[meteorite-list] Another, Different Chicxulub Theory

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2016 00:33:51 -0600
Message-ID: <167475.89474.bm_at_smtp114.sbc.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Dear List,
 
"Scientists Say Dinosaur-Killing
Asteroid Made Earth's Surface
Act Like Liquid:"
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/22/503013290/scientists-say-d
inosaur-killing-asteroid-made-earths-surface-act-like-liquid
 
"...recently published in the journal
"Science." Deep drilled samples from
the crater... settled a major debate
about how a planet's surface behaves
during an asteroid impact - and
how the mountain ring, known as
a "peak ring," is formed. Some
researchers have argued that the
process is dominated by melting
on the surface, which would mean
that the ring is mainly formed from
material moving from side-to-side.

In that model this ring of peaks are
created by shallow material kind
of moving towards the center and
being uplifted. "On the drill floor
when we're out there, out in our
hard hats and so on, looking at
these cores coming up," the
researchers were seeing pink
granite that emerged from about
6 miles deep in the Earth and
not the limestone that would
have been on the surface during
the Cretaceous Period... Everybody
staring at it went, 'Wow, there's the
answer. It's from deep.' "

The researcher was Sean Gulick,
a geophysicist at the University
of Texas, Austin. Gulick helped
lead a team of researchers that
drilled for samples of that mountain
ring in the Chicxulub crater off
the coast of Mexico.


Sterling K. Webb
Received on Wed 23 Nov 2016 01:33:51 AM PST