PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 99/2002 - 22 August 2002
------------------------------
"The lurking issue that hides behind all this is what
happens if one
hits tomorrow?"
--Richard Norris, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 20
August 2002
"As for the notion that it might be better to spend
resources to
mitigate more frequently occurring disasters than to develop an
Earth
defense system soon--I think it depends ultimately on just what
it
is we plan to do. The idea I've hawked all along is that we could
allow
the threat of cosmic collision to serve as a focal point for a
global
commitment to protect our living environment now and into the
future
basically by learning as much as we possibly can about what can
influence
our world, and how, from the superior vantage point of
outer-space.
Conceptually at least, it seems possible that we as a species
might adopt
the role of an immune-system with respect to the biosphere.
--Bob Kobres, CCNet, 30 January 1998
(1) SCIENTISTS CONFIRM AGE OF OLDEST COSMIC IMPACT ON EARTH
STANFORD NEWS, 20 August 2002
(2) RESEARCHERS DISMISS CLAIM THAT IMPACT CAUSED PERMIAN MASS
EXTINCTION
Ninemsn.com, 21 August 2002
(3) DINO-KILLER ASTEROID TRIGGERED HUGE TSUNAMIS
Discovery News, 20 August 2002
(4) DIGITAL MOVIE SHOWS AWESOME SPEED OF ASTEROID CLOSE APPROACH
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(5) SIX DAYS AND STILL NO SIGNAL
CONTOUR wbesite, 21 August 2002
(6) 'VERY LITTLE HOPE' FOR NASA'S COMET-CHASING CRAFT
Reuters, 21 August 2002
(7) RE: "HOMO SAPIENS SHOULD ADOPT THE ROLE OF AN
IMMUNE-SYSTEM FOR THE BIOSPHERE"
Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
(8) AND FINALLY: "DANGERS OF ACTING AGAINST GODS' WILL"
:-)
Birmingham Post, 21 August 2002
===============
(1) SCIENTISTS CONFIRM AGE OF OLDEST COSMIC IMPACT ON EARTH
>From STANFORD NEWS, 20 August 2002
8/20/02
CONTACT: Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296;
mshwartz@stanford.edu
COMMENT: Donald R. Lowe, Geological and Environmental Sciences
(650) 725-3040; lowe@pangea.stanford.edu
Joseph L. Wooden, Geological and Environmental Sciences &
U.S. Geological Survey (650) 725-9237; jwooden@usgs.gov
EDITORS: The Aug. 23 study, "An Archean Impact Layer from
the Pilbara and
Kaapvaal Cratons," can be obtained from Science magazine by
calling (202)
326-6440 or by e-mailing scipak@aaas.org
. Photographs can be downloaded at
http://newsphotos.stanford.edu
(slug: ``Impactor``).
EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, AUG. 22, AT 2 P.M. EDT
Relevant Web URLs:
http://shrimprg.stanford.edu/
http://pangea.stanford.edu/SED/sedgroup.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/precambrian/archaean.html
http://www.curtin.edu.au/curtin/centre/waisrc/zircons.html
Scientists confirm age of the oldest meteorite collision on Earth
A team of geologists has determined the age of the oldest known
meteorite
impact on Earth - a catastrophic event that generated massive
shockwaves
across the planet billions of years before a similar event helped
wipe out
the dinosaurs.
In a study published in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Science,
the
research team reports that an ancient meteorite slammed into
Earth 3.47
billion years ago. Scientists have yet to locate any trace of the
extraterrestrial object itself or the gigantic crater it
produced, but other
geological evidence collected on two continents suggests that the
meteorite
was approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide - roughly twice
as big as
the one that contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs some 65
million
years ago.
``We are reporting on a single meteorite impact that has left
deposits in
both South Africa and Australia,`` said Donald R. Lowe, a
Stanford professor
of geological and environmental sciences who co-authored the
Science study.
``We have no idea where the actual impact might have been.``
To pinpoint when the huge meteorite collided with Earth, Lowe and
his
colleagues performed highly sensitive geochemical analyses of
rock samples
collected from two ancient formations well known to geologists:
South
Africa`s Barberton greenstone belt and Australia`s Pilbara block.
The two
sites include rocks that formed during the Archean eon more than
3 billion
years ago - when Earth was ``only`` a billion years old and
single-celled
bacteria were the only living things on the planet.
``In our study, we`re looking at the oldest well-preserved
sedimentary and
volcanic rocks on Earth,`` Lowe noted. ``They are still quite
pristine and
give us the oldest window that we have on the formative period in
Earth`s
history. There are older rocks elsewhere, but they`ve been
cooked, heated,
twisted and folded, so they don`t tell us very much about what
the surface
of the early Earth was really like.``
Controversial findings
Lowe and Louisiana State University geologist Gary R. Byerly -
lead author
of the Science study - began collecting samples from the South
African and
Australian formations more than 20 years ago. Although thousands
of miles
apart, both sites contain 3.5-billion-year-old layers of rock
embedded with
``spherules`` - tiny spherical particles that are a frequent
byproduct of
meteorite collisions.
``A meteor passes through the atmosphere in about one second,
leaving a hole
- a vacuum - behind it, but air can`t move in fast enough to fill
that
hole,`` Lowe explained. ``When the meteor hits the surface, it
instantaneously melts and vaporizes rock, and that rock vapor is
sucked
right back up the hole into the atmosphere. It spreads around the
Earth as a
rock vapor cloud that eventually condenses and forms droplets
that solidify
into spherules, which rain back down onto the surface.``
The meteorite that led to the dinosaur extinction produced
spherule deposits
around the world that are less than 2 centimeters deep. But the
spherule
beds in South Africa and Australia are much bigger - some 20 to
30
centimeters thick. A chemical analysis of the rocks also has
revealed high
concentrations of rare metals such as iridium - rare in
terrestrial rocks
but common in meteorites.
In the mid-1980s, when Lowe and Byerly first suggested that these
iridium-
and spherule-rich rock layers were produced by fallout from a
meteorite,
they were greeted with some skepticism - primarily from
geochemists, who
argued that the spherules probably did not come from space but
were more
likely to have been formed through some kind of volcanic activity
on Earth.
Doubts remained until two years ago, when isotopic studies
confirmed that
much of the chromium buried in the rock samples came from an
extraterrestrial source.
``That pretty well laid to rest any lingering doubts of their
impact
origin,`` Lowe recalled.
SHRIMP technology
To narrow down the timeframe when the meteorite impact occurred,
Lowe and
Byerly turned to a powerful analytic instrument at Stanford
called the
Sensitive High-Resolution Ion MicroProbe Reverse Geometry - or
SHRIMP RG.
Operated jointly by Stanford and the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), the
SHRIMP RG rapidly can determine the age of minute grains of
zircon - one of
nature`s most durable minerals.
``Of all the minerals on Earth, zircons are the most resistant to
all the
things that can happen to rocks,`` said USGS scientist Joseph L.
Wooden,
co-director of the SHRIMP RG and consulting professor in
Stanford`s
Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences.
Zircons often contain ancient isotopes of radioactive uranium
that have been
trapped for billions of years.
``The SHRIMP RG makes it possible to work with an individual
zircon and
quickly determine its age by measuring how much radioactive decay
has
occurred,`` noted Wooden, co-author of the Science paper. ``To
dissolve and
prepare individual zircon grains for analysis in a standard lab
could take
months.``
But with the SHRIMP RG, a zircon is simply mounted on a slide,
then exposed
to a high-energy beam that determines its age in about 10
minutes. For the
Science study, researchers analyzed about 50 zircons extracted
from South
African and Australian rocks. According to Wooden, it took about
one day for
the SHRIMP RG to calculate a more precise age of the zircons -
3.47 billion
years, plus or minus 2 million years.
Early Earth
What was Earth like when the ancient collision occurred? No one
is certain,
but speculation abounds.
``You`ll find that the science of the Archean Earth is full of
personalities
and controversies, so you can take your choice,`` Lowe observed.
He and his colleagues point to evidence showing that, 3.5 billion
years ago,
Earth was mostly covered with water.
``There were probably no large continental blocks like there are
today,
although there may have been microcontinents - very small pieces
of
continental-type crust,`` Lowe said, noting that if the Archean
ocean had
the same volume of water as today, it would have been about 2
miles (3.3
kilometers) deep.
``It would have taken only a second or two for a meteor that`s 20
kilometers
in diameter to pass through the ocean and impact the rock
beneath,`` Lowe
said. ``That would generate enormous waves kilometers high that
would spread
out from the impact site, sweep across the ocean and produce just
incredible
tsunamis - causing a tremendous amount of erosion on the
microcontinents and
tearing up the bottom of the ocean.``
In addition to the 3.47-billion-year-old impact, Lowe and Byerly
have found
evidence of meteorite collisions in three younger rock layers in
the South
African formation. According to Lowe, the force of those
collisions may have
been powerful enough to cause the cracks - or tectonic plates -
that riddle
the Earth`s crust today.
``In South Africa, two of the younger layers - 3.2 to 3.3 billion
years old
- coincide with major tectonic changes,`` he observed. ``How
come? Maybe
those impacts were large enough to affect tectonic systems - to
affect the
dynamics of the Earth`s crust.``
Evolution and meteorites
The impact of these major catastrophes on the evolution of early
life is
difficult to determine, Lowe observed.
``The most advanced organisms at the time were bacteria, so there
isn`t a
big extinction event you can identify as cut-and-dry as the
extinction of
the dinosaurs,`` he said.
He also pointed to controversy about the fossil record, noting
that the
oldest known microbial fossils have been found in rocks 3.4 to
3.5 billion
years old - roughly the same age as the ancient meteorite
collision
documented in the Science study. Could the meteorite somehow have
contributed to the origin of bacterial life on Earth? Lowe has
his doubts:
``It`s quite possible that life evolved as far back as 4.3
billion years
ago, shortly after the Earth had formed.``
He also pointed to uncertainty among scientists about what the
climate of
the Archean Earth was really like. In a forthcoming study, Lowe
will present
evidence that the average temperature of the planet back then was
very hot -
perhaps 185 F (85 C).
``It`s not clear what effect a large meteorite impact would have
on an
extremely hot Earth,`` he explained. ``We know in terms of the
present
climate that if we had a very large impact, it would send
enormous amounts
of dust into the atmosphere and the climate might cool. Such a
scenario may
have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs. They`re really
big guys and
they`re very strong, but they`re actually much more susceptible
to
environmental changes than microbes are. Dinosaurs didn`t have
anywhere to
go - they couldn`t go underground or avoid cold climates`` -
unlike
bacteria, which have adapted successfully to a variety of extreme
conditions.
``It looks like what we are seeing is a much greater rate of the
large
impacts on the early Earth, certainly than we have today, and
perhaps even a
much greater rate than what was suspected,`` Lowe concluded. ``I
think the
effort now will be to try to do studies like this that will
enhance our
understanding of the impactors on early Earth - to try to find
other layers,
to understand the mechanics of impact events and how they
affected early
life.``
The Science study was supported by grants from the National
Science
Foundation Petrology and Geochemistry Program and the NASA
Astrobiology
Program. Louisiana State University graduate student Xiaogang Xie
also
contributed to the study.
By Mark Shwartz
===========
(2) RESEARCHERS DISMISS CLAIM THAT IMPACT CAUSED PERMIAN MASS
EXTINCTION
FRom Ninemsn.com, 21 August 2002
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Sci_Tech/story_37696.asp
An explosion on the ground rather than havoc from the heavens
caused the
greatest known devastation of life on Earth, University of New
England (UNE)
research has found.
A massive volcanic eruption called the Mother of All Extinctions
decimated
90 per cent of life in the seas and almost three quarters of
species living
on the land more than 250 million years ago, deputy director of
UNE's Asia
centre Professor Ian Metcalfe's team discovered.
The research repudiates previous claims a 10 kilometre-wide
asteroid hit
Earth and caused the largest catastrophe on this planet, Prof
Metcalfe said.
"Our research makes it highly unlikely an asteroid impact
caused massive
destruction," he said.
"The extinction occurred over a much longer time period than
expected for an
asteroid impact."
Along with other scientists from Australia, the US and China,
Prof Metcalfe
from the Armidale-based university studied Chinese fossils and
dated
volcanic ash in a seven-year investigation.
The scientists linked the massive extinction to volcanic activity
in what is
now Siberia.
"There were huge volcanic outpourings that are of the same
age as the mass
extinction," Prof Metcalfe said.
"This indicates the huge volcanic eruptions were probably
the principle
cause of the mass extinction."
©AAP 2002
=============
(3) DINO-KILLER ASTEROID TRIGGERED HUGE TSUNAMIS
>From Discovery News, 20 August 2002
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020819/tsunami.html
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News
Aug. 20 - Evidence of huge ancient landslides along the Pacific
Coast could
mean that the cosmic collision that killed the dinosaurs also
triggered
avalanches far and wide that turned Earth into a world of
tsunamis.
Landslide deposits found in a coastal canyon near San Rosario,
Baja
California Norte, Mexico, are the first evidence that the
magnitude 13
seismic shock of the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago also
set off huge
tsunami-making landslides far beyond the Atlantic Ocean.
There are two ways tsunamis can be created during an asteroid
impact: if the
asteroid itself hits the ocean; and if submarine slopes give way,
pushing
huge amounts of water at the coast.
For years geologists have known that massive offshore landslides
occurred in
the western Atlantic as far north as Newfoundland, because of
evidence found
in cores drilled out of the seafloor sediments.
But the Chicxulub impact didn't happen in the Pacific Ocean, and
the
tsunamis there would have been caused by quake-induced landslides
like that
seen in San Rosario.
"Here (at San Rosario) we have an outcrop where you can walk
and see the
huge landslide sheets," said Grant Yip, a geology graduate
student at the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Besides being on land and easy to see, the sediments of the
Pacific
landslides are unlike those discovered in the Atlantic because
they are most
likely the direct result of the gargantuan earthquake that the
Chicxulub
impact sent shivering through the planet. The Atlantic
landslides, on the
other hand, could have been caused by either the quake or the
churning of an
initial monster tsunami created by the gigantic asteroid impact
itself. Or
both.
Yip and his advisor, geologist Cathy Busby, and two other
researchers
published their discovery in the August issue of the journal
Geology.
Busby and her team have been studying the San Rosario sediments
for years,
but it was the discovery of volcanic layers within them that
connected them
to the Chicxulub impact. Unlike the other sediments, volcanic
rocks can be
accurately dated to the time they cooled and solidified using
naturally
occurring isotopes of Argon.
The isotopes in the San Rosario volcanic tested out to about 65
million
years old, meaning the jumbled rocks around them are of similar
ages and
likely a result of the cosmic collision.
There's also a third reason the San Rosario discovery is
different, said
geologist Richard Norris of the U.C. San Diego's Scripps
Institution of
Oceanography.
"This is a very shallow water deposit, which is rare,"
he said.
The Atlantic deposits are all in deeper water and tell less about
what
happened right at the coast, where sea life tends to be most
concentrated
and where a lot of species were probably wiped out by horrendous
landslides,
as well as a spider's web of tsunamis that were crisscrossing the
oceans.
Getting to the bottom of what happened 65 million years ago is
important,
said Norris, because we'd like to know the details about how an
asteroid
impact can cause 70 percent of species to disappear.
"The lurking issue that hides behind all this is what
happens if one hits
tomorrow," Norris said.
Copyright © 2002 Discovery Communications Inc.
===========
(4) DIGITAL MOVIE SHOWS AWESOME SPEED OF ASTEROID CLOSE APPROACH
>From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr02/pr0207.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, August 21, 2002
RELEASE NO: NOAO 02-07
Digital Movie Shows Awesome Speed of Asteroid Close Approach
For More Information:
Douglas Isbell
Public Information Officer
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Phone: 520/318-8214
E-mail: disbell@noao.edu
Jacqueline Weaver
Yale News Office
Phone: 203 /432-8555
E-mail: jacqueline.weaver@yale.edu
Students from Yale University used the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope
at Kitt Peak
National Observatory to capture a series of still images of
asteroid 2002
NY40 on August 15-16, two nights before its close flyby of Earth.
These images have been turned into a short digital movie that
clearly
demonstrates the impressive speed of 2002 NY40 as seen from Earth
over a
period of about two hours. The movie is available for downloading
at the
following Web site:
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr02/pr0207.html
Yale undergraduate student Brandy Heflin and graduate student
Bing Zhao were
at the 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak conducting research on
exotic binary
stars when they decided to interrupt their work to observe this
unique
event. A consortium of universities took over operation of the
0.9-meter
telescope from the National Science Foundation last March, in
order to give
their students more hands-on research time.
"These unplanned observations reflect the exact reasons that
the university
partnership took over operational responsibility for the
telescope," said
astronomer Charles Bailyn, Heflin and Zhao's research mentor at
Yale. "They
took me a bit by surprise, but we want to encourage students to
take the
initiative, and they did a very nice job. There is also some real
science to
be gleaned from these observations, in terms of brightness
fluctuations and
the rotational period of the asteroid."
2002 NY40 crossed an area of the sky about equal to the full Moon
during the
time period of the movie, traveling northwest through the
constellation
Aquarius. Two nights later, during its closest approach to Earth,
the
asteroid was moving across the sky about 20 times faster.
Discovered on July 14, asteroid 2002 NY40 has an estimated
diameter of 700
meters (0.43 miles). It passed safely by Earth on the night of
August 17-18
at a distance of approximately 524,000 kilometers (326,000
miles), about 1.3
times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
For the sake of comparison, if a person were riding on the
asteroid and
looking back toward Earth during its close passage, our planet
would have
appeared nearly three times larger on the sky than the Moon does
from Earth.
A long-exposure image of the asteroid taken at the WIYN 3.5-meter
telescope
on the night of August 17 by Hillary Mathis showed no obvious
evidence that
2002 NY40 is a binary asteroid, a possibility being investigated
by radio
telescopes and other observatories.
The digital movie of 2002 NY40 was created by the staff of the
Public
Affairs & Educational Outreach department at the National
Optical Astronomy
Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, AZ.
More information about the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN)
consortium's
operation of the 0.9-meter telescope is available at:
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr01/pr0107.html
Participants in the 0.9-meter consortium include Indiana
University, San
Francisco State University, the University of Florida, Wesleyan
University
and four University of Wisconsin campuses
NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research
in
Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the
National
Science Foundation. NOAO operates telescopes at Kitt Peak
National
Observatory near Tucson, AZ, and Cerro Tololo Inter-american
Observatory
near La Serena, Chile, and it is the U.S. partner in the
International
Gemini Observatory.
===========
(5) SIX DAYS AND STILL NO SIGNAL
>From CONTOUR wbesite, 21 August 2002
http://www.contour2002.org/news.php?id=22
After six days, the Mission Operations team has yet to hear a
signal from
the CONTOUR spacecraft.
Two objects, believed to be spacecraft segments, were detected
Aug. 16, the
day after the solid rocket motor burn, and a third more distant
object has
since been found. The objects are now more than 2 million
kilometers from
Earth, traveling at a steady 6.1 kilometers per second
(3.8 miles per second or 13,600 miles per hour). They remain on a
trajectory
predicted by early observations; although they have now traveled
so far from
the Sun and Earth that more observations are unlikely.
If the spacecraft is still capable of operating, by Thursday,
Aug. 22, it
will have completed the first cycle of having each of its two
transmitters
attempt to send a signal through each of three antennas. Near
continuous
monitoring for CONTOUR continues through Sunday. After that,
efforts will be
scaled back to once a week - a schedule that will be maintained
until early
December when the spacecraft will come into a more favorable
angle for
receiving a signal from Earth. Deep Space Network coverage will
extend
through this weekend.
As far as contacting the spacecraft this week, Dr. Robert
Farquhar, CONTOUR
mission director from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory says, "We
known there's not much room for optimism through this week. Even
the second
week of December, when we have our best shot, chances are small.
But it's
still worth monitoring."
===========
(6) 'VERY LITTLE HOPE' FOR NASA'S COMET-CHASING CRAFT
>From Reuters, 21 August 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020821/sc_nm/space_comet_dc_1
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A NASA ( news - web sites) space probe
designed to
chase comets, which broke up on leaving Earth's atmosphere, sped
into space
on Wednesday but did not respond to controllers and one mission
official
doubted it would operate as intended.
The $159 million Contour probe, launched on July 3, fell silent
on August 15
as it was firing its solid-rocket motor to boost itself out of
Earth orbit.
It had been expected to make contact this week but failed to do
so.
Observers spotted two chunks of the craft last Friday, traveling
along
Contour's expected path, and a third segment was detected later,
according
to a statement posted on the probe's Web site, http://www.contour2002.org.
"There's very little hope," said Helen Worth, a
spokeswoman for the Applied
Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, outside
Washington, where
controllers were tracking Contour.
"Since Monday we haven't had observations, it's just too far
out there to
have observations from the ground," Worth said by telephone.
By Wednesday, the pieces of Contour were more than 1.2 million
miles from
Earth. Moving at a steady 13,600 miles an hour, the craft should
be more
than double that distance away by Friday.
Worth said no visual observations or other contact from the ship
were
expected even though a global Deep Space Network of telescopes
will be
watching and listening until Sunday.
NOT ABANDONING HOPE
But she said scientists had not finally abandoned hope and
planned to
continue listening for signals from Contour about once every week
until
December, when there will be a "big push" to establish
contact.
The craft's antennas are expected to be in a better position
then, Worth
said. Even though Contour is broken into pieces, it is still
following the
trajectory planned for its mission to explore the hearts of two
comets.
Earlier this week mission operators were working to see if
Contour would
respond to a timed command to transmit through three of its four
antennas,
with a response expected to begin no later than late Monday
evening, but no
response came.
"We know there's not much room for optimism through this
week," Mission
Director Robert Farquhar said in a statement on the project's Web
site.
"Even the second week of December, when we have our best
shot, chances are
small," he said. "But it's still worth
monitoring."
Contour was built to travel close to Comet Encke in 2003 and
Comet
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in 2006 to inspect each comet's nucleus
for clues to
how our solar system developed.
Scientists believe each comet has a nucleus frozen some 4.6
billion years
ago at the time when planets were forming in the solar system,
and may yield
information about such events as the beginning of life on Earth
and the
extinction of the dinosaurs.
Copyright 2002, Reuters
============
(7) RE: "HOMO SAPIENS SHOULD ADOPT THE ROLE OF AN
IMMUNE-SYSTEM FOR THE BIOSPHERE"
>From Bob Kobres <bkobres@arches.uga.edu>
After quoting two sentences from J. E. Lovelock's Gaia (1979, p.
147),
Ronald Bailey, Reason's science correspondent, states:
"Perhaps Gaia has gotten tired of being whacked by asteroids
and having to
restart biological evolution over and over again. Perhaps she
evolved
technologically sophisticated, big-brained mammals who can travel
in space
as a way of protecting herself from asteroids. Like antibodies
that protect
the body from invading disease organisms, humans can defend our
Earth Mother
against extraterrestrial intruders. Just a thought."
I think it would have been reasonable for Bailey to relay
Lovelock's words
on the danger of impact, as these appear in the paragraph
immediately
following :
"Whether we like it or not, we are already beginning to
function in
this way. Consider, for example, one of those mini-planets,
like Icarus,
a mile or so in diameter and with an irregular orbit intersecting
that of
the Earth. Some day the astronomers may warn us that one of these
is on a
collision course with the Earth and that the impact will occur
within, say,
a few weeks' time. The potential damage from such a collision
could be
severe, even for Gaia. This kind of accident has probably
happened to
Earth in the past and caused major devastation. With our present
technology, it is just possible that we could save ourselves and
our
planet from disaster. There is no doubt of our capacity to send
things
through space over vast distances and to exercise remote control,
with near-miraculous precision, of their movements. It has been
calculated that by using some of our store of hydrogen bombs and
large
rocket vehicles to carry them, we have the capacity to deflect a
planetoid
like Icarus sufficiently to convert a direct hit into a near
miss. If this
seems like science fiction, we should remember that, in our
lifetime,
yesterday's science fiction has almost daily become factual
history." (J. E. Lovelock, Gaia, 1979, p. 147)
Also, Bailey's notion of our adopting the role of Gaia's
immune-system is
not novel--though I do think it a good idea! ;^)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc013098.html
(3) HOMO SAPIENS SHOULD ADOPT THE ROLE OF AN IMMUNE-SYSTEM FOR
THE BIOSPHERE
From: Bob Kobres bkobres@uga.cc.uga.edu
I find it interesting that Clark Chapman views as he does my
position on our contemporary situation.
First let me assure all of you who might be concerned: I do
not
lose sleep worrying that an impact event will occur in the near
future. My position all along (and this is documented) is that we
presently have the capacity to develop a defense system for the
biosphere and that it would show considerably more foresight if
we
chose to do that rather than devoting such a large percentage of
our global resources to the development of ever more
sophisticated
weapon systems. My original proposal-Nuclear Reaimament-is on my
Web
site at:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/nucreaim.html
With regard to my 'green slime' euphemism--I have never sought or
received any funding for what has become an unexpected but
interesting avocation for me. My suggestion, to state the facts
in a
more to the point fashion, was for the benefit of individuals who
are having trouble staying in business. As I tried to convey,
from
my experience many people do not understand that probability is
a static expression of likelihood during a defined period of
time.
It is important, I think, to ensure that people really do
understand
that by electing not to develop a defense as soon as possible we
are, in fact, choosing to gamble when we do not need to. There is
nothing dishonest or deceptive in stating that we do not yet know
when the next impact event might happen, nor is it misleading
to profess ignorance with regard to predicting all the possible
consequences of such an occurrence. I do not think that
maintaining
credibility requires using flat terminology and language that
could
be confusing to some individuals.
As for the notion that it might be better to spend resources to
mitigate more frequently occurring disasters than to develop an
Earth defense system soon--I think it depends ultimately on just
what it is we plan to do. The idea I've hawked all along is that
we
could allow the threat of cosmic collision to serve as a focal
point
for a global commitment to protect our living environment now
and into the future basically by learning as much as we possibly
can
about what can influence our world, and how, from the superior
vantage point of outer-space. Conceptually at least, it seems
possible that we as a species might adopt the role of an
immune-system with respect to the biosphere. In other words, a
desirable biosphere protection system would not be solely for the
purpose of deflecting objects that could impact Earth but would
also
seek to reduce the impact of other factors that could be
injurious
to Life--rapidly mitigating human ignorance with regard to the
actual global influence of applying a new technology for example.
In my mind, I've done what I could to encourage research on and
draw
attention to what has obviously been an under-appreciated natural
phenomenon. My own investigation into the likelihood of recent
impact events has convinced me that there is still much to learn
and
that we have the tools to find out what the influence of this
natural phenomenon has been. This, to me, is all largely a social
issue--we live in a time period of profound and rapid change in
which
former beliefs and customs are being modified by a torrent of
novel
information and possibilities. Choices we make over the next few
decades are apt to apply considerable bias to the course of
cultural
evolution among all peoples. The goal, I suggest, needs to be
prudent social behavior.
Is it actually wise to retard development of a globally agreed
upon
defense implementation and rely on luck as we gather data which,
though needed, can only refine our knowledge? It seems to me that
we
should be particularly cautious when we already know that impacts
have produced serious problems for Life in the past and that,
regardless of the currently calculated probability, such an event
could occur as you read this. The cost of becoming prepared
rapidly
(within a decade or so--I've never advocated a reckless
program) to
protect ourselves is an accelerated space development program. Is
that really an expenditure or might it better be seen as an
investment for ourselves and other living creatures on Earth?
Subjectively optimistic...;^)
bobk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I must say that I find disparaging remarks directed toward the
concerns of
others to be generally divisive and that such banal comments do
not increase
the likelihood of our species working together to improve our
common
situation. One of the earliest allies I found in support of an
Earth defense
initiative was Dr. Eugene Odum who is widely recognized as the
father of
modern Ecology. This situation arose due to my querying him with
regards to
the origin of the Carolina Bays, which he and his younger
brother, Howard, had studied.
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbaybib.html
At the time (early to mid eighties) I had absolutely no support
from anyone
in the local assortment of geologist or astronomers teaching on
campus. In
fact my queries to specialists in these fields would often be
dismissed with
a knowing laugh!
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/rbarti.html
The mindset of a true ecologist is to integrate knowledge; not to
obfuscate
what has been learned by departmentalisation. Dr. Odum was
interested in
anything that enhanced our understanding of how various aspects
of natural
phenomena interacted. I had been planning on asking him about the
timing of
some nuclear testing in the South Pacific he was involved with
because I had
come across a report of an unusual fireball storm observed off
the coast of
Australia around the time of those tests but I procrastinated too
long:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/obituaries/14ODUM.html?ex=1030326043&ei=1&en=a87080cc808a085b
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/bookman/2002/081502.html
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/081302/new_20020813057.shtml
http://www.uga.edu/news/newsbureau/releases/2002releases/0208/020811odum.html
As I've indicated earlier (http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/shoemake.html
)
both Dr. Shoemaker and Dr. Odum were as beacons of hope in my
mind. It
requires a bit more effort for me to see a clear path to a bright
future now
that these two luminaries are gone, but, as they did, I intend to
keep
looking for one.
Below is a note I sent to Mike Ballie in June of 1999. It
is illustrative
of Dr. Odum's range of interest as well as pertinent to the
general topic of
this missive.
Hoping we can trek beyond tribalism!
bobk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Mike, just a short note to let you know that Eugene Odum,
considered by
many to be the father of modern ecology,
<http://www.gactr.uga.edu/gcq/gcqspr97/odum.html
> enjoyed E2A and now wants
to read SLICE, which I'm taking over to him tomorrow. He also
asked me to
write a side-bar for a new book he is working on. I've
pasted the draft he
has seen and liked below.
Later.
bobk
Bob Kobres
bkobres@uga.edu
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
706-542-0583
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we think of a large boulder or iceberg in relation to the
living world
we tend to think of potential habitat, a resting place, or a
cache of fresh
water. We see these objects in this way because they
are familiar parts of
Earth's surface, enveloped by Life. What though are we to
think of similar
objects that are not part of our planet but are, by their orbital
positions,
destined to violently join Earth?
Seen in this context, such objects are no longer benign and in
fact become
adversarial to an existing living arrangement. By factoring in
this natural
influence, which comes from dwelling within a solar-system
environment, we
come to better understand the grammar of Life's story on this
planet.
Compared with other nonliving agents of change, such as storms,
volcanoes,
earthquakes and tidal waves, material arriving from Space clearly
has the
broadest repertoire of punctuation. Where a relatively
small event, such as
the 50-100 meter across object that leveled 2,000 square
kilometers of
Siberian forest in 1908, might represent no more than an accent
mark, due to
locally observed minor genetic changes that some investigators
believe were
produced by radiation from the impact, a collision with an object
only a hundred times
larger in diameter (5-10 km) could potentially denote the end of
a chapter for many
species. Having come to recognize this cosmic Shiva
influence we can now
understand Life as being quite robust and adaptable but subject
to both
minor and major abrupt changes in ecological arrangement. This
knowledge is
of course devastating to the notion of a pristine natural world
that changes
only slowly, save our recent corrupting influence--we can have
only a
contemporary natural order, which, depending on our luck, the
effects of
current human activity, and acquired knowledge of possible
intervention, may
or may not endure. How might we respond to this more
comprehensive view of
Nature?
An interesting option, which has been effective in maintaining
health at the
level of organism, is to assign ourselves the role of immune
system for the
biosphere. This may seem a rather brazen notion given our
behavior to date,
but there is no other member of Earth's living ensemble that can
recognize
major threats and actively mitigate assaults on the integrity of
our
contemporary living arrangement. A profound development
this is--for the
first time, Life on this planet has the potential to extend an
existing
order beyond the duration that astronomical conditions would have
allowed.
What will be our decision? As with genetic manipulation,
preventing future
encounters with asteroids and comets will artificially alter
biological
evolution.
Toying with the rudder of environmental change is something our
species has
already begun in a naive childlike fashion. Our growing
recognition is that,
without a clear understanding of how various changes made by us
interact, we
serve ourselves best by steering easy and striving to reduce all
activities
that are known to be injurious to the biosphere. Perhaps this
increasing
awareness, combined with our appreciation of the danger posed by
objects
that can collide with Earth, will persuade us to take advantage
of our
recently acquired ability to leave our biosphere and use this
out-of-this-world capability to reduce our own impact as well as
prevent
future cosmic crashes. We can reduce negative influence from
industrial
activity, as well as prevent future smashups, by using energy
from the Sun
to directly extract and process materials from the very objects,
which if
left unaltered, would eventually cause really big messes on
Earth. It's an
interesting win-win option that will not remain open
indefinitely. There is
a growing body of evidence suggesting that prior civilizations
suffered
sharp decline due to extraterrestrial impact. The experience of
people who
lived through those times is why we have inherited such notions
as
judgement-days accompanied by fire and brimstone as well as the
belief that
the positions of planets could influence events on Earth.
The study of the history of our biological house cannot be
complete without
recognizing the influence of objects coming through the roof!
Bob Kobres
Further reading:
Exodus to Arthur; Catastrophic encounters with comets, by Mike
Baillie,
1999, B.T. Batsford LTD; London.
Rain of Iron and Ice; The very real threat of comet and asteroid
bombardment, by John S. Lewis, 1996, Addison-Wesley.
Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets; The search for the million
megaton
menace that threatens Life on Earth, Duncan Steel, 1995, John
Wiley & Sons,
Inc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bob Kobres
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
bkobres@arches.uga.edu
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk
===============
(8) AND FINALLY: "DANGERS OF ACTING AGAINST GODS' WILL"
:-)
>From Birmingham Post, 21 August 2002
Sir, - The scientists of today have discovered something the
ancient Greeks
of yesteryear knew to be true. Yes - there are still in the
heavens above
mighty gods, such as Zeus and Thor, who have always ruled the
universe.
All the gods, in their great wisdom, decided, over 60 million
years ago,
that they had to separate Great Britain from Europe. After much
thought and
consultation they threw a massive asteroid which landed about 80
miles from
the town now known as Hull, splitting the land, which, of course,
allowed
the North Sea to flow in to cover the six-mile crater called
'Silverpit',
thus making the island of 'Britannia'. This crater is a recent
discovery by
geologists searching for gas fields beneath the ocean.
The towering tidal wave that ensued from this mighty collision
probably
killed all the dinosaurs but enabled us Brits to get on with our
own lives
without any interference from our Stone Age compatriots in
Europe.
Oh! that our present Government would take heed and not further
anger the
gods by going against their original wishes to keep Great Britain
and Europe
apart.
Taking another large pinch of salt, we must all remember that our
scientists
have recently predicted the annihilation of life as we know it
when a
further large asteroid, bound for Earth, hits us on February 1,
2019.
The gods are certainly not pleased with us.
JUNE ALEXANDER Symonds Yat West, Herefordshire.
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*
CCNet ESSAY: IMPACT AND THE END OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST
---------------------------------------------------------------
By E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
BARBARIANS, VOLCANO, PLAGUE, BARBARIANS, RESPITE;
COMETS, FAMINES, PLAGUES, BARBARIANS, A SHORTER RESPITE;
EARTHQUAKE, IMPACT, FATAL INFLUENZA, BARBARIANS, VOLCANO
NOTES ON TEXT RECORDS OF THE DESTRUCTION OF BAZAS,
DEPARTMENT LA GIRONDE, BY IMPACT, CA. 580 CE
ALONG WITH TEXT RECORDS CONCERNING IMPACT, CLIMATE, PLAGUE,
AND MIGRATIONS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY
Hello Benny -
I am following with great interest and enjoyment the recent
exchanges
between Melfyn Thomas, Alistair McBeath, Mike Baillie, and Bob
Kobres on
possible impact references in text materials from sub-Roman
Britain and
Ireland. That said, before they proceed further, perhaps sharing
with them a
few observations about the use of these materials may make for a
better
discussion in the future.
First, however, more pressing matters lie immediately at hand,
and some
Conference participants may wish to learn of three texts from
sub-Roman
Britain and Gaul pertaining to the destruction of the city of
Bazas in Gaul
in 580 CE in a small impact event. These texts also contain
information
pertaining to the current discussion of cometary versus volcanic
dust
loading as factors in the sixth century climatic collapses which
I think
some may also find of interest.
A SMALL IMPACT EVENT DESCRIBED IN ADOMNAN'S LIFE OF SAINT COLUMBA
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE IONA TEXT RECORD
There have been many histories written about events in Britain
between the
first and sixth centuries; as the materials are so incredibly
difficult to
work with, I think it is safe to say that no two of these
histories agree,
at least in all of their details. The following short
summary is my take on
the events of this period, with reference to some of the
archaeological
finds recovered to date.
The fatal weakness of the Roman Empire was that it was ruled by
means of a
poorly formed monarchy. Aside from this system's propensity to
grant
executive powers to incompetents or to the insane, the lack of a
clear means
of passing executive power led to much of the Empire's military
power being
squandered in struggles for control of the state. A
consequence of these
struggles for power was a constant ongoing reduction in the
authority and
the respect with which the people of the Empire held their
military forces.
By as early as 185 CE so much of Rome's military might had been
squandered
in these political struggles that its commanders in Europe began
to use the
germanic Francs as mercenaries against both the local Celtic
populations as
well as against sea-borne raiders.
Around the year 220 CE, the survivors of the Romans' conquest of
Brittannia
who lived in the far north of that island found themselves a new
ally. The
Cruit/Chuid (Picts) of Brittannia's far north, a
pre-Indo-European people
who had also survived the earlier Celtic migrations into the
isles, allied
with the Scotti people. While it is not clear as of yet whether
the Scotti
were of germanic or nordic descent, it is clear that whoever they
were they
possessed the technology to construct large boats out of wood, as
the new
allies used watercraft of this type in their first raids.
While in earlier times such attacks would have led to rather
massive
retaliations by the Romans, by this date, instead of retaliating,
the Romans
abandoned the area south of the Antonine Wall and north of
Hadrian's Wall to
the control of their former subjects, the indigenous local
tribes. This
Roman withdrawal may have been due to the fact that they had lost
much of
their military strength in the battles between the different
claimants for
control of the Empire; it may have been due to the fact that the
eastern
areas of the Empire, with their routes to China, may have
appeared to them
as a more lucrative use of their troops; or it may simply have
been due to
the fact that only the grain growing areas of Brittannia which
were south of
Hadrian's Wall were of any value to them; whatever the cause,
withdraw they
did.
[continued@ http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce082202.html ]