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



Friday 21 February 2014

Pingos not so rare and not so mysterious

Pingos not so rare and not so mysterious

In "Pingos not so rare and not so mysterious"
Eman wrote:

"I ask again-- which of these other Russian field
researchers do you find credible. The ones that
say it is a double meteorite impact or the one
that says it is a UFO nuclear reactor engine
that went super critical many years after the UFO
hit and buried deeply below the surface?"

I find none of them credible. I never have found
any of these explanations credible. In other posts,
I have explicitly called this feature a classic
example of a "craterwrong," which indicates that
I clearly reject the idea that it is any sort of impact
crater. The UFO claims are clearly scientifically
illiterate pseudoscience that lack any hard evidence.
I agree that there is a complete lack of any evidence
of volcanism and that hypothesis can be readily
rejected. In fact, I prefer the term "Patom Cone"
because the term "crater" is misleading in its
implications as to its origin. I am have also noted
that what people suggested to be "pillow lava"
is not pillow lava. I would guess that what people
mistook for pillow lava is quite likely is spheroidal
weathering of sedimentary rocks. I do not and
never have regarded any of the above theories
as being credible.

I am quite happy and always been happy with it
being some sort of periglacial landform. If calling
it a "pingo," make you happy, then let it be a "pingo."
It is just that in some respects it is somewhat of
an atypical pingo in that there is only one of them.
That there is only one of them in its region indicate
that some sort of unique paleohydrological and
paleoclimatic conditions to lead to its formation.
regardless of what a person chooses to call this
landform.

Yours,

Paul H.