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



Tuesday 23 November 2010

Louisiana Impact Crater 23NOV2010

Heart of Louisiana: La's meteor strike  w/ video
by Dave McNamara 
A research team, led by Dr. Paul V. Heinrich from LSU
has found the remains of a large crater that experts
believe was caused by a long-ago meteor impact
...  See Video Video

More about the Brushy Creek Impact Crater in
 St. Helena Parish, Louisiana by Paul V. Heinrich:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18934514/Brushy-Creek-Impact-Crater-St-Helena-Parish-Louisiana


http://www.research.lsu.edu/newsletter/archives/2004summer/crater.htm

Sunday 21 November 2010

The Manuel Benavides Craterwrong and Cratermania

The Manuel Benavides Craterwrong and Cratermania


People having been using Google Earth for a number of purposes, including the search for impact craters. Although Google Earth has been useful in the search for impact structures and craters, some people have been indulging in a cratermania in which any circular feature and even a number of noncircular features are instantly claimed to be either impact structures and craters without a single shred of either ground truthing, literature review, or hard evidence. One specific example is:

1. The Benavides Impact Structure: A large, multiple airburst, 
geo-ablative impact structure.
http://craterhunter.wordpress.com/the-planetary-scaring-of-the-younger-dryas-impact-event/the-benivides-impact-structure/

http://tiny.cc/Benavides
This feature is described as:

"The semi circular ring of The Benavides Impact Structure is 17 miles wide. Just across the border from Terlingua, Texas, and Big Bend National Park, USA. "and it is stated, "There is no volcanic vent here."

Unfortunately, recently published and very, very detailed geologic mapping demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that the above statements are completely wrong. The so-called "Benavides Impact Structure" is in fact a volcanic caldera and would be more correctly called the "Benavides Craterwrong."

This detailed geologic mapping, McDowell (2010), states about the Benavides structure;

"The caldera is an unusual trap-door type with a hinge zone on the southwest and two separate collapse and eruption margins around the north and east. Its outer diameter is approximately 25 km, which is unusually large for the tuffs that erupted from it, suggestive of a shallow collapse. Inflation or tumescence prior to the eruptions modified a preexisting Laramide fold by bowing it outward toward the north and east; a 31.5 Ma granitoid was intruded into the fold axis, resulting in the formation of skarn deposits in the surrounding limestones of the fold."

References Cited;

McDowell, F. W., 2010, Geologic Map of Manuel Benavides area, 
Chihuahua, Mexico. Map and Chart no. 99. Geological Society of 
America, Boulder, Colorado.
http://rock.geosociety.org/Bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=2&pID=MCH099F

Yours,

Paul H.

Drumlins Are Glacial, Not Impact, In Origin

 Drumlins Are Glacial, Not Impact, In Origin


Dear friends,

New research concerning how drumlins form has appeared 
in the October 2010 (vol. 38 no. 10) issue of "Geology." 
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/10.toc
 


The significance of this research is discussed in:

1. How Drumlins Form, olelog What on Earth 
Blog, Nov. 18, 2010, http://my.opera.com/nielsol/blog/show.dml/22004962
 


2. Drumlin Field Discovery Gives Answers 
About Glaciation And Climate, redorbit
November 16, 2010, http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1951595/drumlin_field_discovery_gives_answers_about_glaciation_and_climate/index.html
 


The paper is;

Johnson, M. D., A. Schomacker, I. O. Benediktsson,
A. J. Geiger, A. Ferguson, and O. Ingolfsson, 2010, 
Active drumlin field revealed at the margin of 
Múlajökull, Iceland: A surge-type glacier. Geology.
vol. 38, no. 10, pp. 943-946, DOI: 10.1130/G31371.1
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/10/943
 


This refutes the claims by various catastrophists that drumlins 
were either created by Pleistocene extraterrestrial impacts or 
Noah's Flood.

An example of how drumlins are misinterpreted and misused 
as evidence of an extraterrestrial impact is discussed in "Could 
a Comet Tail Have Scarred the Earth in the Recent Past?" at 
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/206447-Could-a-Comet-Tail-Have-Scarred-the-Earth-in-the-Recent-Past-
 


Even more detailed discussion of how drumlins were created 
is discussed in a number of papers in the December (vol. 232, 
no. 3-4) issue of "Sedimentary Geology" at 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00370738
 


Best Wishes,

Paul H.

Meteorite Crater or Collapsed Lava Tube on Mt. Ararat ??

Meteorite Crater or Collapsed Lava Tube on Mt. Ararat ??


On Nov. 20, 2010 and in "meteorite crater on Mt. Ararat?" at
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2010-November/070933.html
 

Don Giovanni posted;

" http://snipurl.com/1hm8yo
 
 "

Other web pages for this story are:
1. http://technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26039/
 

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/files/48956/Ararat.png
 


2. Meteorite Crater on Mount Ararat?
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/11/19/meteorite-crater-on-mount-ararat/
 


and wrote

""Technology Review," a publication of MIT, published a story 
on Thurs., Nov. 18 titled “Unrecorded Meteorite Crater Found 
on Mount Ararat?” The article reveals that two physicists, Vahe 
Gurzadyan from the Yerevan Physics Institute in Armenia and 
Sverre Aarseth from the University of Cambridge in the UK, 
somehow gained access to the northern and western slopes of 
Mount Ararat—areas that are off-limits to visitors—and there 
discovered a “well-preserved” crater “at an altitude of 2100 
meters, at coordinates 39˚ 47’ 30”N, 44˚ 14’ 40”E, and…some 
70 meters across.”"

It must have been a very slow newsday for "Technology 
Review" to have published what is essentially a nonstory.
The two page article can be found in "A meteorite crater 
on Mt. Ararat?" by V. G. Gurzadyan and S. Aarseth (Submitted 
on 16 Nov 2010) in the arXiv.org archive. 

Summary at http://arxiv4.library.cornell.edu/abs/1011.3715
 

PDF file at http://arxiv4.library.cornell.edu/pdf/1011.3715v1
 


Looking at the picture, it does not even look like a 
convincing volcanic crater and certainly does not look 
anything like a convincing impact crater. One possibility
which they do not address is that this depression is a 
collapsed lave tube. The roof collapse of lava tubes also 
creates circular depressions, which the picture in their
article definitely looks like one. 

Some examples of collapsed lava tubes are:

1. The Desert Caves Project
http://www.saudicaves.com/science/index.html
 

http://www.saudicaves.com/science/hib.jpg
 


2. "Lava tube listed only in Becka's rough guide of America" (Utah)
http://www.goatchurch.org.uk/atrips/usa/utah/utah.html
 

http://www.goatchurch.org.uk/atrips/usa/utah/lavatube.jpg
 


3. Pisgah Lava Tubes
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ce5aa161-17aa-48a3-b1a1-89b72a9dff1f
 

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/2ef85cee-6cc7-4674-b8c7-10d867e3beb0.jpg
 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gallery.aspx?guid=ce5aa161-17aa-48a3-b1a1-89b72a9dff1f
 


4. Collapsed Lava Tube, Craters of the Moon
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11599385
 


5. Volcanic ventures
http://volcanicventures.wordpress.com/
 

http://volcanicventures.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/shellyp.jpg?w=497&h=372
 


6. Martian caves
http://dwarmstr.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
 

http://www2.lib.uchicago.edu/~dean/blog/mars-cave.jpg
 

http://www2.lib.uchicago.edu/~dean/blog/mars-cave-floor.jpg
 


Yours,

Paul H.

Monday 8 November 2010

Ames Crater Museum (Ames, Oklahoma) 7NOV2010

Ames Crater Museum (Ames, Oklahoma)

Sunday, November 7, 2010 9:58 PM
Ames Crater Museum
http://www.amescrater.com/
http://enidnews.com/localnews/x518673449/Ames-Astrobleme-Museum-records-meteor-crater-history

Astrobleme Museum a Big Hit (PDF file)
http://www.aoghs.org/pdf/AOGHS_AstroMuseum.pdf

Other web pages are:

Ames Impact Structure, Oklahoma

http://principles.ou.edu/ames/index.html
http://geophysics.ou.edu/solid_earth/notes/solar_system/Ames3.htm

Hydrocarbons in meteorite impact structures: Oil 
reserves in the Ames feature

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5348/is_199812/ai_n21430580/

Meteorites Make Good Impression: Impact Craters Can 
Yield Reservoirs. AAPG Exporer, March 2002

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/03mar/impactcraters.cfm

Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space 
Betsy Mason, Wired News, 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/impactcraters/all/1 

Yours,

Paul H.

Saturday 6 November 2010

Free PDF Files of El'gygytgyn Impact Crater Papers 6NOV2010

Free PDF Files of El'gygytgyn Impact Crater Papers
Through November 30, 2010, the PDF files of papers about the El'gygytgyn Impact Crater can be downloaded for free from volume 37, no. 1 of the Journal of Paleolimnology from "Arctic Record of the Last 250 ka from El'gygytgyn Crater" at:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/0921-2728/37/1/

Yours,
Paul H.

El'gygytgyn Impact Crater Yields 3.6 Million Year-Long Paleoclimate Record 6NOV2010


El'gygytgyn Impact Crater Yields 3.6 Million Year-Long Paleoclimate Record



Saturday, November 6, 2010 11:07 PM


Arctic Lake Yields Planet’s Most Continuous Record 
of Ancient Climate by Alexandra Witze, Science News
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/el-gygytgyn-climate-core/
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/64958/title/Arctic_lake_yields_climate_record

Arctic lake offers up climate record, UPI.com, Nov 3, 2010‎
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010/11/03/Arctic-lake-offers-up-climate-record/UPI-99031288827205/

The talk is:

Brigham-Grette, J., and others, 2010, First collaborative 
results from Lake El’gygytgyn crater: proxies of change 
since 3.6 Ma, NE Russian Arctic. Geological Society of 
America Abstracts with Programs. vol. 42, no. 5, p. 167.
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/abstract_182572.htm
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/session_26189.htm

In addition, there is:

Koeberl, C., and L. Pittarello, 2010, El’gygytgyn, an impact 
crater in siliceous volcanic rocks: preliminary results from
the IGCP drilling project. Geological Society of America 
Abstracts with Programs. vol. 42, no. 5, p. 171
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/abstract_179293.htm

Session No. 69, Impact Cratering: From the Lab to the Field; 
from the Earth to the Planets, 2010 GSA Denver Annual Meeting
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/session_26355.htm

Other Web Pages:

El'gygytgyn Impact Crater and Elgygytgyn Lake
http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/elgygytgyn.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgygytgyn_Lake

El'gygytgyn Crater, Russian Far East
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36151

El'gygytgyn Drilling Project
http://www.geo.umass.edu/lake_e/index.html

Arctic Record of the Last 250 ka from El'gygytgyn Crater
Journal of Paleolimnology, Volume 37, Number 1
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0921-2728/37/1/

Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
Betsy Mason, Wired News, 
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/impactcraters/all/1

Yours,

Paul H.