Guest “Geology Rocks!” by David Middleton
Impact Crater off the African Coast May Be Linked to Chicxulub
The underwater crater, spotted serendipitously in commercial observations of seafloor sediments, is believed to have formed at roughly the same time as the famous Cretaceous-Paleogene impact event.
By Katherine Kornei
19 September 2022In the world of impact craters, Chicxulub is a celebrity: The 180-kilometer-diameter maw, in the Gulf of Mexico, was created by a cataclysmic asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous that spelled the demise of most dinosaurs. But researchers have now uncovered another crater off the coast of Guinea that might well be Chicxulub’s cousin. The newly discovered feature, albeit much smaller, is also about 66 million years old. That’s a curious coincidence, and scientists are now wondering whether the two impact structures might be linked. Perhaps Chicxulub and the newly discovered feature—dubbed Nadir crater—formed from the breakup of a parent asteroid or as part of an impact cluster, the team suggested. These results were published in Science Advances.
[…]
The newly discovered Nadir crater appears to have formed right around the same time as that cataclysm. Uisdean Nicholson, a sedimentary geologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and his colleagues discovered the candidate crater while they were poring over observations of seafloor sediments originally collected for oil and gas exploration. The team spotted the roughly 8-kilometer-wide structure in seismic reflection imaging data obtained off the coast of West Africa. “It was pure serendipity,” said Nicholson.
The putative crater is buried under roughly 300 meters of sediments topped by 900 meters of water, and its appearance strongly suggests it was created by a hypervelocity impact, said Nicholson. For starters, it’s circular in shape, with a pronounced rim. Second, it contains a small central peak, a feature that often arises in large impact craters. And perhaps most important, there’s clear evidence of deformed sediments—caused by faulting and folding—persisting hundreds of meters below what would be the crater floor. “There’s a lot of things that suggest it’s an impact,” said Gavin Kenny, a geochemist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm who was not involved in the research.
[…]
Eos
The paper, Nicholson et al., 2022, is well-worth reading and the full text is available. The crater was identified on 2d seismic surveys shot by WesternGeco (1999) and TGS (2017). I see a lot of cool geology on 3d seismic data every day, mostly related to salt tectonics., but I’ve never seen anything as cool as the very well-imaged impact crater on Figure 1B…
(A) Regional bathymetry map of the Guinea Plateau and Guinea Terrace showing location of 2D seismic reflection and well data used in this study. JS, Jane Seamount; NS, Nadir Seamount; PS, Porter Seamount. The white dashed line shows the NE extent of high-amplitude discontinuous seismic facies at the top Maastrichtian interpreted as ejecta deposits and associated tsunami deposits. The north-east limit of this facies closely corresponds with the Maastrichtian shelf-slope break at the landward margin of the Guinea Terrace. Inset map shows a paleogeographic reconstruction of the Atlantic near the end of the Cretaceous, ~66 Ma ago, made using GPlates software (58). Ch, Chicxulub Crater; Nd, Nadir Crater; Bo, Boltysh Crater. (B). Regional composite 2D seismic reflection profile extending from the GU-2B-1 well in the east to the deep Atlantic basin in the west, showing the structural and stratigraphic character of the Guinea Plateau and Guinea Terrace. (C) North-South seismic profile from the salt basin in the north to the Nadir Seamount, south of the Guinea Fracture Zone. Data courtesy of the Republic of Guinea and TGS. (Nicholson et al., 2022)
Figure 2 from the paper zooms in on the crater on the TGS line (black rectangle on Figure 1B) and a WesternGeco line. This is a great textbook example of integrating geological and geophysical data…
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The seismic stratigraphic framework is based on an extensive 2D seismic reflection dataset and three industry wells drilled on the southeast of the plateau (Fig. 1). The 2D data were acquired and processed by TGS and WesternGeco. The NWAAM-17 survey in Guinea and Guinea Bissau was acquired in 2017 by TGS in Guinea and Guinea Bissau; data were acquired in 2017 in water depths of 15 to 4600 meters. Acquisition parameters include a 12-km streamer length towed at a depth of 18 m, with 960 hydrophone channels of 12.5-m group length and a 25-m shot point spacing, giving a 240 full-fold data coverage. Total record length was 14 s with a 2-ms sample rate for all lines. The sound source was one 4310 in3 array towed at 8 m and firing every 25 m using a Bigshot controller system. Data were processed using a pre-stack time migration (PSTM) sequence, with a subset of data processed using a pre-stack depth migration sequence, providing data in depth and time domain. Seismic frequency at the top of the crater is around 45 Hz, and interval velocity is ~1800 m/s, giving a tuning thickness (seismic resolution) of around 10 m.
The GWG99 survey in Guinea was acquired in 1999 by WesternGeco in water depths of 150 to 4500 m. Acquisition parameters include a 6-km streamer length towed at a depth of 8 m, with 480 hydrophone channels of 12.5-m group length and a 25-m shot point spacing, giving a 120 full-fold data coverage. Total record length was 10 s with a 2-ms sample rate for all lines. The sound source was one 2000 in3 array towed at 6 m and firing every 25 m. Data were processed using a PSTM sequence, with a subset of data reprocessed in 2017 to improve imaging and reduce multiples and noise. Seismic frequency at the top of the crater is around 45 Hz, and interval velocity is ~1800 m/s, giving a tuning thickness (seismic resolution) of around 10 m.
Seismic interpretation was carried out using Schlumberger Petrel 2020 software, including horizon mapping, structural element mapping, velocity analysis, and seismic-to-well ties. Lithological, petrophysical, and biostratigraphic data from the exploration wells were used to constrain the stratigraphic age and lithology of seismic reflections. Seismic-to-well ties were based on checkshot surveys, with the tie further improved by constructing synthetic seismograms using sonic and density log data. Structural reconstructions of the preimpact stratigraphy and the geometry of the transient crater were carried out by seismic flattening of the Top Maastrichtian and KU1 horizons, respectively. On the basis of a vertical seismic resolution of ~10 m for the top of the Nadir Crater, the age uncertainty for individual seismic reflections is estimated at 0.5 Ma for the Upper Cretaceous (700 m thick deposited over 34 Ma = 20 m/Ma, 10/20 = 0.5 Ma) and 0.8 Ma for the Paleogene (400 m thick deposited over 32 Ma = 12 m/Ma, 10/12.5 = 0.8 Ma).
[…,]
Nicholson et al., 2022
References
Kornei, K. (2022), Impact crater off the African coast may be linked to Chicxulub, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220454. Published on 19 September 2022.
Nicholson U, Bray VJ, Gulick SPS, Aduomahor B. The Nadir Crater offshore West Africa: A candidate Cretaceous-Paleogene impact structure. Sci Adv. 2022 Aug 19;8(33):eabn3096. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn3096. Epub 2022 Aug 17. PMID: 35977017; PMCID: PMC9385158.
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Roughly the same age as the dino-killer. It does need better dating, though.
It would be fascinating if something similar to the Tanis fossil site could be found and seasonal dates compared, although the differences in pollen and fossils might complicate that. For that matter, where they were geographically 66 million years ago would matter too.
Right, the 2 impact sites would be a lot closer together 66 Mya than today. However they don’t have to have happened at the same time – many paleontologists point out that it seems dinosaurs were already in decline before Chicxulub came by.
David — I looked at the paper showing 3 impact sites – this one, Chix, and one near scandinavian countries (north ot this one). If they all came from the same area of the sky and close to the same time, I estimate Chix and this one would be about 8 hrs different (as the earth rotates) in strike time, and this one and the northern one would have been same time, but 5,000 miles north.
Are you saying forget about it as this is all spam?
Is this Cartmans mom?
At 66 million years old, within a few 100 thousand years is pretty much the best you are going to get.
Not if they use a climate model, then the accuracy is in minutes, and Mickey Mouse Mann can tell you how much the temp rose then dropped in 0.01C increments on an hour by hour basis for the next 100k years.
Because science, man
Temperature is like hot air. It always rises. Never falls. It is its own tipping point, and it’s always too warm.
“It does need better dating, though.”
You know how difficult it is to meet a nice asteroid these days…
id like to see an experiment
you wouldn’t know a reasonable experiment if it was your own personal lemmiwinks
i know that as a science geology is not about repeatable experiments or falsifiable hypothesis so
A geology isnt a science OR
B science isnt limited to things you can show by experiment or hypothesis you can falsify
I’d like to see a string, as in “String Theory” but the experiment that would allow that is not possible. Therefore, physics is not a science. Or not!
Flunk geology much? Or did the geology department kick the English department’s @ur momisugly$$ in paintball?
https://youtu.be/_CBQv8Y3V4o
this is simple dave.
skeptics here and other places are constantly claiming that science and the scientific method is all about null hypothesis testing and falsifiability.
repeatable experiments.
but its not.
and geology is one of the best examples of a science that relies almost entirely on abduction
now you will have togoogle this word, not because you failed english but because you failed philosophy and never heard of pierce.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/index.html
now if you studied philosophy or english pierce would be required reading
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/
There’s a big difference. When geology predicts that there will be oil, the vast majority of the time, there is oil.
When so called climate science predicts warming, there is little if any warming.
The failed climate predictions are legion, while the successful predictions are pretty much non-existent.
Side note if geology could not predict where oils we all would be a lot poorer living in cold dark hut and there would be a lot less of us. So called “climate science” has no track record of every being right.
We learned by being wrong a lot and developed geophysical methods of drastically reducing our wrongness… Just like climate science, except they’re not bothered by the frequency of wrongness…😎
Alfred Wegener carried out experiments ‘simulating lunar cratering using cement powder as both projectile and impact surface’.
and how did he determine that moon Regolith
Description could be accurately simulated by cement powder. more importantly
providing 1 explanation “impact” does not rule out other
explanation
craters are bowl-shaped landforms created by two processes: volcanism and cratering
and pluto has cryovolcanoes.
Now you are exposing your envy and jealousy.
As the late great John Arlott said about cricket: “Cricket isn’t a sport; It’s a science? – probably; an art? – definitely.”
watching ice melt
You are sharing your ignorance. As James Hutton was fond of pointing out, “The present is the key to the past.” That is, geological events are usually repeated, given sufficient time for rare events. Observing the present becomes the repeatable experiment. Or, for rare transient events, observing similar events prior to the present, but after the event of concern, becomes a proxy for recent events. For singular events, such as the birth of the Sun and Earth, they are not repeatable per se.
However, I’d suggest you do some online searching for experiments that NASA researchers have done at Ames with the observation and measurements of hypervelocity impacts of projectiles. This is actual physical modeling, not computer modeling.
“This is actual physical modeling,” which I call real science from that one could build a decent computer model, once you know what the factor involved for real you can produce a model you can trust. Using assumption in computer models is most game play with no real outcome.
Clearly you have no idea about geology.
Geologists put their careers on the line with their predictions based on their hypothesis. That is the experiment they do.
Drill in the wrong spot and you lose your job.
Easy enough to understand?
Agree, Steven, BUT…
BUT…
You missed a third possibility:
OR
C The Popperian schema is flawed and it DOES NOT apply as a “gold standard” (as we now hear) for evaluating scientific theories.
What a load of tosh!
So, this is what/where you’ve declined to as a person?
Casting aspersions at other sciences you don’t understand?
Railing about your emotional opinions of experiments?
You never paid any attention to petrogenesis of geological formations?
The use of chemistry and physics coupled with locating and investigating similar formations and laboratory experiments to test geological conditions?
Never mind that geologists accurately identify and commercially utilize formations of fossil fuels, ore deposits, building stone, hydrological sources, influences and impacts, precious and semiprecious stones, etc. etc.
Never mind identifying foundations for structures; Earthquake hazards and methods to withstand/modulate/alleviate impacts to humans; landslides and mudflow hazards; etc. etc.
Geology science has helped to build the modern juggernaut called civilization.
Tell us oh wonder of climate science, just what has climate science accomplished for the good of mankind besides fabricate faux science, spread fear, and seriously harm higher education?
He’s apparently mirroring California — degrading into destruction.
Geology will never be forgiven by alarmists for showing there was never an Edenic stasis, a perfect unchanging preindustrial climate.
But it is highly repeatable. Take for instance the iridium layer denoting the end Cretaceous asteroid impact. This was found not just once but in multiple locations all over the world.
With isotope ratios different geological strata are agreeing with each other every day of the week. It’s rock solid science.
You would not want see the experiment up close and personal.
its impossible to test this explanation no atter how close you get to it.
you do the first experiment and others can repeat it
It’s very possible to test the hypothesis… Drill wells through it, take conventional cores and/or sidewall cores, run a full suite of well logs. If the well data doesn’t support an impact feature, the hypothesis is falsified.
if the data doesnt support an impact feature, maybe all your past data from impacts, werent impacts after all.
in short. youall assumed impacts and collected data. then argued this data supports the hypothesis. is correlated with impact.
in other words you presume all your past work on impacts is correct.
If the data gleamed from a drilling program failed to yield any evidence of an impact, would be falsified.
Impact features exhibit evidence of shock mineralogy: planar deformation features, melt rock, PGE spikes.
Right now, all we have clear crater morphology, that most closely resembles an impact crater… If this was an exoplanet, it would have already been chalked up as confirmed.
BTW… Good to see you back in the “fight”… 🍻
Then design and implement one.
Bill nye did a CO2 experiment that he accepted.
An analogous experiment for him would be to drop a bowling ball in his 30 gallon potted plant and extrapolate the results to global scale.
extrapolate??? thats modelling
So modeling is guessing, then.
It really is sad how Mosh managed to so badly miss the point.
guessing, no.
as with all things it relies on assumptions
modelling is essentially making assumptions about
unknowns.
documenting your assumptions
then running your assumptions through known physics
then varying your assumptions.
so if we wanted to do the bowling ball experiment
so we might experient with various shapes
so modelling involves making assumptions. you call that guessing
i gues the physical laws that operate today, operated in the past
thats a good guess. we cant test it directly. but we assume it
Absurdly wrong.
Engineers build/code models that utilize confirmed certified physical realities.
The models themselves are collections of proven code that correctly represent reality.
An object to be designed/constructed must withstand XX conditions. The XX conditions are the assumptions, and the resulting model will explicitly demonstrate the model across those conditions.
In climate fake science their models are strings of code that generate a morass.
The model run is wrong? climsci programmers immediately add more code or variables to coerce the results they want.
If an engineer or a financial analyst’s model gives incorrect results, they are legally liable!
A climsci model designer/programmer’s model is wrong, they get to run the model hundreds of times with the preferred results averaged and claimed as climate gospel.
No negative impact to the designer/programmer whatsoever.
If an engineer/financial analyst adjusts historical data without overwhelming evidence documenting the adjustment, they get prosecuted. A fully documented approved adjustment and it’s metadata is maintained as rigorously as the original data.
Climsci faux scientists love adjusted data so much they adjust data frequently with the flimsiest of excuses, not provable metadata!
I thought our esteemed Mosher would use his influence on NASA Ames to set up some simulations like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbkkMKkjx6k
He could add water and sand for some breakthrough science observations. He might actually gain some knowledge that could benefit someone.
Mosher takes the art of terse and cryptic comments to new heights (depths?)
some people got it. the smart ones. basically if all science requires experiments
then geology aint a science.
if science is just null hypothesis testing then claiming impact craters are caused by asteroids aint science
the simple fact is science as a method of understanding is NOT limited to
things you can show by experiment
null hypothesis testing
falsifiable statements
a lot of science relies on abduction
lastly. i get more replies per word that anyone else
6 words 6 simple words and look at the replies
4 replies
now ask yourself why?
because you all would love to score a point, and be the first
I bet Griff could say something much more inane and get even more replies
I’m pretty sure that “griff” holds the record for negative votes for a terse, inane comment. It says a lot about the personality of someone who rejoices in the ratio of comments to inanity.
I see that among your many other issues, you also do not understand what an experiment is.
mere assertion makW. does not win points
Now that’s funny, coming from you.
Myself and others have pointed out where your assertions are wrong.
Or capitals.
Steven M Mosher: I think you missed an important part of Richard Feynman’s lecture. He said science requires making specific predictions and then testing by experiment or observation. If you predict that the Artic will be ice free in ten years and then observe 10 years later that it is not ice free your hypothesis fails. Many scientific theories can be supported or falsified by make relevant observations and precise measurement in the natural world. Einstein’s theory of relativity was checked by taking a picture of stars during an eclipse. An observation and measurement. Same process works in most sciences. The trouble with CAGW climatology is not that it’s predictions can’t be checked, it’s that it purports to explain everything and hence explains nothing.
Experiments are a convenient way to get observations.
Just stop digging….
Are you sure? It is within our power to drop a space rock within a few decades.
Not worth the experiment?
well, youd need to vary the size, composition, speed, etc to see if a rock penetrating water can create a crater and then i dont know how youd test the infilling of sediment on top of it.
of course the formation could just be natural. hard to prove it isnt just a natural dent.
fining impact ejecta might help but still not prove it wasnt natural
you see. science aint about being merely able to doubt
its about the best explanation
Impact craters are natural.
Mosh’ thinks they are an act of God.
Guessing the mosh person has never been to NE Arizona.
Where was the. purported impact crater at the time of the purported impact? Was it below Sea level?
Yes… And it was further west.
nobody knows. they are guessing
There are many lines of evidence used to back up these “guesses”.
It really does bug you that the field that you are paid to proselytize for is so discredited.
giffie level of inanity.
Tectonic movement leaves plenty of physical markers identifying direction and even location.
There are other examples of deeply buried impact structures. One example is Red Wing Creek, North Dakota which is well documented.
Your statement questioning the “… in filling sediment on top of it.” is a feeble argument, and especially given the well-documented seismic evidence. Basin subsidence and accumulation of strata are two of the most well-documented processes of the earth’s crust.
Wells drilled in the Chixculub crater and the Tanis outcrops clearly demonstrate this.
https://gizmodo.com/images-of-dart-s-fatal-encounter-with-an-asteroid-1849591289
“id like to see an experiment”
I got your experiment right here budrow . . .
As it stands, your comment doesn’t contribute much to the topic. How about being more specific as to what kind of an experiment you would like to see, and what question(s) would you like answered, if possible?
So how far has this site moved in 66 million years? Was it a water impact site then as well?
Quite a ways and yes.
moved? dont tell me you buy that untested plate tectonics psuedo science
I’m beginning to wonder if Mosh has traded in his brain for a pocketful of marbles.
That has got to be the most ignorant and inane comment he has ever made.
He just thinks he’s cute, and so damned intelligent.
Yes, he is behaving as though he thinks that he is the cat playing with the defenseless mouse. He is, however, playing outside his area of expertise and is just showing us his lack of understanding of geology.
Almost:
“lack of understanding of geology” and science.
alright show me the experiment that proves we can accurately project the movement of plates in the past or the future
Hawaii
The mid-Atlantic ridge.
The fact that Europe and the Americas are moving apart.
And the fact(s) that there have been repeated ocean closing orogeny and ocean expanding rifts over hundreds of millions of years.
There’s also the progression of caldera’s from the Yellowstone hotspot.
I kinda buy into that one.
In response to your statement above about testability, falsifiability, and science:
forensics
The same would be true for investigating natural history. We don’t have a time machine, neither do criminal investigators, but they can use the scientific method to piece together past events, and so can geologists…
Are you always this anal? As has been explained to you, both observation and experiment can be used to confirm a theory.
All the observations match with the predictions made by tectonic theory.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GC009214
Uh oh, deep water… (and admittedly a bit off topic).
I appreciate the schematic which shows the spreading rifts all over the world (plus there is one that circles the Antarctic continent).
Notice there is approximately 40,000 miles of spreading rifts.
(Okay, I didn’t “notice” it, I looked it up… you can, too.)
But so-called “subduction” zones can’t be identified from the schematic (I understand that is not the purpose of the schematic).
However, there is a physical necessity: if there are 40,000 miles of spreading rifts, there must be 40,000 miles of “subduction” zones to equal the amount of spreading in order to keep the size of the Earth constant.
Nobody has convincingly identified the 40,000 miles of “subduction” zones.
(Claims have been made that certain areas are so-called “subduction” zones, but, again, nobody that I’m aware of has convincingly with rigorous, scientific evidence demonstrated or identified 40, 000 miles of “subduction” zones.)
Thus, there is evidence the Earth grows. It is called expanding Earth hypothesis.
What is the Earth then? A geophysical, electromagnetic geode of immense size orbiting the Sun.
Like I said… deep water…
Why do you believe that there has to be an equal number of miles between subduction zones and spreading rifts? Oceanic plates can both compress by getting thicker or spread out and getting thinner.
There isn’t a shred of evidence to support the belief that the earth is expanding. Just as importantly there is no physically possible method by which the earth would be increasing in size. (Other than the continued addition of comets and asteroids, which while occurring is so small that it can be ignored, even on scales of billions of years.)
You seem to have a basic mis-understanding regarding the relationship between evidence and hypothesis.
The internal structure of the earth is well understood, and it looks nothing like a geode.
You’re entitled to your opinion.
However, in my opinion there is overwhelming evidence. But this little side-bar is not the place for that.
You make a bunch of declarative assertions, most of which are actually assumptions.
But I will take exception to your last statement.
“The internal structure of the earth is well understood…”
The statement above is false. Unless you’ve been to the center of the Earth.
As far a the “geode” reference… no, I don’t believe the Earth is hollow or anything like that. The Earth takes in electrons and protons all the time, it’s called the solar wind, which is electromagnetic, plasma.
I forgot that there are also upthrust zones, such as the Himalayas.
Do a little research, you will find that after an earthquake there is always more uplift that subsidence.
Definitively not quality agates.
More like “Made in China” cheap glass bad quality imitations, skimped on their numbers too.
“I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles such are promises. All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Theories can be verified by both experiment and observation.
Plate tectonics has been verified by observation.
Theory that CO2 controls the climate has failed in that none of the observations fit with the predictions made.
Observations of past climates also refute the notion that CO2 is the master control knob.
Nah I believe it was on wheels, pulled by a team of trained ants, replaced constantly.
Until a drill core becomes available for examination, I would not label it a crater yet.
Barring someone finding an oil prospect under the crater/ejecta field, I doubt this will ever get drilled.
This is a 1980’s to 1990’s vintage seismic line across Marquez Crater in Leon County, Texas:
The crater interpretation wouldn’t be particularly compelling, if not for the fact that quite a few wells had been drilled through the crater before the line was shot and the central uplift is partially exposed at the surface. The impact occurred during the Eocene in a shallow marine environment.
The seismic data over the Nadir Crater are of far higher quality than Marquez and the crater interpretation is far more compelling.
While it is true that this can’t be confirmed as an impact feature just from the seismic data, it clearly is a crater and it doesn’t really look like the sort of feature associated with other known mechanisms.
Alternative crater-forming mechanisms
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn3096
Look, Mosh! No science.
i see multiple explanations for the same observations
i dont see hypothesis testing
or any null hypothesis.
i dont see any testable predictions
like you said craters are natural, they happen everywhere. nothing unprecedented here. nothing special
could be many explanations.
Yes there are multiple hypothesis, then there is argument showing that none of the other hypothesis fit the facts as well as the impact crater hypothesis.
That’s how science is done, you compare hypothesis against data, and throw out any hypothesis that doesn’t fit the facts.
I’m not surprised that you are not familiar with this process.
look at the arguments. full of assumptions.
However, maars rarely form crater structures larger than 2 to 3 km in diameter and have a characteristic funnel-like morphology
rarely? how rare? how measured
2-3 km. from what kind of sample?
funnel like? thats some precise description.
you cant even read these documents with an ounce of scepticism can you?
sheeple
You right, we need to doubt geologists. But at least they are not requesting major changes in our societies.
not requesting/requiring/ lobbying for changes that they profit from ….
The magic CO2 molecule has rotted your brain.
Arguments full of assumptions? You are a strange one to complain about such behavior.
Regardless, the “assumptions” are both thoroughly documented and evidence is provided to support these “assumptions”. Neither of which your climate scientists ever manage to do.
“… when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
Sherlock Holmes
Mr. Middleton, many Thanks for your displays and texts. I did not acquire much in the way of ‘formal’ education (larnin’), and I SO ENJOY this WUWT site, and the discussions. Again, Thanks to you, and the many who contribute to my enjoyment, and advancing larnin’.
but dave assures us that craters are natural
Unless craters are the results of human activities… They are natural. This particular crater is at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.
Steven, why do you continue to pester your betters?
Mostly it’s envy.
Did you not recognize the word “natural”?
The fact that the putative impact site is located at the transition between the stable terrace and the very active Guinea Fracture Zone indicates that there will probably be lots of complicated geologic forces that ALSO affected the sediments.
Could the impact have caused the fracture, or at least reshaped or lengthened it?
Guinea Fracture Zone, has this area been explored for oil & gas?
I ask because by my aficionado reckoning, this area could be a promising oil & gas play due to the high amount of faulting and fracturing, plus, according to the above comment it is geologically active.
In my admittedly amateur opinion, “dem, there’s oil down there.”
Yes… That’s why the seismic surveys were shot.
Good to hear… well, after I wrote the comment… I looked on the internet (where else) and saw that it has been explored and, indeed, there is already oil well sites… looks like there could be a whole lot of oil down there (given the overall size of the formation)… and natural gas… seems we need all we can get these days.
Just don’t hypothesise that the asteroid impacted on top of a load of dino’s, hence the squished biomass oil deposits! sarc
Given that the Earth is covered about 72% by water (and always has been), I would be very surprised if there were not more to be found. What about the Pacific? I’m sure it hasn’t been explored closely enough. It could be that a comet or asteroid broke up before impact.
Many thanks to David.
I’ve read that many of the larger asteroids travel in packs. They often have a number of smaller asteroids orbiting them.
Known as “Wolf Packs.” The specialize in impacting in the oceans.
Absolutely. You can see from the sections that the crater isn’t reflected in the seabed topography, so you’re only going to see evidence of ancient craters if there’s a seismic survey, i.e. on continental shelves that look promising for oil and gas.
Been meaning to post this for a while… But I’ve been swamped at work, spent a week at the AAPG/SEG convention, where I met Andy May and caught ChiCom-19, and was down with the Kung Flu for a couple of days. Shutting the economy down and rigging an election for a cold?
Are you saying that you caught COVID from Andy? 🙂
No… I think I caught COVID from one of the hundreds of mostly vaccinated people I interacted with.
8km wide is a nothing burger in the world of craters. Very localized effects.
That’s why it took 66 million years to find it, Keith. 😉
Looking at the Amazon basin, and thinking about the tsunami…
900 meter tsunami, but it left no traces
Disease killed the dinosaurs. They were a separate class, and the dominant class during the mesozoic and every last one of them went extinct. But all the frogs, salamanders, crocodiles, lizards snakes turtles monotremes, marsupials and the mammals all survived. So did the birds, they evolved from the dinosaurs 150 million years before the extinction event and really weren’t dinosaurs anymore as much as people like to claim they are. So what ever did in the dinosaurs was very selective. The only thing that selective is disease. Here’s a diagram of the Dinosauria Phylogenetic tree
We usually read that the asteroid hit and the dinosaur extinction occurred at the same time Wikipedia says: “The fact that the extinctions occurred simultaneously provides strong evidence that they were caused by the asteroid.” How simultaneous was it? You know plus or minus how many million years? A million years is a really long time.
Lots of non-dinosaurs also went extinct probably because they depended on the dinosaurs in one way or another.
OK I’ve brought this up before, and you can all pile on with why I’m full of it.
Dino-Covid?
Flowering plants with their alkaloids began to dominate about that time.
Flowering plants with their alkaloids began to dominate about that time.
_________________________________________________________
Alkaloids aren’t contagious. Besides, how would that do in the predators?
If the herbivores died from alkaloid poisoning, the predators wouldn’t have any food.
@Steve Case…. geologically… 1 million years is 1/4500th of the age of the Earth… in other words an eye blink….so for all intents and purposes … simultaneously
you win the award for useless metric.
i got sick 1 dayd after my vax
thats 1 day in the 22000 days ive been alive 1/22000 of the age of steve
an eye blink
“…safe and effective…”, here is the proof.
OK Steven: Your one day compared to the age of the Earth is 4.208E-16(days) of the time the Earth has existed… However, regarding Steve Case’s assertion that 1 million years is a long time. We are talking different time scales here. In “human” terms 1 million years is a long time; compared to the age of the earth, not so much
It’s an interesting disease that can kill dinosaurs, fish and trees, but leave mammals and birds alone.
Fish are still here. What trees are you talking about?
The number of fish species plummeted at the same time that the dinosaurs went extinct, as did the number of plant species.
borno virus.
protects mammals
https://www.epi.ufl.edu/articles/ancient-virus-may-have-given-mammals-the-edge-during-dinosaur-extinction-era.html
bring on more doubt.
Doubt everything except global warming. That’s settled science.
You are not the first to bring up a pandemic, or even ‘genetic senility’ as being the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs. However, those, and other hypotheses, have generally been dismissed as not being as probable as an ‘Asteroid Winter.’ Although, it often happens in geology that two ‘experts’ will argue about who’s hypothesis is correct. After a period of time, those standing on the side lines often conclude that both may be correct at different times or in different proportions. That is one of the reasons that T. C. Chamberlain argued for multiple working hypotheses.
Clyde Spencer: That is one of the reasons that T. C. Chamberlain argued for multiple working hypotheses.
WR: Good to mention him. Everyone should have studied this one, written in 1890(!):
http://www.sortie-nd.org/lme/Statistical%20Papers/Chamberlain_1997.pdf
so some asteroid hit the earth. nice story. cant be falsified of course
Drill wells through it… Don’t find geological evidence of an impact feature… Hypothesis falsified.
if you drill and dont find shocked quartz, you drilled in the wrong place.
if you find it, you have supporting evidence, confirming evidence
if you dont find it, there are explanations why you didnt
like hey, craters under water are different
No. If a science well program was funded, they would drill in all the right places.
If they failed to find evidence of impact mineralogy… They would have to drop asteroid/meteor impact to the bottom of the Multiple Working Hypotheses list, if not scratch it off completely.
But, Mosh’ said, “i [sic] know that as a science geology is not about … falsifiable hypothesis so”
just because your pet theory can’t be falsified doesn’t mean that people who actually follow the scientific method are as sad as you are, this can be falsified by an expiriment your pet project does not have that going for it and never will.
Steve is just upset that we don’t think as highly of him, as he thinks of himself.
what i am saying is this
geology is a science
not all science depends on or demands repeatable experiments
or falsifiable predictions.
let me be clear
here is a typical climate science argument
ALL science requires experiment
climate science doesnt have experiments
threrfore its not a science
ALL science requires falification
climate science cant be falsified
threrfore its not a science
what i am saying is that geology is obviously an example of a science, like astronomy and climate science that doesnt rest
on a bedrock of experiment
rather it is explanation,
we see a depression, we explain it by saying
a rock from space explains that!
it does,
volcanism also explains it.
if we then observe basalt, we can argue this observation supports, is evidence for
our explanation.
there are thrre types of reasoning
deduction:
induction.
abduction
You’re not wrong here… But you’re still pretty far off the mark in terms of being right.
Abductive reasoning is not fully consistent with Chamberlain’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses.
you left out rationalization & willful ignorance
(do a fish know it is swimming around in a bunch of wet stuff?)
Steven, I think you’re confusing how hypotheses are arrived at with how they are confirmed or validated. And then going on to conclude that if an hypothesis was arrived at by abductive reasoning then it must be valid science, whether correct or not.
Don’t think so. We decide that hypotheses are worthwhile in a variety of ways, and one of them is that we can think of no better explanation. However this does not mean that the hypothesis we have arrived at is falsifiable.
We may well in our thinking about a problem arrive at an hypothesis which on further logical examination turns out to be incapable of falsification. That is, we can’t derive any predictions from it which can be tested, there are no possible relevant observations.
An example would be: we can think of no other explanation for the state of life as we see it than Divine creation. We suppose, its now about 1700, that this must be the explanation. But then it turns out that there is no way of testing it. Whatever it is, its not a scientific theory.
A theory which doesn’t lead to falsifiable predictions or which can’t be falsified by observation isn’t going to be useful, isn’t going to be worthy of being called science.
Some of what you are saying is the Quine/Duhem argument, that given a falsifying observation we can always save the theory by modifying other elements of related theories. We can for instance propose the instruments were out of alignment. This goes along with the contention that all observations are to a degree theory laden.
This is correct. You are correct to say that when we rely on this crater being very similar to past craters for our explanation, we are indeed relying on the accuracy of our explanation of those past craters. And it could indeed be that all are wrong, and it could indeed be true that we have arrived at our accepted theories regarding them on the basis of abductive reasoning.
But the thing about those theories is, they do yield testable predictions. Things which, if found false, would persuade us there is something wrong with the theory. If they did not, they would be of no use.
I am afraid you are drifting into a similar position as the Post Modernists of Marxist inclination. The theories have been refuted by experience and observation, so the riposte, in order to hold on to them, is to try and cast doubt on experience and observation, on scientific method itself. Doesn’t work of course, simply deprives them of any way of justifying their rejection. At least, any reasoned way of rejecting it.
It sounds like you are trying to justify a clear lack of rigor and testability in a lot of climate science theories by arguing that the claims of that sort for other sciences are false. No, there really is a problem with climate science, with the modelling, the revised observations, and the reliance on arguments from ignorance (another way of categorizing abductive reasoning, by the way!). It really is not ‘just physics’. A lot of it really is wishful thinking. The excess heat must be going someplace we cannot observe it.
If you’re reduced to invoking philosophy of science to justify CAGW theory you have missed the point. The point is not about philosophy of science. Its whether a given element of CAGW theory yields falsifiable predictions, and if so, what are the results? Many, perhaps most, of the hypotheses that make up CAGW theory are not testable. Many that are testable have been falsified. The way forward is to accept this and kick them out.
Like all the over-hot models. Kick them out, and start with the only one that seems to make vaild predictions, the Russian one. It may not be right, but its a better starting point than ones that are failing all the time.
If you knew half as much as you believe, you would know that it is easy to falsify.
Just examine it and find evidence that is inconsistent with the theory.
Just like the theory of CO2 driven climate change was falsified. By finding evidence that was inconsistent with the theory.
That and not being able to find any evidence that was consistent with it.
It can easily be falsified. All that is needed is data to the contrary.
David, Another candidate is seen and written up in the Southern North Sea . It featured in either First Breaks or Leading Edge in approx 2003. The person who wrote the article was a geophysicist at consultant company PGS. Excellent graphics showing 3D seismic imagery of impact crater at top Cretaceous with impressive radial fault system.I could probably dig it out at GeolSoc if you are interested.
I am puzzled however by this Nadir example where a crater depression is underlain by an apparent pull up all the way down to the basement. I would be thinking rather intrusion or diastreme or even very late kimberlite pipe but I would probably discount impact crater until I saw more evidence. There you are 2 geophysicists and 3 interpretatiuons . Just as it should be.
I remember a respected astronomer telling me that the Hudson Bay need investigation as a possible crater. That was 60+ years ago. Not sure if anyone has done that.
The evidence leans against it being an impact feature…
https://craterexplorer.ca/hudson-bay-arc/
“Pull-ups” are usually due to an overlying localized high velocity zone. This could indicate that the material in the central uplift area has a higher seismic velocity than the surrounding rocks.
From compression?
Mineralogy… Melt-rock would have faster seismic velocities that the surrounding sedimentary rocks.
I worked at PGS at the time. If I remember correctly (this was back in early 2001) I went for an interview there and the as then yet uninterpreted seismic line was on the wall with an arrow pointing to the “crater” and the question” What is this?” – but the line was covered up with another poster on the day I visited. I joined them a month or so later, after they had published something on it, and saw the line and said something like: “Wow! That looks like an impact crater!”
It’s called “The Silverpit Crater”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverpit_crater
In actual fact the company was called “PGL”. (Production Geoscience Ltd) and not “PGS”.
That is very interesting… Based on this, I think it might be an impact crater…
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/Archive/December-2009/Silverpit-not-crater
The vote was 80-20 against it being an impact crater… So, it’s probably an impact crater… 😉
A kimberlite pipe peak would’ve eroded away millions of years ago. Even under great depths of sediment.
Scratch the kimberlite pipe theory.
@Mods – putting this here as a top comment, in hopes of at least reducing some of the ego boosting effect.
Please examine these threads. It is painfully obvious that Mosher has become nothing more than a common troll, on the level of Griff. Lower, actually, as even Griff (occasionally) requires opening a new tab to find real numbers on some topic. None of Mosher’s comments since his return have entailed even that much effort to refute.
This behavior pollutes the site, in my honest opinion. I, of course, can make no demands as to what you may or may not do about this matter. (I would note, though, that I do welcome Stokes as an uncommon troll – his posts, in the main, require both research and some actual thinking to determine that they are bunkum – and, very rarely, they aren’t. Those are necessary to ensure that a bubble does not form here.)
I missed him… 😎
Writing Observer: “None of Mosher’s comments since his return have entailed even that much effort to refute”
WR: I don’t agree. Today there is helpful content in his remarks. Pointing to experiments, discussing the right way of doing science: very useful.
I, respectfully, suggest you reread. What he is doing is denying that experimental evidence is needed for a valid theory – particularly that a null hypothesis is irrelevant to formulation of such. Which is not surprising, as his group of “scientists” has no way to experimentally validate their claims, and start by rejecting any sort of null hypothesis.
This is especially egregious here – there is a clear null hypothesis (that this crater was not formed by an impact); and there is a simple (if expensive) experiment to test such a hypothesis – perform a core drill and examine it for material that can only be produced by extreme shock.
On second thought, though, I have removed my downcheck on this comment, in hopes that you will reconsider.
writing observer: “What he is doing is denying that experimental evidence is needed for a valid theory (…)”
WR: I reread this comment: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/28/nadir-crater-the-other-dino-killer/#comment-3609089
In the comment Mosher says: “ALL science requires experiment” and “ALL science requires falsification”. In fact this is [also] a critique of many simple statements made in ‘mainstream climate science’. And I think the critique is correct: most statements by ‘climate change scientists’ and ‘climate change reporters’ are ‘just statements’. I think Mosher has a point. His critique does not mean (in my opinion) that we can’t hypothesize.
The ‘Nadir theory’ is interesting. It would be great when it is proven or disproven. I read his comment as a plea for a search for proof and I myself would like to see such research as well.
(General remark on Mosher’s comments: when they are ‘just nasty’ I don’t spend much time or energy on them, but when he has good points or good information I welcome them. Of course, I’d rather he focus on the latter type of comment)
Now you get a downcheck. Yanking true statements out of a context of falsehood is just as bad, if not worse, than the original comment.
What Mosher says in that ENTIRE comment is that a hypothesis, unsupported by any experimental evidence, is equivalent to, say, the theory of relativity. The only support it has is that HE likes the explanation.
He also self-contradicts in that same comment, although he acts as though he is completely unaware of doing so – and he is NOT that stupid, although he believes that we are. A drill core into the crater IS an experiment. One which will either prove the null hypothesis (not an impact formation), or further bolster the positive hypothesis (result of an impact).
(Note that, in real science, you never 100% prove most hypotheses. It is just barely possible that you would see the same geological formation as an impact crater if this happened to be a test site for a pure fusion bomb set off by the Silurian Empire. That’s probably out there at 20 sigma or more, so about the same as “Climate Catastrophe.”)
This may well be a distinction which makes no difference, but as I understand it, the core drill would provide an additional observation.
As we find in the War, Elves are weaponized Trolls. A bunch of Lithuanian Trolls calling them selves Elves was picked up by MI6, i.e. weaponized.
What would the difference be, one might rightly ask?
Well Grieg showed, listen :
Grieg – Trolltog (March of the Trolls) Op. 54 No.3 – Grzegorz Niemczuk – Bechstein Concert Piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDRpDFlw2GM
Elfentanz (Edvard Grieg) aus: Lyrische Stücke Op. 12 No. 4 – Rolf Bürgermeister/Klavier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8dHpE2zrNs
the odd Troll or Elf is distraction – look out for a squad!
If Steven Mosher kidnaps the discussion for his own purposes, and the quality of the discourse then craters, has a geologic abduction zone been created?
@David, 2 questions. Is that third impact in the graphic, Boltysh, linked to these 2? Are there other fragments likely?
And the water depth today at Nadir – what was it at the time of Chixculub? Is that possible to determine?
Side note – any impact scenarios can and are being tested at Ames, as pointed out by Clyde Spencer.
I’m not sure what third impact you are referring to.
The current water depth at Nadir Crater is ~900m. The authors estimate that the impact occurred in ~800m water depth. If Chicxulub and Nadir were the result of an impact cluster, there certainly could be other K-Pg craters.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn3096
Bo, Boltysh Crater in Fig 1, somewhere near the Baltics or Arctic….
It’s about the same age… So, it certainly could be related.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltysh_crater
Directly opposite the crater in Mexico (on the opposite side of the World) was the Indian Subcontinent. If you smack one side of a sphere, the shock waves go through it and are concentrated on the far surface (that is how Newton’s cradles work).
So maybe the shock waves from the Mexico impact went around the world and kicked off the volcanic activity in the Indian subcontinent at about that time. Who knows.
India wasn’t directly opposite of Mexico 66 MYA.
http://www.scotese.com/images/066.jpg
Reports like this always ignore the Shiva formation in the Indian Ocean. Much larger and many aspects of it that indicate it may be a crater, but very little research done on it. I believe the Boltish Crater in Ukraine is estimated to be approx. the same age aa well. Things were happening 65 mya!
I’ve always wondered if the Shiva formation was opposite the Chixulub site on the globe at that time. I’ve seen suggestions that the shock wave can travel around the planet and refocus at a site on the opposite side of the planet.