[meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos

[Jerry]

I too am in complete awe!!!!!!!!
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darryl Pitt" <darryl at dof3.com>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; "Chris Peterson" 
<clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos



>

>

>

> you know....

>

> what mike farmer has been up to the last few months  is nothing short  of 

> extraordinary.

>

> what is happening before each of us right now is the meteorite lore  of 

> the future.

>

> as everyone who even glances at this list knows,  i'm not blowing  smoke 

> (trails) here.  kudos must also go to his hunting pals,  robert  ward and 

> moritz karl , who i suspect help keep mike in motion.

>

> astonishing.  simply astonishing.

>

>

>

>

>

> On Oct 2, 2007, at 8:59 PM, Michael Farmer wrote:

>

>

>> Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in

>> diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks

>> identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller

>> scale.

>> There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the

>> crater, I found only inside and just outside the

>> crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there

>> is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on

>> the impact, everything else is more like soft mud.

>> Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at

>> least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100

>> meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o

>> meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I

>> mean you can call it what you want, but with the

>> uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all

>> sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself,

>> certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed

>> many tons and is obviously in the hole under some

>> meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom

>> cloud lingered for more than a hour.

>> As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake

>> Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is

>> HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite

>> is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely

>> have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the

>> mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated

>> there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses,

>> that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of

>> fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught

>> everyones attention pretty well, and would be so

>> bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the

>> intensity of the main mass. That is what I think

>> happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from

>> where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is

>> nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10

>> miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most

>> material to be lost.

>> Michael Farmer

>> --- Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

>>

>>

>>

>>> What remains to be determined is if this is actually

>>> a crater, or just a

>>> big splash. In the first case, some shocked material

>>> should show up, and

>>> I think it's likely that nothing is left in the

>>> bottom. If there really

>>> is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably

>>> isn't a crater in

>>> the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy

>>> release as the

>>> parent body explodes/vaporizes).

>>>

>>> I don't believe I've seen anything credible to

>>> suggest that the water

>>> was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take

>>> much energy to make a

>>> hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100

>>> kg TNT equivalent.

>>> And that's not enough to heat up that much water

>>> very much. So I expect

>>> that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an

>>> effect of ground

>>> water filling in the new hole.

>>>

>>> If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it

>>> may be structurally

>>> quite different from the parent body.

>>>

>>> Chris

>>>

>>> *****************************************

>>> Chris L Peterson

>>> Cloudbait Observatory

>>> http://www.cloudbait.com

>>>

>>>

>>> ----- Original Message -----

>>> From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>

>>> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>

>>> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM

>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail

>>> photos

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>> On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you

>>>>

>>>>

>>> wrote:

>>>

>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>> Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons

>>>>> could cause such intense heat on impact? We think

>>>>>

>>>>>

>>> that

>>>

>>>

>>>>> the compression of the soil, in an instant to many

>>>>> meteors deep could also cause intense heating.

>>>>> Every person we interviewed decribed boiling

>>>>>

>>>>>

>>> water,

>>>

>>>

>>>>> lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The

>>>>>

>>>>>

>>>>

>>>> What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could

>>>>

>>>>

>>> have caused

>>>

>>>

>>>> dissolved gases to

>>>> bubble out from the water?  So it might not have

>>>>

>>>>

>>> been at a boiling

>>>

>>>

>>>> temperature,

>>>> but still bubbling/steaming?  Too bad we don't

>>>>

>>>>

>>> have samples of the

>>>

>>>

>>>> groundwater

>>>> and soil from the area to see if there is anything

>>>>

>>>>

>>> weird/extensively

>>>

>>>

>>>> poluted

>>>> about it.

>>>>

>>>> Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as

>>>>

>>>>

>>> you describe

>>>

>>>

>>>> surviving to the

>>>> ground big enough and fast enough to make the

>>>>

>>>>

>>> crater.

>>>

>>> ______________________________________________

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>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

>>>

>>>

>>>

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>>

>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>

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>

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