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



Sunday 23 November 2008

Question About Nanodiamonds was "Discovery.com Ancient N.Y. Tsunami?"

Question About Nanodiamonds was "Discovery.com Ancient N.Y. Tsunami?"

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Nov 23 22:25:08 EST 2008

On November 22, 2008,

Paul Harris forwarded:

"Did Asteroid Cause Ancient N.Y. Tsunami?
From: Anne Black impactika at aol.com

Hi, Anne Black
A friend of yours, Kevin Decker just asked us to pass
this along to you. Here's the link at Discovery.com
that they thought you'd be interested in seeing.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/11/20/asteroid-tsunami.html "

In this story and in the AGU abstracts, we are reading
much about nanodiamonds. Does anyone know of any papers
about how a person goes about looking for nanodiamonds
in sediment samples?

Where does a person find a description of the procedures
used to extract and concentrate the carbon spherules and
nanodiamonds for analysis?

By the way, an article, for what it is or is not worth, about
nanodiamonds is "Lucy in the Sky with Nanodiamonds" at

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20080107/perrin-c.shtml

Yours,

Paul H.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Microtektites and Micrometeorites in Antarctica

Microtektites and Micrometeorites in Antarctica

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 18 16:10:42 EST 2008

Some new papers about microtektites and micrometeorites
in Antarctica are:

Rochettea, P., L. Folcob, C. Suaveta, M. van Ginnekenb,
J. Gattaccecaa, N. Perchiazzic, R. Brauchera, and R. P.
Harveyd, 2008, Micrometeorites from the Transantarctic
Mountains. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. Published online before print November 14,
2008, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0806049105

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/11/14/0806049105.abstract
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/11/14/0806049105.full.pdf+html

+++++

Folco, L., P. Rochette, N. Perchiazzi, M. D'Orazio, M.A.
Laurenzi, and M. Tiepolo, 2008a, Microtektites from
Victoria Land Transantarctic Mountains. Geology. vol. 36,
no. 4, pp. 291-294, DOI: 10.1130/G24528A.1

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/4/291

+++++

Folco, L., P. Rochette, N. Perchiazzi, M. D'Orazio, M.A.
Laurenzi, and M. Tiepolo, 2008, Microtektites from the
Northern Victoria Land Transantarctic Mountains: An
Update. 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference,
(Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIX), held March
10-14, 2008 in League City, Texas. LPI Contribution
No. 1391., p.1180

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008LPI....39.1180F
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1180.pdf

Yours,

Paul H.

Sunday 16 November 2008

The British Royal Society Digital Archives are open (free) to public until Feb 2009

The British Royal Society Digital Archives are open (free) to public until Feb 2009

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Nov 16 17:11:26 EST 2008

The British Royal Society Digital Archives are open to public
until February 2009. Until then, people can download PDF files
from their archives. A search for meteorites yielded 141 results
as found at:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/?k=meteorite&sortorder=asc

Information on the archive can be found here:

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page=1600

While the archive itself can be accessed here:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/home/main.mpx

It might be time for folks to look over their wishlists and
see what you can download in the next 3 months.

Yours,

Paul H.

Friday 14 November 2008

North American Glaciation Finally Dated

North American Glaciation Finally Dated

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Fri Nov 14 12:12:57 EST 2008

People, who work with Quaternary meteorite impacts should
know that the age and duration of the Illinoian (“glacial”)
Stage has finally been directly determined in its type
region by the Illinois State Geological Survey. As a part
of research associated with geological mapping in north-central Illinois, they recovered cores that sampled the the full
thickness of Illinoian glacial tills (Glasford Formation)
and outwash (Pearl formation) lying within an ancient buried
valley of the Mississippi River. Using optically stimulated
luminescence (OSL) dating, they were able to date Illinoian
glacial outwash overlying and interbedded with Illinoian
glacial tills. Using OSL dating, they also dated glacial
outwash underlying the oldest Illinoian glacial till, the
Kellerville Till Member, comprising the glacial sediments
that define the Illinoian Stage.

The Illinois State Geological Survey found was that the
glacial sediments, which comprised the Illinois glacial lobe,
all accumulated over a period of time between 130,000 to
200,000 years ago. Because these sediments define the
Illinoian Stage, it is approximately equivalent in time to
Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 instead of Marine Isotope
stages 6, 7, and 8 together, a period of time from 130,000
to 300,000 BP, as previously hypothesized. Based upon
this research, the geologists at the Illinois State Geological
Survey now infer that the Yarmouth Geosol (paleosol), which
underlies Illinoian glacial sediments that buried it, was
created by weathering of older glacial deposits from about
191,000 to 424,000 years ago during a period of geologic
time equivalent to Marine Isotope stages 7, 8, 9, 10, and
11.

An article, abstract, and powerpoint presentation about the
OSL dating of the Illinoian Stage are:

(1.) McKay, E.D., 2007, Six Rivers, Five Glaciers, and an Outburst
Flood: the Considerable Legacy of the Illinois River. Proceedings
of the 2007 Governor's Conference on the Management of the
Illinois River System: Our continuing Commitment, 11th Biennial
Conference, Oct. 2-4, 2007, 11 p.

http://ilrdss.sws.uiuc.edu/govconf2007/session2a/DonMcKay.pdf

(2.) McKay, E.D., and R.C. Berg, 2008, Optical ages spanning
two glacial-interglacial cycles from deposits of the ancient
Mississippi River, north-central Illinois. Geological Society of
America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 40, No. 5, p. 78
Abstract at:

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2008NC/finalprogram/abstract_137641.htm

(3.) Powerpoint presentation at:

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/viewHandout.cgi?uploadid=295

In addition, it has been about a quarter of a century since
North American geomorphologists and Quaternary geologists
abandoned the climatic and chronological framework used by
early geomorphologists and Quaternary geologists to subdivide
glacial and nonglacial deposits within north-central United States
into four glacial and interglacial stages. About a quarter of a
century ago, the accumulation of stratigraphic and chronological
data discredited the Yarmouthian (interglacial), Kansan (glacial),
Aftonian (interglacial), and Nebraskan (glacial) stages as being
scientifically meaningless as either climatic, stratigraphic, or
chronostratigraphic subdivisions of the Pleistocene. As a result,
the use of these stages to classify north American Quaternary was
abandoned and they were all merged into the Pre-illinoian Stage.
For further reading about why the Nebraskan, Aftonian, Kansan,
and Yamouthian stages were abandoned by North American
geomorphologists and Quaternary geologists as antiquated and
meaningless nomenclature, a person can read:

Aber, J.S., 1991, Glaciations of Kansas. Boreas. vol. 20, no. 4,
pp. 297-314.

Boellstorff, J., 1978, Chronology of some Late Cenozoic deposits
from the central United States and the Ice Ages. Transactions of
the Nebraska Academy of Science. vol 6, pp. 35–49.

Hallberg, G.R., 1986, Pre-Wisconsin glacial stratigraphy of the
Central Plains region in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri,
Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 5, pp. 11-15.

Richmond, G.M. and D.S. Fullerton, 1986, Summation of Quaternary
glaciations in the United States of America. Quaternary Science
Reviews. vol. 5, pp. 183-196.

Roy, M., P.U. Clark, R.W. Barendregt, J.R., Glasmann, and R.J.
Enkin, 2004, Glacial stratigraphy and paleomagnetism of late
Cenozoic deposits of the north-central United States, Geological
Society of America Bulletin. vol. 116, no. 1-2; pp. 30-41;
DOI: 10.1130/B25325.1

The PDF file for Roy et al. (2004) can be found at:

http://geo.oregonstate.edu/people/faculty/publications/clarkp/Royetal-
GSAB-2004.pdf

Stiff, B. J., and A.K. Hansel, 2004, Quaternary glaciations in Illinois. in Ehlers, J., and P.L. Gibbard, eds., pp. 71-82, Quaternary Glaciations: Extent and Chronology 2: Part II North America, Elsevier, Amsterdam. ISBN 0-444-51462-7

A nice summary of the relationships between the North American,
English, and European Pleistocene stratigraphic nomenclature can
be found in “Global correlation tables for the Quaternary” at;

http://www.quaternary.stratigraphy.org.uk/correlation/chart.html

and McMillan, A.A., 2005, A provisional Quaternary and Neogene
lithostratigraphic framework Great Britain, Netherland Journal of
Geosciences. vol. 84, n0. 2, pp, 87-107.

It can be found at:

http://www.njgonline.nl/publish/articles/000245/article.pdf

http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/680/

I have written more about the North American Quaternary stages
for Wikipedia at:

1. Illinoian Stage

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

2. Pre-Illinoian Stage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Illinoian_Stage

and 3. Kansan glaciation

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

These pages have references and links to PDF files that
a person can freely download.

Yours,

Paul H.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

What Publication has the Best Definition of "Tektite"?

What Publication has the Best Definition of "Tektite"?

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 11 09:50:18 EST 2008

Dear Friends,

I need to define what a "tektite" is. What paper,
book, or other publication has, in your opinion,
has the best definition of the term "tektite"?

Yours,

Paul H.
Baton Rouge, LA