From the file of “Things that would really be catastrophic”. Did a meteor have a role in a major shift in Earth’s Climate?
The start of the Quaternary period (2.588 million years ago, where the Pliocene became Pleistocene) coincides with evidence of a mega tsunami in the South Pacific.
The Eltanin Meteor fell into the South Pacific 2.5 million years ago setting off a (likely) tsunami that was hundreds of meters high and theoretically pushed mass material into the atmosphere which may have contributed to the cooling the globe had already started on. This meteor was hard to detect because it hit the ocean rather than the land. But researchers have pieced together evidence of the mass tsunami on continents around the pacific rim.
Figure 1. Possible effects of the Eltanin megatsunami. (A) Composite model of wave amplitudes for the South Pacific [modified after Ward and Asphaug (2002) but with a greater decay rate of wave amplitude away from the impact point; this produces lower wave amplitudes on affected coasts, more in line with recent findings but not as low as those proposed by Shuvalov and Trubetskaya (2007)]: ANT, Antarctica; AU, Australia; NZ, New Zealand; SA, South America. (B) Map of
the South Pacific region showing sites discussed in the text (the red dot and concentric red circles highlight the approximate location of the Eltanin asteroid impact, the red dashed line encompasses the geographical extent of
possible Eltanin megatsunami evidence discussed in the text and open blue dots mark locations of sites discussed in the text. (C) Inset of all Antarctic sites discussed in the text. AC, Alexander Channel; BI, Bahia Inglesa; BT, Biscoe Trough; BTr, Bounty Trough; C, Concepcion; Ca, Caldera; CI, Cockburn Island; Cis, Chatham Islands; CR, Chatham Rise; ERS, Eastern Ross Sea; KU, Kurotaki unconformity; MP, Mejillones Peninsula; NSW, New South Wales; PB, Prydz Bay; PC, Prydz Channel; TAM, Transantarctic Mountains; TP, Taitao Peninsula; WB, Wanganui Basin; WI, Windmill Island; WL, Wilkes Land; WRS, Western Ross Sea; WS, Weddell Sea. This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jqs
“This is the only known deep-ocean impact event on the planet and it’s largely been forgotten because there’s no obvious giant crater to investigate, as there would have been if it had hit a landmass,” says Professor James Goff, lead author of a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Quaternary Science. Goff is co-director of UNSW’s Australia-Pacific Tsunami Research Centre and Natural Hazards Research Laboratory.
“But consider that we’re talking about something the size of a small mountain crashing at very high speed into very deep ocean, between Chile and Antarctica. Unlike a land impact, where the energy of the collision is largely absorbed locally, this would have generated an incredible splash with waves literally hundreds of metres high near the impact site.
As a ‘cene’ changer — that is, from the Pliocene to Pleistocene — Eltanin may have been overall as significant as the meteor that took out the non-flying dinosaurs 65 million years ago. We’re urging our colleagues to carefully reconsider conventional interpretations of the sediments we’re flagging and consider whether these could be instead the result of a mega-tsunami triggered by a meteor.”
From the paper (paywalled)
The Eltanin asteroid is currently the only known impact into a deep ocean (4–5 km) basin, striking the Southern Ocean about 1500 km SSW of Chile (Fig. 1). Although there is no crater on the seafloor, meteoritic material was found in sedimentary rocks
collected at three places 500 km apart. There were also traces of intense erosion as well as the deposition of eroded material
(Gersonde et al., 1997). Gersonde et al. (1997) estimated the asteroid to be between 1 and 4 km in diameter.
Other more recent estimates suggest it must have been less than 2km “a larger size would cause impact melt on the seafloor and create a bottom crater…”
Estimates of the height of the wave vary from 20 – 300m as it hit the coast of South America. The smaller estimate is more recent. In any case the run up estimates on land are up to 10 – 25 times higher. There are beds of bones in Peru where fragments of land and marine creatures from a calm environment are deposited together and in ways that suggest it was rapid.
Figure 6. (A) Location of Wanganui Basin, New Zealand. (B) Rangitikei
River Section with the Te Rimu Sand unit is highlighted in red (after
Naish and Kamp, 1995). This figure is available in colour online at
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jqs
In New Zealand, deposits have been raised high above sea level thanks to techtonic movements. At the time of the impact New Zealand was closer to sea level, and some areas would have been completely washed over.
I understand why a land impact would send material into the atmosphere and block out sunlight, cooling the planet, but I’m less sure of why a deep sea impact and tsunami would do that. Evidently this is a “modeled” result, so I’ll keep my skeptical hat on about whether a deep sea impact could cool the planet significantly. The timing with the Pleistocene boundary might be coincidental.
“Some modelling suggests that the ensuing mega-tsunami could have been unimaginably large – sweeping across vast areas of the Pacific and engulfing coastlines far inland. But it also would have ejected massive amounts of water vapour, sulphur and dust up into the stratosphere.
From the paper (paywalled)
In the case of the Eltanin impact it is estimated that the impact would have led to a 5- to 50-fold increase in the mass of S in the stratosphere (21011 g). With sufficient O and H in the vapour plumes of most impact events to convert the S to sulfuric acid aerosols, the effects of a moderately large deep ocean impact such as Eltanin may fall somewhere between that of a Mount Pinatubo eruption (multi-year depression of global temperatures by at least 0.5 8C) and Chicxulub (a 2 8C depression for 3 years or longer). Furthermore, any excess H2O not used to produce sulfuric acid aerosols may condense as water ice, increasing
planetary albedo and interacting with any veil of atmospheric dust that might be present. Although the longer residence
time of water vapour in the stratosphere as opposed to the troposphere could actually lead to either a warming
(greenhouse effect) or a cooling (ice clouds) (Gisler et al., 2011), the potential effects of which are beyond the scope of this paper, this could conceivably be seen as one of the climatic drivers marking the start of the Quaternary 2.58Ma ago.
Abstract
Large asteroid impacts are rare, and those into the deep ocean are rarer still. The Eltanin asteroid impact around 2.51 ± 0.07 Ma occurred at a time of great climatic and geological change associated with the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary. Numerical models of the event indicate that a megatsunami was generated, although there is debate concerning its magnitude and the region-wide extent of its influence. We summarise the existing evidence for possible Eltanin megatsunami deposits in Antarctica, Chile and New Zealand, while also examining other potential sites from several locations, mainly around the South Pacific region. In reviewing these data we note that these events were unfolding at the same time as those associated with the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary and, as such, most of the geological evidence from that time has a climatic interpretation. The potential climatic and geological ramifications of the Eltanin asteroid impact, however, have failed to be considered by most researchers studying this time period. Although we are not advocating that all geological activity at that time is connected with the Eltanin asteroid impact, it raises interesting questions about the role potentially played by such catastrophic events in contributing to or even triggering epochal transitions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
What’s the next big one coming?
It’s virtually 100% certain (not just “very likely”) that the next big one is on the way, sometime, and when it hits, it will be catastrophic, millions will die, species will be wiped out, and the climate will change. So where is the UN Meteor Watch Program? Where are the activists telling us to buy insurance? Could it be that no one cares because there is no Meteor Market, no Departments of Astro-catastrophe, no Meteor Shield Industry and no $10 billion dollar programs to research the mitigation options, the after effects, or the psychology of meteor-deniers?
Ah, you say, it’s because the odds are small and there’s nothing we can do anyhow. But then nuking a big rock far out in space is far more believable than changing light-bulbs to hold back the tide, or building a bike path to change the weather, both of which are now national policy.
REFERENCE
James Goff, Catherine Chagué-Goff, Michael Archer, Dale Dominey-Howes, Chris Turney. The Eltanin asteroid impact: possible South Pacific palaeomegatsunami footprint and potential implications for the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. Journal of Quaternary Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1002/jqs.2571
Hat tip to Mark at UWA.
Another great read thanks Jo.
I really appreciate your tireless efforts in holding back the tide of warmist stupidity. Your work on the Lewandowsky skeptic conspiracy propaganda has been particularly good and it has been satisfying to see your work picked up in the main stream media.
A token of my appreciation is on its way to your Tip Jar as I know you are still waiting for those cheques from Big Oil to come through and unlike Lewandowsky you don’t have access to the hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers money he keeps churning through. I hope other readers can also dig deep to support your good work to enable you to keep going.
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I agree. This post is about REAL environmental threats, unlike AGW, which is a ideological and political deus ex machina, employed by the left and green totalitarians to have their way with humanity.
In the meantime, as Jo notes:
There is a NASA program of asteroid and meteor watch but the Australian equivalent was cancelled by Howard in 1996.
So, both sides of Australian politics are tarred with the same brush; both are gainst protecting humanity from real threats like asteroid impacts [or fundamentalist religions], yet both support bogeyman scare campaigns like AGW; the only advantage with the coalition is they won’t bankrupt the country supporting this lie, unlike the green/alp dog’s breakfast.
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“So where is the UN Meteor Watch Program?”
NASA has a Near Earth Object Program.
There is also an unpaid army of amateur astronomers watching the sky every night.
While there are a lot of eyes on the sky, some meteors do still pass us undetected, which is a concern.
If a portion of the money being flushed down the climate change toilet was redirected to meteor research and detection, we’d all be a lot better off.
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Sounds like a job for … (trumpets)
…SPACEGUARD
…whose web site looks quite shoddy for group protecting the planet from extinction-level events.
Never mind the 10 billion, at least give them 5 grand to pay for a nicer web site. It’s a start. 😀
But more seriously there are far fewer telescopes watching the southern skies, making Australia an important location for planetary protection. Nobody in Australia has discovered more comets and NEOs than Rob McNaught, and right now he needs money to continue.
As the Australian branch of SpaceGuard points out:
Perhaps instead of the government running scare campaigns on TV aimed at us, we should run a scare campaign aimed at the government… “NEO Neglect: Not even once.”
If Gillard really wants to be remembered for “saving the planet” she’ll dump the carbon price and spend 0.01% of the foregone revenue on Mr McNaught and others like him. We need to make sure Spaceguard astronomers don’t keep a roof over their head!
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I think they are getting our American friends to fund it. Sneaky UN buggers.
Nope, funnily enough there are a lot of people out there who actually dont turn their backs on potentially big and dangerous issues like this. Hm,,,,, just maybe that’s why there have been several asteroid rendezvous missions?? Galileo, NEAR Shoemaker, Dawn, ooh, piccies, Hayabusa. Seems that there is in fact quite a bit of science being done around this when you have a look.
LoL! 🙂
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I guess you are referring to NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission?
If you are, then you should realize that this is a statistical assessment of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA’s).
They are not tracking them. They are not even at the point of assessing which ones to track.
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one of a few actually.
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Jo,
there was some comment about 2(?) years ago on the discovery of giant rocks washed up onto the cliffs near Sydney. Postulated then that giant tsunamis had hit the coast.
From Google:
in his book, “Tsunamis — The Underrated Hazard,” Edward Bryant …In 1989, Bryant was dabbling into the coastal evolution of rock platforms and sand barriers along the New South Wales coastline of eastern Australia when he noticed something strange. Giant boulders, some the size of boxcars and weighing almost 100 tons, were jammed 33 meters above sea level into a crevice at the top of a rock platform sheltered from storm waves.
But he is talking of much more recent events. No reason why it couldn’t have happened before.
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Graeme, that was mentioned in this paper – the Australian data was confounded I think by a more recent event, so something in the last 250,000 years overwashed the data from 2.5 million.
“Elevated cliff-top boulder deposits
along the New South Wales coast, Australia, coast have
10Be and 26Al exposure ages of at least 250 ka and 300 ka
and they sit upon a contemporary platform with an exposure
age of 145 ka (Switzer et al., 2009). The cliff-top surfaces
experience extremely slow denudation rates and as such the
boulders resting on them are most likely related to an earlier
overlying sequence exposed by surface erosion at least 250 000
years ago (Goff and Dominey-Howes, 2010).”
“Therefore, in the SE Australia example, a plausible
interpretation is that the early Pliocene dates may have been
obtained from rip-up clasts that were older than the late
Pliocene date of the event that ripped them up.”
“This raises the
possibility that an alternative and more recent late Pliocene
catastrophic event may be responsible for the regionally
extensive unconformity in SE Australia.”
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1491?
“Graham Phillips: So if we were standing here in 1500 AD looking out to sea what would we have seen?”
“Associate Professor Ted Bryant: You would see the horizon starting to lift up. And within about a minute you’d see it moving towards you. And at this headland you’d probably see a wall of water 20 metres high or more”
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s708821.htm
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I’ll have to try and track down the reference, but i recall reading something in the last couple of years saying that there is a school of thought that there was a bid tsunami on the east coast, not that long (geologically speaking) before first white settlement. Its thought that it may have been due to some kind of movement of a fault betwixt Oz and the somewhat geologically active NZ.
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I agree with your comments that a meteor impact is a 100% certainty, yet we spend little on this at least compared to the billions we spend on climate science and so called mitigation (wind turbines, painting roofs white, carbon taxes, etc).
Interesting times we live in.
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The sulfur part makes me wonder if this is well-based science or just academic, wouldn’t-it-be-nifty thinking.
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To avoid any confusion, I would just like to state that the New Zealand coastline is just as close to sea level today, as it was then.
The rest of New Zealand may have moved (both up and down) relative to that, since the time of the impact, but the coastline stubbornly remains at sea level :-).
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This is a good read.
Australian Aboriginal Geomythology:
Eyewitness Accounts of Cosmic Impacts?
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1009/1009.4251.pdf
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Interesting. Thanks for that.
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Maybe you would enjoy this also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgj393oHQSg
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If it hits the Earth’s surface it becomes a “meteorite”. I’m surprised the quote from Bob Beale refers to them as “meteors”.
My understanding is that the dinosaurs survived the big asteroid collision of 65 million years ago by about 300,000 years.
From Heaven+Earth – Ian Plimer, pp178-179
It’s 100% certain another big one is on the way, not “virtually 100% certain”. I oppose any attempts to “nuke” such a candidate because it is just as likely that such an attempt, on the small chance that it would be successful anyway, would push what was going to be a near miss on to a collision course. Let it be, I say.
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I agree. It is possible for a single bullet to miss the target, albeit narrowly. But a shotgun fired on the same trajectory is much more likely to have some of the pellets hit the target, and those pellets have the potential to do far more collective damage than a single bullet would do.
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Prior to 2004, nobody worried too much about India Ocean tsunamis. Since then more money has gone into tsunami research in Australia, and we are finding tsunamis are more common than previously though.
People who live near the beach should worry less about sea level rises over a few centuries and rather more about sea level rises over a few seconds.
This is a study of paleo-tsunamis in WA.
http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=scipapers
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Thanks Phillip,
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Then there is Burckle crater a 30 km wide crater 3,800 meters below sea level, believed to be created by a comet 5,000 years ago (although dating is disputed). An impact that creates a crater of that size beneath nearly 4,000 meters of water is going to cause an enormous tsunami.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burckle_Crater
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Quote:
$10 Billion dollars.
The quote above would be even funnier if it wasn’t the reality of the choices we have at the next Australian election.
Here, we have Joe Hockey, conservative LNP shadow treasurer, when pressured, coughing up the cost of the ‘Direct Action Plan’ to “fight carbon (sic)” and ‘stop the climate from changing’. (6.12 on video.abcbreakfast.19/9/12)
$10 Billion dollars+.
That is what an Abbott lead LNP government will WASTE on trying to stop the climate from changing.
And failing.
Contact your LNP politician and tell them this is unacceptable waste of money that will environmentally achieve nothing.
Like this GreenLaboUr boondoggle:
Australia’s new High Commissioner to the Maldives, Robyn Mudie described the benefits of the WCCM scheme.
A total of US$8.5million has been contributed by Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) …
(via Tom Nelson)
Yes. Those sinking islands where they just built a new airport & 5 star resorts.
So, the choice at the next election is GreenLaboUr’s carbon (sic) tax morphing into a failed European ETS,
or a LNP $10 Billion dollar plus Meteorite tax.
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That $10B would be FAR, FAR better spent in augmenting our power supply grid with several modern, coal or gas fired power stations,
and by augmenting our water supply system with several very sizable dams.
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We have a High Commissioner to the Maldives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about under water
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In my youth I explored Australia on a motor cycle, around a hundred miles north of Alice I left the main road by about 1/4 of a mile to camp.
This was gibber plain country, beautiful small polished hard stones for miles. Some sand and surprise sea shells in pristine condition, not that old.
This post made me think that perhaps our inland sea was topped up occasionally by some enhanced tidal effects such as mentioned here. The thought of these shells and the time line of the geology has always puzzled me.
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Rocks from space! Yeh right! As if!!
It’s carbon we need to fear! Yes carbon!
What if the worlds temperature went up a few degrees?!
How would you cope?! How would your family cope?
Surviving a 4 degree increase in temperature is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE.
My uncle decided to relocate from Melbourne to Cairns last year.
BIG MISTAKE! do you know why? HE DIED!!! HE DIED FROM THE CLIMATE CHANGE!
It may be fun for conspiracy nutjobs to think about big rocks from space hitting us, you’ve all been watching too many movies!
The real threat is Coal power stations, the Koch Brothers, Fat Gina, and deniers like Jo Nova.
Think Of the children! It’s worse than we thought! [/sarc ]
[SNIP ]
[Sonny, use the /sarc tag, stop the profanity. Time to get a new joke…? Jo]
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Mate, They is Carbon rocks !!!! be very very afraid !!
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Holy climate change!
Do you think a meteor could contain liquified CO2 or methane so that when it hits us we will get an enhanced greenhouse affect and all promptly drop dead from overheating?
I’m alarmed and very scared!
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20 Sept: Reuters: UPDATE 1-US electric car policy to cost $7.5 bln by 2019-CBO
by Bernie Woodall and Deepa Seetharaman
U.S. federal policies to promote electric vehicles will cost $7.5 billion through 2019 and have “little to no impact” on overall national gasoline consumption over the next several years, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report issued on Thursday.
Consumer tax credits for buying electric vehicles, which can run as high as $7,500 per vehicle, will account for about 25 percent of the $7.5 billion cost, the CBO said.
The rest of the cost comprises of $2.4 billion in grants to battery makers and projects to promote electric vehicles as well as $3.1 billion in loans to auto companies designed to spur production of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Many of these initiatives were initiated in 2009 under President Barack Obama, but the loan program was authorized in 2007 under the Bush administration…
While drivers of these electric vehicles use less gasoline and emit less greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, the cost to the government can be high, the CBO found. The U.S. government will spend anywhere from $3 to $7 for each gallon of gasoline saved by consumers driving electric vehicles…
Sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and vehicles that have no gasoline engines at all are so far low. In 2012, through August, 13,497 Chevrolet Volt have been sold, and Nissan has sold only 4,228 Leaf…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/autos-electriccars-idUSL1E8KKM1L20120920?type=marketsNews
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We’re doomed.
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in-depth, with more not excerpted on the Sierra Club’s hypocrisy:
21 Sept: Bloomberg: Ken Wells: Tortoises Manhandled for Solar Splits Environmentalists
When concern over global warming was at a peak, national organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council threw their support behind industrial-scale wind and solar installations on public land. Now some smaller conservationist groups object to what they consider an environmentally destructive gold rush.
“Of course we need to do solar, but it should go on rooftops or in appropriate places, not the pristine desert,” says April Sall, director of the Wildlands Conservancy in Oak Glen, California, operator of the state’s largest nonprofit preservation system. “We need to tackle warming — but not forget that there are other things at stake.” …
The 120-year-old Sierra Club, which calls itself “America’s largest and most influential” environmental group, also lobbied for changes to the project’s design to protect the tortoises. Yet the 1.4 million-member organization chose not to try to block the plant, says Barbara Boyle, a Sierra green energy specialist.
“Ultimately, we need to jump-start renewables to combat climate change, and large-scale solar has to play a big part in that,” Boyle says. However, as it became clear the project was rooting out many more tortoises than projected and as some California chapters urged action, the organization joined a coalition that sued the Department of the Interior in March to block another long-planned Mojave solar project that it says threatens wildlife…
Similar disputes are playing out elsewhere and show a growing concern among green groups and willingness to block large-scale solar and wind projects when the cost to wildlife and habitat seem to outweigh the benefits of fighting climate change. A surge in supplies of cheap, clean-burning natural gas has also begun to undercut demand for more costly green energy…
***The Obama administration has steered $9 billion in stimulus funds from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to 23,000 solar and large-scale wind installations, according to the Department of Energy…
Dozens more solar plants could arise across the American desert West. A July Bureau of Land Management plan allocates 285,000 public acres to 17 solar zones. An additional 19 million acres — an area almost the size of West Virginia — may be approved for solar projects. The goal is to produce 23,700 megawatts, enough to power 7 million homes, according to the BLM. Solar power now provides less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity, amounting to 5,700 megawatts, or enough for about 1 million households…
Conservationists say it is wrongheaded to rip up the public desert and destroy wildlife habitat when millions of already- degraded acres are available…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/tortoises-manhandled-for-solar-splits-environmentalists.html
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Only $9 billion? Why not $90 billion? Anyone for $900 billion? Why think small when you can think big? 🙁
00
Lew….get onto this conspiracy,
00
Scientists can certainly make much out of little. I reckon we all better pay up our life insurance before it’s too late.
Seriously, so much money is spent on non existent problems like climate change or on low probability problems like one in a hundred million year giant meteor strikes that no one can count it all. Can you just stop a minute and imagine what might be accomplished if even half the money spent on climate change had been spent on looking for ways to prevent, treat and possibly cure diabetes? And that’s just one cause more worthy than climate change and giant meteors combined.
In a previous thread the biblical reminder that, “By their fruits you shall know them,” was mentioned. Forgive me if I mention another that seems apropos, given the trend of those wanting to be big in human society lording it over everyone. “He who would be greatest among you must be servant to all.”
It takes humility to actually work for the benefit of others — something sorely lacking among our academics, scientists and political leaders.
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Obviously JuWayne will be around to see you with their eminent assessors, ‘TimBones” Flannery and “StepLow” Lewandowsky.
I think you are just one of those crazy right wing nutjobs that has been influenced by people that drink tea.
PS Is this an attack at the person rather than the facts. The art of ‘science’ is so confusing.
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Unfortunately many medical researchers don’t want to find a cure. If they find a cure then the funding dries up or ceases.
00
“By their fruits you shall know them,”
bring on the CO2 then !! 🙂
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How old does what Charles Sturt found here seem?
“Proceeding down the Murray, I reached at length the commencement of the great fossil formation, through which that river flows. This immense bed rose gradually before me as I pushed to the westward, until it gained an elevation of from 2 to 250 feet, but on my turning southward, it presented an horizontal and undulating surface, until at the point at which the river enters the Lake Victoria, it suddenly dipped and ceased. The lower part of this formation was entirely composed of Serritullae, but every description of shell with the bones and teeth of sharks and other animals, have subsequently been found in the upper parts of the bed, the summit of which is in many places covered with oyster shells so little changed by time, as to appear as if they had only just been thrown in a heap on the ground they occupy.”
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00058.html
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Stunning before and after photos showing retreat of glaciers:
http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/repeatphoto/Pairs/RepeatPhoto_pairs_Fullset_compr.pdf
(Look here and see why the photos are misleading: New paper finds glaciers in Glacier National Park retreated up to 6 times faster during the 1930’s than the past 40 years ) CTS
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Stunning picture of Dog Bites Man
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Hey, do you think the dog is biting the man because it’s pissed off about Global warming?
00
(SNIPPED.Waaay off topic) CTS
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One thing is for sure, a tsunami that big would break a lot of ice off the Antarctic ice shelves. The warmists of the day would have put that down to suvs of course.
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There is the odd decent sized crater still around.
Like the approximately 250 million year old, 500 km wide crater in Wilkes Land in Antarctica and under all that ice now.
About twice as wide as the famous Chicxulub crater created by the meteor strike that supposedly contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs although they appear to have been on the way out by the time of the Chicxulub meteor strike in any case.
Interestingly the Chicxulub meteor strike coincides in time with much of the massive million year long volcanic outpourings of India’s Deccan Traps which might have had more to do with the demise of the dinosaurs than the meteor strike.
But the very interesting item here is the fact that the Chicxulub strike is almost directly opposite the site of the Deccan Traps on the other side of the planet.
So did the shock of the strike of the Chicxulub meteor set off the million year long volcanic outpourings of the Deccan Traps?
If you have ever seen one of those very high speed movies of a rifle bullet striking an egg and the shock front exploding the opposite side of the egg long before the bullet actually gets there you will understand my thinking.
To take that one step further; The Wilkes Land crater, allowing for the rearrangement of the continental plates over that 250 million year time span, was almost directly opposite the massive, much larger than the Deccan Traps, volcanic outpourings of the Siberian Traps which occurred again about the same time as that Wilkes Land meteor strike and the creation of it’s massive crater.
Coincidence?
And the Siberian Trap volcanic outpourings are also believed to have led to one of Earth’s major extinction events,
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22 Sept: Businessweek: Michael Shepard and Jim Efstathiou Jr: Senate Moves to Bar U.S. Airlines From EU Emissions Trading
The U.S. Senate passed a measure that would effectively shield U.S. airlines from a European Union program designed to curtail aviation emissions.
The bill, supported by the airlines, was approved early today before lawmakers adjourned to campaign for the Nov. 6 election. Under the measure, which must be reconciled with similar legislation passed by the House last year, U.S carriers would be barred from participating in the EU’s emissions-trading system for carbon credits…
The expansion of the cap-and-trade program triggered opposition from countries including the U.S., China and Russia…
The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, has Democratic supporters including Bill Nelson of Florida and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. While Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration has not taken a position on the bill, in June he said the government “strongly opposes” the EU plan…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-22/senate-moves-to-bar-u-dot-s-dot-airlines-from-eu-emissions-trading
Romm finally realises it’s crazy and insane:
20 Sept: EnergyCollective: Joe Romm: In The ‘Crazy’ World Of Carbon Finance, Coal Now Qualifies For Emission Reduction Credits
Now the UN has added coal to the list of eligible projects. Again.
At a CDM Executive Board meeting last week, the organization approved new rules that allow more efficient supercritical coal plants built in developing countries to obtain carbon credits. So theoretically, a coal-fired power plant in Europe could be “offset” by carbon credits not through renewable energy, but through another carbon-burning coal power plant in India…
“This destroys the sense that there is some sanity and rationale to this mechanism,” said Justin Guay, head of the international climate program at the Sierra Club. “The fact that we are defending coal plants as part of low-carbon finance is crazy.”
The Sierra Club and the watchdog group CDM Watch say there are 40 plants in China and India waiting for CDM approval…
Along with general concerns over financing coal in the first place, this over-crediting issue is one of the biggest worries for groups watching the market…
Adding more coal plants to the mix will only make the problem worse, say onlookers.
“It’s unfortunate that the executive board has made this decision given that carbon markets are collapsing right now because of an oversupply of credits,” said Anja Kollmuss, a carbon markets expert with CDM Watch…
“When you look at the contradictory standards set by these organizations, it shows how insane the framework for discussion has become,” says the Sierra Club’s Guay…
http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/114571/crazy-world-carbon-finance-coal-now-qualifies-emission-reduction-credits
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wonderful the site is back up jo.
welcome to the wacky world of carbon dioxide emissions trading:
27 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: Brazil’s Elejor sells 230,000 CERs at 1.7 euros to Mercuria
Brazilian hydroelectric power producer Elejor sold 229,464 U.N.-issued carbon offsets to Mercuria Energy Trading SA in an auction at 1.70 euros each, the company said on Thursday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2002008?&ref=searchlist
27 Sept: Chicago Tribune: Reuters: Australia issues 6.37 million CO2 units
Australia on Thursday issued 6.37 million free carbon units to companies seeking compensation from the country’s CO2 pricing mechanisms, the government said, the first ever emission rights to be issued under Australia’s carbon scheme…
Alcoa got just over 5.9 million of the units.
“These applicants have received around 6.37 million free carbon units which companies can now sell back to the government, transfer, or use to acquit their future liability under the carbon pricing mechanism,” the regulator said in a statement…
The 6.37 million units issued on Thursday represent a value of A$146.5 million that the two firms won’t have to pay in carbon costs…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-australia-carbonbre88q0hs-20120927,0,2012144.story
and our Govt pretends this will cool down the earth’s temperature!
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whatever it takes:
27 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: EC eyes banning more offsets in CO2 scheme
The EU may ban companies from using newly issued Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) from nations such as Russia to meet targets under its Emissions Trading Scheme over concerns that ballooning supply is undermining the $148-billion market…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2001884
27 Sept: Reuters Point Carbon: ERUs up 5 pct on reports of EU ban
Emissions Reduction Units for delivery in 2013 gained nearly 5 percent Thursday on news the European Commission was considering banning from next year the use of new offsets from industrialised countries that don’t sign up to Kyoto 2.
The little-traded contract, listed on ICE Futures Europe, added 10 cents to hit a two-week high of 2.20 euros on light volume of 150,000 changing hands by 1515 GMT…
The ban would be in place irrespective of when the emission reductions behind the credits were made, while sources said it is primarily aimed at neutering the effect of an expected increase in Russian carbon credit supply…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2001995?&ref=searchlist
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There are 1332 near earth asteroids that have been catalogued as being dangerous. Up to 5 new asteroids are discovered per day. Many are not noted until they have gone past us.
Asteroids not only inhabit the ‘asteroid belt’ but even the same orbit as earth. Asteroids are found outside the belt.
Then, there is the Oort belt lying past the outer planets that is believed to contain billions more asteroids and comet material. Comets can come from this ‘halo’ of material from any angle. New ones can appear anytime without warning.
I agree that CO2 increase is but a very tiny worry c.f. big impacts. The Russian-Siberian one of 1912 would have wiped out a very large city but for a few hours difference. One of these can be expected every 100 years. So we are statistically due for another.
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