Large impacts and climatic catastrophes on the early Earth

Radiometric data of cratered lunar surfaces suggest that the cratering rate on the ancient Moon was substantially larger than the present rate before about 3.2 Gyr. Since the cratering rate was higher than present on the Moon, it seems likely that is was similarly higher on the Earth. Recently the occurrence of beds of spherules up to 2m thick was reported in 3.2 to 3.5 Gyr old Archean rocks. These spherule beds closely resemble the 3 mm thick spherule beds associated with the K/T boundary (including elevated iridium abundances), widely believed to have been deposited in association of a 10 km diameter comet or asteroid

The impact ejection of living organisms into space

The possibility of natural processes to blast living organisms into space was examined. It is suggested that rocks ejected from the Earth by a giant meteorite or comet impact can carry microorganisms into space. Such microscopic Earth life would have an opportunity to colonize the other planets if it can survive the rigors of space until it falls into the atmosphere of a hospitable planet

Production of impact melt in craters on Venus, Earth, and the moon

Impact craters imaged by Magellan clearly show large amounts of flow-like ejecta whose morphology suggests that the flows comprise low-viscosity material. It was suggested that this material may be either turbidity flows or very fine-grained ejecta, flows of ejecta plus magma, or impact melts. The last of these hypotheses is considered. If these flows are composed of impact melts, there is much more melt relative to the crater volume than is observed on the moon. The ANEOS equation of state program was used for dunite to estimate the shock pressures required for melting, with initial conditions appropriate for Venus, Earth, and the moon. A simple model was then developed, based on the Z-model for excavation flow and on crater scaling relations that allow to estimate the ratio of melt ejecta to total ejecta as a function of crater size on the three bodies

Melt droplet formation in energetic impacts

Impacts between rocky bodies at velocities exceeding about 15 km/sec are capable of melting or vaporizing both the impacting object and a portion of the target. Geological materials initially shocked to high pressure approach the liquid-vapor phase boundary from the liquid side as they decompress, breaking up into an expanding spray of liquid droplets. A simple theory is presented for estimating the sizes of these droplets as a function of impactor size and velocity. It is shown that these sizes are consistent with observations of microtektites and spherules found in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer, the Acraman impact structure, Archean beds in South Africa and lunar regolith. The model may also apply to the formation of chondrules

Structural Analysis and Matrix Interpetive System /SAMIS/ program Technical report, Feb. - Aug. 1966

Development of characteristic equations and error analysis for computer programs contained in structural analysis and matrix interpretive syste

Core formation by giant impacts

Ideas about the accretion and early evolution of the Earth and the other terrestrial planets have recently undergone a number of revolutionary changes. It has become clear that giant impacts were far from rare events. In the later stages of accretion any given planetary embryo is liable to be struck several times by other bodies of up to half its own diameter. Such an impact may have the ability to trigger core formation. Traditional accretion models have had great difficulty explaining the formation of the core. If one admits the importance of infrequent large events that may melt an entire hemisphere, the core formation difficulty vanishes. Millimeter-size iron blebs in the melted region will rain out due to their density difference with the silicate melt. Core formation may not require the melting of the entire hemisphere of the planet. The conditions are explored under which impact induced core formation may occur

Nonlinear stress propagation in the Earth's upper mantle

This paper consists of two parts. The first is theoretical and extends Elsasser's theory of stress propagation in the upper mantle to an asthenosphere with nonlinear rheology. Exact solutions of the nonlinear equations are found for two geologically important problems. The second part uses these theoretical results as the basis for a measurement of the rheology of the asthenosphere. The seaward migration pattern of aftershocks from the February 4, 1965, Rat Island earthquake is analyzed, and strong evidence for a non-Newtonian stress-strain relation in the asthenosphere is presented. It is found that an individual large earthquake can influence the regional stress pattern only to a distance of about 300 km perpendicular to the line of rupture. Excellent agreement is found between the stress propagation coefficient calculated from the aftershock migration pattern and that calculated from laboratory measurements of high-temperature creep in olivine. We thus arrive at a picture of stress propagation in the upper mantle which is consistent both with theoretical expectation and with observational evidence

Impact processes in the Solar System: New understandings through numerical modeling

A collision of two rocky objects circling the sun in space, each roughly the size and mass of a large mountain range, was modeled. A fragmentation hydrocode was developed to perform dynamical computations of collisional outcomes. Explosive framentation and fluid dynamics were used and drawn together into a single application. To model a solid, certain material parameters, such as density, elasticity, rigidity, and energies of melting and vaporization were input. These parameters are well-known for a variety of important materials, such as ice, iron, granite, and basalt. Another important parameter used is the distribution of initial flaws within the material

Continuum modeling of catastrophic collisions

A two dimensional hydrocode based on 2-D SALE was modified to include strength effects and fragmentation equations for fracture resulting from tensile stress in one dimension. Output from this code includes a complete fragmentation summary for each cell of the modeled object: fragment size (mass) distribution, vector velocities of particles, peak values of pressure and tensile stress, and peak strain rates associated with fragmentation. Contour plots showing pressure and temperature at given times within the object are also produced. By invoking axial symmetry, three dimensional events can be modeled such as zero impact parameter collisions between asteroids. The code was tested against the one dimensional model and the analytical solution for a linearly increasing tensile stress under constant strain rate

Violations of Lorentz Covariance in Light Front Quark Models

Electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon from relativistic quark models are analyzed: results from null-plane projection of the Feynman triangle diagram are compared with a Bakamjian-Thomas model. The magnetic form factors of the models differ by about 15% at spacelike momentum transfer 0.5 GeV^2, while the charge form factors are much closer. Spurious contributions to electromagnetic form factors due to violations of rotational symmetry are eliminated from both models. One method changes magnetic form factors by about 10%, whereas the charge form factors stay nearly the same. Another one changes the charge form factor of the Bakamjian-Thomas model by more than 50%.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, Late