The Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater

[JonF]

IIRC they pretty much concluded that divine intervention was the only explanation for the heat and radiation problem.

They did invoke God often, but AFAIK they never invoked Him for those two problems. Humphreys came up with a quantum mechanical cooling hypothesis but acknowledged that it wouldn't work without an unknown mechanism regulating its operation depending on what was being cooled. There was also an amusing idea that water shielded Noye and company from the radiation and there were no radioactive isotopes, especially 40K, in living organisms pre-Fludde.

[oxmixmudd]

Bump to make it easier for Jorge to take a look ... come on Jorge - surely you can show how to explain the data I present here in a YEC framework ... but be forewarned, a steam explosion will NOT do for this one

Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Another Bump to see if it is possible for Jorge to offer any reasonable scientific evidence to doubt the Chesapeake Bay impact structure was created by an Asteroid Impact. He keeps claiming he can do that, keeps standing behind his paper on Asteroid impacts ...

But he can't yet even offer one piece of evidence this structure is NOT and asteroid impact ...


Jim

[Jorge]

On these pages I have in several threads and posts discussed the deep challenge that asteroid impact structures on the Earth present to the idea that the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old (Young Earth or YE). In fact, a paper by Jorge that has often been challenged is in fact a direct response to the problem such structures present to the Young Earth paradigm. And the problem, in a nutshell, is that these structures exist on the Earth and in sufficient quantity that IF they had all occurred over a period of a few thousand years or less, there would be NO human civilization. In fact, given the size and number of the largest structures, having them all happen in such a short period of time would likely have meant the obliteration of almost all life on the planet with no chance whatsoever of recovery in the remaining time, let alone a full and thriving 5000+ year history of human civilization.

So why do we believe these structures are best explained as Asteroid impacts and not some internal process like volcanism? What makes scientists so sure there is no other possible explanation for them? To delve into that, I would like to take a look at a structure found very close to the major east coast megalopolis of the United States: the Chesapeake Bay Impact structure.

In terms of the relative size of this impact structure, it is by no means the largest. According to the Earth Impact Database¹, It is the 19th largest impact structure. Its current best estimate based not on total damage diameter but rim to rim, is that the core crater is about 40km in diameter. Additional crustal damage extends out to about twice that (80km) that has tended to confuse estimates of its size.

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As can be seen from the figure above, this crater is in fact buried more than a mile beneath the Earth’s surface, and it’s confirmation as an impact structure is in fact relatively recent (early 1990’s). However, geologists and those interested in general water resource management in the local communities had long been aware that this particular area was anything but normal.

The profile view above is not, of course, a literal picture,but rather a diagrammatic representation of what has been found through the drilling of a large number of cores, seismic analysis of the area for both groundwater and oil exploration, and satellite derived gravimetric maps of the region. A particularly interesting summary of the history surrounding the discovery of the crater can be found at http://meteor.pwnet.org/impact_event/impact_crater.htm

What can be seen in the diagram is that the crater itself pierces a thick layer of very old sediments through to the basement rock. After the initial impact, this crater was refilled with impact braccia and then, over time, was covered back over with additional sediments.

That same basement rock has been found to be fractured by some massive pressure event. Further, the sediments in the crater area are jumbled and mixed, and they contain both shocked quartz and tektites, structures that can only be formed with extreme heat and pressure. One source of that kind of heat and pressure is an underground nuclear explosion. The only other is ... an asteroid impact.

Below is a graphic from a science article² on the initial confirmation of the structure as an impact structure with an inset containing an image of the shock patterns found in minerals brought up from the impact structure.

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In fact, the history of the significance of shocked quartz is a somewhat interesting story itself. Shocked quartz came to be understood in terms of the significance of its formation through two primary ‘event’s. The first serious notice of shocked quartz came with the analysis of the rock and glass on the bottoms of the craters created by nuclear explosions. What was found was a curious interference pattern generated from the fact that the atoms in its crystal lattice and been forcibly shifted by the concussive pressure of the nuclear blast. The minimum pressures required to produce such effects varies according to the specific kind of deformation, but at a minimum involves pressures of about 6 GPa (6 billion pascals, or 60 thousand bar (60kbar) )³.

The second event was the research by Eugene Shoemaker that led to his 1960 masters thesis at Princeton. He was able to show that the same kinds of shocked minerals found in the nuclear explosion craters could be found at the candidate meteor impact in Arizona – “Meteor Crater”. His master thesis then set the stage for using shock metamorphism and shocked crystal lattices in minerals as a key indicator for an impact event.

Maximum pressures in volcanic events are around 40MPa (40 Million pascal or 400bar)³ . Shocked quartz grains or other shocked metamorphism found at candidate impact sites can go as high as 60GPa. That is, pressures 150 to 1500 times greater than the maximum pressures found in volcanic events are required. The kinds of shocked minerals found at the Chesapeake site range from <10GPa to >45GPa⁴.

But there is, of course, more. Another piece of evidence used to define whether a structure is from an extra-terrestrial impact or other more earthly origin are tektites or a large tektite field that can be chemically linked to the site. Tektites are molten glasses that form exclusively due to the temperatures and pressures generated in Impact events. As with shocked quartz, there just isn’t any thing else in nature that can produce them. In the March 1 1996 edition of Science, research was published which linked the Chesapeake impact to a massive North American Tektite field⁵. Other research has confirmed the connection⁶.

As an aside, this same research tends to link the Chesapeake impact with two other impacts, one considerably larger (Popigai) which is associated with a fairly significant extinction event, and one a good bit smaller (Toms Canyon). This correlation may point not merely to a single event, but rather a cluster of closely spaced events (i.e. a comet shower) or perhaps something more akin to the comet break-up and multiple nearly simultaneous impacts seen on Jupiter with comet Shoemaker-Levy⁷.

A final comment on this to me somewhat fascinating impact structure. Prior to the discovery of the Asteroid impact source of the formation, local officials and urban planners had long been troubled by the fact that ground water in the area tended to go very salty below a certain depth. That is, one could get decent groundwater out of the aquifers to a certain depth, but below that depth one could not find fresh water. And this was a real problem trying to plan for continued population expansion in the area, as the current aquifers could not support an expanding population.

However, what we now know is that when the asteroid impacted the Chesapeake some 35 million years ago, it irreparably damaged the aquifers in the area at the time by completely fracturing all the sedimentary structures all the way to the basement granite. These fractured aquifers never healed, and instead became full of salty brine. The only usable aquifers are to be found above the impact structure, fractured sediments and braccia in the sedimentary rock deposited in the 35 million years since the event.

I could go on of course. Nano-diamonds. Shatter-cones. Even the James river, in response to the creation of this crater, literally makes a right angle turn towards its center. The impact structure itself contains a large central peak. Such a peak is an effect of the pressure and heat of the impact itself and can be found in one of several possible forms in most larger impact craters found in the solar system.

But the bottom line is the Chesapeake was formed by an asteroid impact. No event of terrestrial origin can produce what is found there. And there are hundreds more such craters to be found on the Earth, 19 of which are larger. The largest is Vredefort¹ – a massive 160km central crater, followed no less by Chicxulub¹, of Dinosaur killer fame.


Jim

1. http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactData...metersort.html
2. Richard A. Kerr, “Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater Confirmed”, Science Vol 269 Sept 22 1995, p1672.
3. S. Silva L. , J. A. Wolff, V. L. Sharpton, “Explosive volcanism and associated pressures; Implications for models of endogenically shocked quartz”, Geological Society of America Special Paper 247 1990
4. G. S. Gohn, C. Koeberl,K. G. Miller,W. U. Reimold,J. V. Browning, C. S. Cockell, J. W. Horton Jr., T. Kenkmann,4 A. A. Kulpecz,D. S. Powars,W. E. Sanford, M. A. Voytek, “Deep Drilling into the Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure”, Science, 27 June 2008, vol 320, p1740
5. Christian Koeberl,* C. Wylie Poag, Wolf Uwe Reimold, Dion Brandt ,“Impact Origin of the Chesapeake Bay Structure and the Source of the North American Tektites”, Science March 1 1996 vol 271
6. Alexander DEUTSCH1, and Christian KOEBERL ,”Establishing the link between the Chesapeake Bay impact structure and the North American tektite strewn field: The Sr-Nd isotopic evidence”, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 41, Nr 5, 689–703 (2006) Abstract available online at http://meteoritics.org
7. K. A. Farley,* A. Montanari, E. M. Shoemaker, C. S. Shoemaker, “Geochemical Evidence for a Comet Shower in the Late Eocene”, Science May 22 1998 vol 280

Being fully aware of how utterly futile it is to try to communicate anything to specimens like O-Mudd, let me just post the last paragraph of what I had written in the article --- an article that he whips out at every opportunity in the deluded belief that he has "really found some dirt on Jorge". Like Inspector Clouseau, O-Mudd is sadly mistaken.

But first let me say this: The premeditated dishonesty of critters like O-Mudd is shown in that they totally evade/leave unanswered significant points asked of them. They do this by directing attention to other things so that their issues get lost in the shuffle - just as O-Mudd has done here with this thread. It's a tried-and-proven strategy, routinely used by 'honest' folk like politicians and lawyers.

As long as I've been at this I usually catch such dishonest tactics right away - such as right now. I recently posted a serious set of facts that challenge all TEs such as O-Mudd. There is no way that they can refute what I posted (well, not in any consistent, rational way).
O-Mudd knows this, of course, which is why he whips out the Distraction Strategy^tm. Errr ... it won't work on me, O-Mudd; once again, you are busted!

Anyway, back to my article, below is the last paragraph.
I've bolded and underlined some of it to see if some honesty gets drilled into O-Mudd's brain.

"I emphasize that this is nothing more than a hypothesis and in no way am I claiming that it is necessarily the final answer to these impact craters questions. If the breaking of the fountains of the great deep involved maars-like explosions (only much more energetic) then that could explain the geologic features of what today are interpreted as 'impact craters'."

The reporting of O-Mudd over the years either strongly suggests or flat-out states that I emphatically/dogmatically "answer" the impact craters with this hypothesis - I clearly do not make such a claim (see above). The bottom line (for me) is that there is far-too-much wiggle-room with the "impact crater evidence" for me to seriously consider it in determining the age of the earth. Of course, O-Mudd has never even hinted at my true position; quite the opposite, he posts misrepresentations aimed at supporting his vilification and agenda. Dishonesty personified.

That's my input here. Enjoy your delusions, O-Mudd.

Jorge

[One Bad Pig]

*flings poo*

*flings some more poo*

*while he's at it, flings more poo*

"It's only a hypothesis!"

*to recap, flings more poo*

That's my input here. Enjoy your delusions, O-Mudd.

Jorge

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

What a thorough rebuttal. I can't imagine why no one here takes you seriously.

[Roy]

But first let me say this: The premeditated dishonesty of critters like O-Mudd is shown in that they totally evade/leave unanswered significant points asked of them.

For instance, by totally evading and leaving unanswered the question of how the Chesapeake crater was formed.

They do this by directing attention to other things so that their issues get lost in the shuffle - just as O-Mudd has done here with this thread. It's a tried-and-proven strategy, routinely used by 'honest' folk like politicians and lawyers.

For example:

As long as I've been at this I usually catch such dishonest tactics right away - such as right now. I recently posted a serious set of facts that challenge all TEs such as O-Mudd. There is no way that they can refute what I posted (well, not in any consistent, rational way).

[oxmixmudd]

"I emphasize that this is nothing more than a hypothesis and in no way am I claiming that it is necessarily the final answer to these impact craters questions. If the breaking of the fountains of the great deep involved maars-like explosions (only much more energetic) then that could explain the geologic features of what today are interpreted as 'impact craters'."

It doesn't even rise to the status of a valid hypothesis Jorge. It's rebuttal exists before the words 'steam explosion' get our of your mouth. The HEAT from magma simply is not hot enough. The PRESSURE produced by that mechanism simply aren't high enough. Shatter cones, nano diamonds, tektites, shocked quartz, trans-continental debris fields where these sorts of relics are found - these don't come from this kind of event. You need heat and pressure orders of magnitude beyond what comes through volcanic activity.

and you know that.

And that is why the paper is fraudulent. It is NOT a hypothesis. It is NOT a possible explanation. It's not a matter of it being a legitimate potential idea that someday might be confirmed, as your finals words above imply.

There is NO QUESTION. This is dead before it sees the light of day.

and you know that.


Jim

[TheLurch]

"I emphasize that this is nothing more than a hypothesis and in no way am I claiming that it is necessarily the final answer to these impact craters questions. If the breaking of the fountains of the great deep involved maars-like explosions (only much more energetic) then that could explain the geologic features of what today are interpreted as 'impact craters'."

Technically, i don't think it's possible to term something a hypothesis - not a scientific hypothesis at least - if it's already obviously wrong at the time it's proposed.

[Wally]

Technically, i don't think it's possible to term something a hypothesis - not a scientific hypothesis at least - if it's already obviously wrong at the time it's proposed.

I don't know man, it is a bold red font after all.