From fire and collapse: The paradigm shift from volcanic craters to cosmic impacts

“ The first thing to be said on this subject is, of course, that not all holes in the ground, however large and impressive, were necessarily formed by the impact of meteorites. Features that resemble meteorite craters may result from certain ordinary earth-processes. For example, the rock layers underlying a particular area may be dissolved away by waters circulating beneath the surface of the ground. The overlying crust will eventually collapse into the empty space, and what geologists call a “sink hole” or a “sink” is formed. ”

“ In other words, a volcano is a boil or eruption upon the earth’s surface.
Scientists have advanced many theories concerning the primary causes of volcanoes, and many explanations relating to the igneous matter discharged from their craters. Like the doctors who disagree in the diagnosis of a human malady, the geologists and volcanists are equally unable to agree in all details concerning this form of the earth’s ailment. ”

“ These great sinkings, though produced by accidental causes, hold a first place in the principal circumstances in the History of the Earth, and not a little contributed to change the face of the Globe; the greatest part of them have been produced by subterraneous fires, whose [52] explosions cause earthquakes and volcanos; the force of these inflamed and confined matters in the bowels of the earth is beyond compare; by it cities have been swallowed up, provinces overturned, and mountains overthrown. ”

“ With all our science we are but a step beyond the ancients, to whom these were the Titans, great rebel giants whom Jupiter overthrew and bound under the burning mountains, and whose throes of agony shook the earth in quaking convulsions. To us the volcanic crater is the mouth from which comes the fiery breath of demon powers which dwell far down in the earth’s crust. The Titans themselves were dwarfs beside these mighty agents of destruction whose domain extends for thousands of miles beneath the earth’s surface and which in their convulsions shake whole continents at once. ”

“ He looks, indeed, upon all the disturbances that have taken place in the earth’s crust as evidence of a fallen condition of the world, as mementoes of a former penal infliction upon a guilty race. And aside from the light which geology casts upon the subject, this would be a not improbable conclusion. Take for an example the case of volcanoes and earthquakes.
A volcano is an opening made in the earth’s crust by internal heat, which has forced melted or heated matter through the vent. An earthquake is the effect of the confined gases and vapors, produced by the heat upon the crust. ”

“ On the other hand, meteorite impact craters are not formed 43 by earth-processes at all. As we have seen, they result when large bodies of matter from the regions of space outside the earth chance to strike the surface of our planet at high speed. The study of meteorite craters is therefore a special field. It is also one of quite recent development; not until 1905 was the first meteorite crater recognized as such. ”

“ In fact, at the present time, several asteroids move well within the orbits of the earth and Venus. It is quite possible therefore that such a large meteorite crater as the one at Canyon Diablo, was produced by the prehistoric fall of one of these small members of our Solar System. If so, we have reason to believe that a core-fragment of the meteorite-planet came to earth at Canyon Diablo. ”

“ Even the largest mass of the Norton meteorite merely buried itself in a funnel-like hole only about 10 feet deep. And the Russian investigators found a number of the lighter Ussuri fragments at the bottom of small penetration funnels. Cosmic missiles that are large enough to blast out craters in the ground are of particular interest to science, however, not only because of the extraordinarily intense light, sound, and other effects that accompany their fall, but also because they produce characteristic and long-lasting basin-like features in the outer shell of the earth. ”

“ In earlier days, most scientists believed that the craters on the moon had all been formed by volcanic action. Now the pendulum of scientific opinion seems to have swung toward the view that all the thousands of lunar craters are the result of meteorite impacts that took place in the long distant past. Both views are better examples of how scientific “fashions” control men’s minds than they are of explanations that really account for all of the observed facts—as any acceptable explanation must do. ”

“ That the interior of the earth possesses a high temperature is inferred from the evidence of various sources. (1) Volcanoes, which are openings that constantly, or intermittently, give out hot vapours and molten lava from reservoirs beneath the crust. Besides active volcanoes, it is known that former eruptive vents 655 have been abundantly and widely distributed over the globe from the earliest geological periods down to our own day. (2) Hot springs are found in many parts of the globe, with temperatures varying up to the boiling point of water. ”

“ But deep down in the earth the gases and pent-up steam, are ever preparing to force their way upward through the mountain, and to carry with them dissolved rocks, and the stones which block their passage. Sometimes, while all is calm and beautiful on the mountains, suddenly deep-sounding noises are heard, the ground shakes, and a vast torrent tears its way through the bowels of the volcano, and is flung hundreds of feet high in the air, and, falling again to the earth, destroys every living thing for miles around. ”

“ The surface of the earth consists of strata many of which were formed originally beneath the sea, the mountains were afterwards forced up by subterraneous fires, as appears from the fissures in the rocks of which they consist, the quantity of volcanic productions all over the world, and the numerous remains of craters of volcanos in mountainous countries. ”

“ Craters of eruption are formed by the boiling streams of lava, the floods of hot mud, or tuf, and the showers of ashes and cinders gathering or falling around the mouth of the vent or chimney of a volcano. ”

“ A volcano is a mountain or hill, generally conical in shape, having at the top a nearly central opening, called a crater, from which at times melted rock and lava, vapor and gases escape. The lava either flows down the side of the mountain in a liquid condition, or is thrown upwards into the air. If the distance the lava is thrown upwards is sufficiently great the melted matter solidifies [Pg 4] before it falls to the earth. In such cases the largest fragments form what are called volcanic cinders, the smaller pieces, volcanic ashes, and the extremely small particles, volcanic dust. ”

“ The crater mountains of the moon are its grand peculiarities. We see here that its whole surface has been upturned, convulsed and dislocated with forces of the greatest activity, the results of which remain to this day; so that our rocks are not levelled down by the fury of tempests, nor smoothed by the constant flow of water, as your earthly mountains are, but stand up in all their primitive sharpness. These volcanic craters are of all sizes, from fifty yards to as many miles across, and in the centre of some of them there stand up lofty hills. ”

“ Many underground streams are formed that find their way into the high-level chambers, which are thus supplied with pure water. The inhabitants of others have supplied themselves by tunnelling through into the upper parts of lofty chambers, that have their floors at the sea-level, and thus they tap the clouds themselves.”
“Our astronomers tell us that some of the Lunar craters are 60 or 80 miles in diameter or even more, which indicates that an enormously greater amount of volcanic action has taken place on the moon than on the earth. ”

“ A great amount of labor has been expended, not only on these entrances, but on the internal cavities to which they lead; but compared with the work performed for us by nature, our own labor is but an insignificant item—hardly so much as the labor of your race in fitting up the earth for your residence. The entrances are all volcanic craters, and the vast cavities to which they lead, were excavated long ages ago by volcanic action. The material blown out of the volcanoes, mostly fell upon the hither side of the moon increasing the bulk of the cap; most of the volcanoes being on this side. ”

“ Age by age, the fluid thickened; dropping, at long intervals, heavy sediment to the bottom; which layer on layer concreted, and at length, in crusts, rose toward the surface. Then, the vast volcano burst; rent the whole mass; upthrew the ancient rocks; which now in divers mountain tops tell tales of what existed ere Mardi was completely fashioned. Hence many fossils on the hills, whose kith and kin still lurk beneath the vales. Thus Nature works, at random warring, chaos a crater, and this world a shell. ”

“ They came from the moon; they came from the earth's volcanoes; they came from the sun; they came from Jupiter and the other planets; they came from the comets; they came from the nebulous mass from which the solar system has grown; they came from the fixed stars; they came from the depth of space. They supply the sun with his radiant energy; they give the moon her accelerated motion; they break in pieces heavenly bodies; they threw up the mountains on the moon; they made large gifts to our geologic strata; they cause the auroras; they give regular and irregular changes to our weather. ”

“ The terrestrial volcanoes must also have been wonderfully active to have sent out such a multitude of meteorites as will explain the number of stone-falls which we know and which we have good reason to believe have occurred. The volcanoes must also have been wonderfully potent. The meteorites come to us with planetary velocities. In traversing the thin upper air they are burned and broken by the resisting medium. Long before they have gone through the tenth part of the atmosphere, the meteorites usually are arrested and fall to the ground. ”

“ When the meteorite buried itself far into the earth the sides were heaved up, leaving a rim-like circle about the depression. As the meteorite sank into the earth it must have crushed layers of red sandstone and limestone. It is believed that the white sand found in the crater and on the sides of the mountain is from the sandstone pulverized by the meteor in its descent. This sand was blown skyward and afterward settled down on the mountain, covering it thickly. No sand like it is to be found near the mountain. ”

“ Consequently, it is natural that these Wabar masses of congealed silica-glass and nickel-iron be called impactites. They are silica-glasses, created chiefly from terrestrial materials by the impact of large crater-forming meteorites. This same name is now applied to all silica-glasses believed to have the same origin as those at Wabar.
As regards size if not composition, the crater-forming meteorites 144 responsible for the Wabar and other impactites may have been big brothers of the small-fry responsible for the showers of true tektites. ”

“ Perhaps the oldest meteorite crater of all is the one blasted into what the geologists identify as pre-Cambrian quartzite at Wolf Creek, Western Australia. Even the highly resistant iron meteorites found around this crater have almost completely weathered away. Only tiny specks and thin veinlets of metal are now visible on the cut surfaces of meteorites that, untold hundreds of thousands of years ago, were solid masses of nickel-iron. ”

“ The smallest spherules and grains are almost or quite microscopic in size. (These tiny granules have been well known to scientists since 1905 in spite of current fables claiming that they are a recent discovery.) In the rim and on the plain outside the crater, large and small shale balls, composed of weathered meteoritic material, were found in considerable numbers in the early days. Along with many solid iron meteorites, shale balls have also been found at various depths in recent times by field parties from the Institute employing specially designed meteorite detectors. ”

“ The need for such metals can only become more and more acute.
According to one of the currently favored explanations of the origin of the meteorites, the core-fragments of the parent meteorite-planet are solid masses of nickel-iron alloy—like the mass that blasted out the Canyon Diablo meteorite crater. If this meteorite-planet hypothesis finally wins general acceptance, the meteoriticist of the future is almost sure to be set the task of pin-pointing as exactly as possible the whereabouts in space and time of the most easily accessible cosmic nickel-iron lodes of this sort. ”

“ As we have already noted, the Canyon Diablo, Arizona, crater is thought to be 20,000 to 70,000 years old. The Odessa, Texas, crater is at least 200,000 years old; and the Haviland (Brenham) , Kansas, craters more than 600,000 years old. Clearly, meteorite falls have been occurring over a very long period of earth history.
For many years, scientists have studied the distribution of recovered meteorites around the world in an effort to find out whether there are any places on the land surface of our globe where meteorites have fallen in unusually large numbers. ”

“ Belated study established, however, both the truthfulness of the Tunguse reports and the exceedingly unusual character of the meteorite fall itself. In spite of the overwhelming and, in fact, worldwide evidence that the Podkamennaya Tunguska fall was one of the greatest and most violent in history, no meteorites have ever been recovered from any part of the region devastated by its impact. It is the one and only true meteorite crater that is meteoriteless! ”

“ If the Podkamennaya Tunguska meteorite was contraterrene, then the soil in the impact area must have been made radioactive in the same way that the earth around the “ground zero” of a nuclear explosion is contaminated by radioactivity. After the senior author had repeatedly urged Russian scientists (who are the only ones that have been permitted to visit the site of the Podkamennaya Tunguska fall) to try to detect any long-lasting radioactivities that might still be present in the ground at Podkamennaya Tunguska, such a radioactivity survey was finally carried out in the summer of 1960. ”