Saturday, October 3, 2009

Sudden Impact—Target Earth

History has always been my first love, my history teacher always told me she wish all her students were as interested as I was. It probably was because she knew how to make it interesting. I like to read about things that effect our mother earth, even though these metorites came to earth thousands of years ago they are interesting and still we receive small ones even to this day.

An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the earth or another planet. Small objects frequently collide with earth, I am going to write about only five craters, the Barringer, the Rio Cuarto, the Hebbury, the Waber and Manson, Iowa the Manson crater is the largest crater in the United States.

Barringer Crater; There is a giant hole in the ground east of Flagstaff, Arizona, nearly a mile across and over 500 feet deep, this impacted earth 50,000 years ago and the dry Arizona climate has kept it close to impact-fresh ever since. Geologists for years insisted it was a dead volcano. This crater is owned by the Berringer family, which bought it in 1903 and today has made a tidy sum as a tourist attraction.

The Rio Cuarto Crater; There were ten depressions, four of substantial size. There is a string of lakes spanning 19 miles, as the result of about 10 oblong meteorite craters, the shape and alignment of the lakes suggests a low angle impact. The crater lakes have been dated at less than 10,000 years old. These craters are in Argentina, and they came in from the northeast.

The Henbury Meteorite; This is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is west of Alice Springs .The 13 to 14 craters range from 7 to 180 meters in diameter and 15 meters deep, they were formed when the meteor broke up before impact. The Henbury meteorites themselves are very distinctive and unique with a beautiful ocher-red patina from the Australia outback soil, the craters are about 5,000 years old.

The Wabar Crater; This site covers about 500 by 1,000 meters, and the most recent mapping shows three prominent, roughly circular craters. The impact did not penetrate to bedrock but was confined to local sand, making it particularly valuable as a research site. The sand was turned into black glass near the craters. the impact area suggests that the body fell at a shallow angle and moving at entry speeds of 40,000 to 60,000 km., it is estimated the impact was thousands of years ago. These craters are in the vast desert of southern Saudi Arabia, the most desolate place on earth.

Manson, Iowa; The largest crater in the United States. The Barringer Crater in Arizona might be the most picture-worthy crater, but in order to find the largest crater you will have to travel to Manson City, Iowa, it is 24 miles wide and was created 74 million years ago when a metorite crashed to earth. Only problem is a later ice age wore the crater smooth and filled it with rocks from far North, leaving the site as flat as a pancake. Researches believe at one time that this metorite caused the deaths of the dinosaurs.

In the past 540 million years there have been five generally-accepted, major mass extinctions that on average extinguished half of all species. The largest mass extinction to have affected life on earth was in the Permian-Triassic, which ended the Permian period 250 million years ago. Some believe that dooms day is not long in coming. I pray for Mother Earth and for mankind to take care of her like she takes care of us.

15 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

WOW, What an interesting post, wonderfully written and such a pleasure to read. It was awe inspiring.

Have a good day.

Yvonne

A.Marie said...

You are so talented with your writing...I really enjoyed reading this post. It was a history lesson, but one that was very well written and enjoyable to read! :)

Becky said...

I really like reading about everything you post Margaret. You would have made a great teacher yourself. I didn't realize these creaters had so much history. Thanks so much for the info.
B.

The Misadventures of Me said...

The mom enjoyed the lesson. She says fings about history has always intrigued her's. We is not so sure if we wud want to lives near any of dem craters tho.

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

You do a great job of telling about the things that affect our mother Earth - keep it up.

Gigi Ann said...

Very interesting article. Enjoyed reading it.

Jeanette said...

Gday Margaret. Very interesting history lesson TYm

Patty said...

Very interesting article. I pray to for Mother earth.

Hope you've had a great week-end so far, even though you're getting some rain. The sun was out here, but now its cloudy and looks like it's going to rain, and very chilly.

A New Beginning said...

Thanks for interesting post as always Margaret..YOu know history used to be my favourite aswell, until when one day I was asked to mug up all the imp dates for my exams..sans mugging up dates, its still my favourite!!

Juno said...

Thank you very much for your barkday message!! :)

Our mom has been so interested in the stuff you mentioned. She was not into math for instance but history which is amazing to learn!

Momo & Pinot

Judy said...

I always learn something when I come over here to see you! Thanks for a very informative and interesting post. Hope you have a great week.

Linda said...

A teacher who knows who to make it interesting is the key indeed! Thanks for sharing another very interesting history lesson with us :)

caspersmom said...

Very interesting post Margaret. I have seen the one in Arizona many years ago when I was a child. Actually I didn't know there was one in Iowa.

Midlife Mom said...

I wish I had seen the one in Arizona, have been there several times but didn't know about it. Very interesting post! Next time we go there we will know what to look for!! Thanks!

Margaret Cloud said...

Thank you for coming by and leaving a comment. I enjoyed writing this very much and enjoyed all your comments.

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