models
for Managing Biological Diversity. Conservation Biology.
vol. 13, no .2, pp. 293-302.

Images of longitudinal and parabolic dunes can be
found in:

Hack, J. T., 1941, Dunes of the western Navajo country.
Geographical Review. vol. 31, pp. 240-263.

How the type of dunes that can be seen in aerial imagery
within the Centennial Sandhills is discussed in:

Chadwick, H. W., and P. D. Dalke, 1965, Plant succession
on sand dunes in Fremont County, Idaho. Ecology. vol. 46
pp. 765-780.

The Centennial Sandhills Preserve
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/montana/placesweprotect/centennial-sandhills-preserve.xml

Dennis Cox continued,
>I've had it up to here with uniformitarian assumptive
>hand waving.

This has nothing to do with "uniformitarian assumptive
hand waving." The problem here, is hand waving on your
part that lacks a single shred of hard evidence of any sort
to back up your speculation. The depressions, which you
claim to be craters even lack the morphology of an
extraterrestrial crater in that they lack rims and have
irregular shapes. It almost seems like the only criteria
you have for identifying one of your so-called ?craters?
is it being a natural depression of any size or shape in
the land surface.

Dennis Cox continued,
>And I don't see it as anymore valid than some of the
>pseudoscience I've read. The most entertaining of
>those is the one from the Velikovskian delusionists
>who tell me they are caused by interplanetary
>electric discharges.

I agree, the electric discharges advocates are amusing.

Dennis Cox continued,
>And after two years of digging in the literature, I really
>don't give a rip either way.
>
>Can someone tell me who has done some real science there?

Again, the people that you can contact for ?real science?
and the readers of this list can contact for a second
opinion about these depressions is:

New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources
New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
801 Leroy Place
Socorro, NM 87801-4796
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/

Best wishes,

Paul H.
Received on Mon 01 Aug 2011 10:29:16 PM PDT