From: glenn morton
Allen, you are not considering the implications of what you are suggesting.
Like it or not, you are ignoring a vast literature out there about what
happens in a meteor impact. It ain't pretty and frankly, Noah would be
unlikely to survive such an impact, much less 10 of them. let me quote
Alvarez and Asaro, in a readily available, popular publication, one you
should have read before offering this silly, illogical and unworkable
meteor impact theory of the flood.
I have read many such scenarios.
"Computer models of explosions with energies of 1,000 megatons--about 20
times the energy of the largest nuclear bombs but only 1/100,000 the energy
of the KT impact--have shown that the fireball never reaches pressure
equilibrium with the surrounding atmosphere. Instead, as the fireball
expands to altitudes where the density of the atmosphere declines
significantly, its rise accelerates and the gas leaves the atmosphere at
velocities fast enough to escape the earth's gravitational field. The
fireball from an even greater asteroid impact would simply burst out the
top of the atmosphere, carrying any entrained ejecta with it, sending the
material into orbits that could carry it anywhere on the earth."
This supports what I said before. With any explosion this size or larger, most of the energy will be expended into space, not into the atmosphere, so computations of injected energy into the atmosphere must be reduced taking into consideration the vast amounts which go directly into space. Have you taken this into account in your computations?
"The impact of a comet-size body on the earth, creating a crater 150
kilometers in diameter, would clearly kill everything within sight of the
fireball. Researchers are refining their understanding of the means by
which an impact would also trigger extinction worldwide. Mechanisms
proposed include darkness, cold, fire, acid rain and greenhouse heat.
"In our original paper, we proposed that impact-generated dust caused
global darkness that resulted in extinctions. According to computer
simulations made in 1980 by Richard P. Turco of R&D Associates, O. Brian
Toon, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and their
colleagues, dust lofted into the atmosphere by the impact of a 10-kilometer
object would block so much light that for months you would literally be
unable to see your hand in front of your face.
Not only will evaporated rock and water be injected into the atmosphere, but solid rock pieces of all sizes and large quantities of liquid water. That liquid water will help wash the atmosphere of dust and chemicals that had also been injected into the atmosphere and reduce the impact of a Nuclear winter and/or greenhouse effect. All those on the Ark were there for approximately a full year. They would be protected in the vessel from an impact winter and/or a greenhouse heating longer than the proposed effects of the impacts.
"In 1981 Cesare Emilliani of the University of Miami, Eric Krause of the
University of Colorado and Eugene M. Shoemaker of the USGS pointed out that
an oceanic impact would loft not only rock dust but also water vapor into
the atmosphere. The vapor, trapping the earth's heat, would stay aloft much
longer than the dust, and so the impact winter would be followed by
greenhouse warming.
Other researchers mention that much larger quantities of liquid water than water vapor would also be lofted and injected into and above the atmosphere. That liquid water would help wash out the dust and rock particles from the atmosphere.
More recently John D. O'Keefe and Thomas J. Ahrens of
the California Institute of Technology have suggested that the impact might
have occurred in a limestone area, releasing large volumes of carbon
dioxide, another greenhouse gas. Many plants and animals that survived the
extreme cold of impact winter could well have been killed by a subsequent
period of extreme heat.
The large quantities of liquid water also injected into and above the atmosphere would wash much of the CO2 from the atmosphere.
"Meanwhile John S. Lewis, G. Hampton Watkins, Hyman Hartman and Ronald G.
Prinn of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have calculated that
shock heating of the atmosphere during impact would raise temperatures high
enough for the oxygen and nitrogen to combine. The resulting nitrous oxide
would eventually rain out of the air as nitric acid--an acid rain with a
vengeance. This mechanism may well explain the widespread extinction of
marine invertebrate plants and animals, whose calcium carbonate shells are
soluble in acidic water.
In the immediate vicinity of the blasts, temps would be quite high, but I have yet to see anyone consider the quantity of heat loss which a highly disturbed atmosphere would radiate to space. Since only one impact is ever considered at a time, the affect on the overall's atmosphere's stability is considered minimal. But with a series of impacts within just a few days of each other for several months, the atmosphere is not likely to remain stable. Heat loss is likely to be much greater. The formation of nitric acid and acid rain may well have been of minimal concern.
"Another killing mechanism came to light when Wendy Wolbach, Ian Gilmore
and Edward Anders of the University of Chicago discovered large amounts of
soot in the KT boundary clay. If the clay had been laid down in a few years
or less, the amount of soot in the boundary would indicate a sudden burning
of vegetation equivalent to half of the world's current forests. Jay Meos
of the University of Arizona and his colleagues have calculated that
infrared radiation from ejecta heated to incandescence while reentering the
atmosphere could have ignited fires around the globe." Walter Alvarez and
Frank Asaro, "An Extraterrestrial Impact," Scientific American, Oct. 1990,
p. 80-82
The question is, how big is the radius from the impact site which would be affected by the heat of re-entry of blast debris? If the Ark were outside that radius, if would not be affected.
Now lets apply the Chixulub impact to the flood. Noah is on the ark when
Chixulub hit (Chixulub struck Cretaceous limestone strata covered by a
shallow sea.)The energy is 1 billion megatons or 4.2 x 10^24 joules. This
is more energy than I calculated for all the other craters COMBINED!!!!
Yes, some of the energy does escape from earth, especially some of the
gas.
How much of the energy escapes from earth? I expect that only a relatively small portion of that energy remains in the biosphere. Probably even less than that of impacts a couple magnitudes smaller. Lets see the computations for heat loss due to the blasting of the hole in the atmosphere and due to a highly disturbed atmosphere. You have so far only considered and computed the input of energy. What about the other half of the picture, the loss of energy due to the catastrophe?
The rocks travel at a slightly lower speed and go suborbital
reentering the atmosphere with such fury that they burn those floating
vegetation mats everyone talks about down to the water line (by the way the
ark is also at risk of burning due to the incandescence of the re-entering
rocks. After the top deck of the ark burns, the darkness commences, but it
isn't a cold dark, it is a hellish dark.
This assumes that the Ark is within the affected radius of the impact site. lets supposed that an impact will kill and burn everything within a 1000 mile radius (this is a generous estimate according to what I have read). This would affect about 3,141,592 square miles. However, the surface of the earth is approximately 183,346,494 square miles. That means that any single impact (assuming all were as large as Chixulub) would have immediate effect on less than 2% of the surface of the globe. If we double the affected radius (2000 mi.) it would affect less than 7% of the globe. It would not be hard for the Ark to be far from the immediate effects of most impactors.
The water and CO2 that Chixulub
threw up into the atmosphere create blistering heat. Oxygen and nitrogen
combine and the rain water now becomes acidic. Noah and company, not having
a top to their ark, are exposed to the acid waters as they fall as rain.
(This of course is really good for the skin--like acid of olay). Given that
the vegetation has been burning, the oxygen level in the atmosphere is
severely reduced (The oxygen masks drop from the ceiling above the seats on
the ark).
Given that much more liquid water is inject into the atmosphere than water vapor and CO2, the concentrations of such acids would likely not be great.
Give us a break Alan, and give us a realistic flood scenario rather than
something as ridiculous as this.
give us a break, Glenn, give us realistic computations of both injected energy and radiated energy rather than the ridiculous numbers and scenarios you have cooked up.
And if you let too many impacts occur in the ocean, you will lift more than
a foot of water vapor into the atmosphere and that will cook the earth. See
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/canopy.htm
The majority of water injected into the atmosphere will be liquid not vapor. And your computations do not consider heat loss of an atmosphere under catastrophic conditions.
I just spent some time using some formula provided to me by Jon Leech in
1994 concerning the megatons of energy required to produce a crater of a
particular size. I added up all the megatons of all the 140 craters and
found that during the flood year there would be 1.7 billion megatons of
energy expended on the earth. An all out nuclear war would be tame compared
to this.
Any single average sized impact blast would be greater than all nuclear weapons ever known put into one explosion.
Once again, Alan, you have a poorly thought out scenario that is so
transparently phony that anyone with a modicum of knowledge can see the
gaping holes and tattered remains of your theories.
Once again, Glenn, you have a poorly though out computational scenario that is so transparently lopsided that anyone with a modicum of knowledge can see the you are ignoring the loss of energy under catastrophic conditions.
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