NASA Discovers Another Massive Crater Beneath the Ice In Greenland (technologyreview.com) 39
According to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, NASA glaciologists found a crater thought to be more than 22 miles wide. "It is only 114 miles from the Hiawatha impact crater that was discovered in 2018," MIT Technology Review reports. "The identification of that first crater led NASA to dedicate additional resources for investigating the land under Greenland's ice." From the report: NASA glaciologists used topographical maps, satellite images, and radar scans to analyze the area. What they found was a flat, bowl-shaped depression in the bedrock. This was surrounded by an elevated edge and characteristic central peaks, which form on the crater floor after an impact. The crater has eroded significantly over time, causing the team to estimate it was created somewhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years ago. That suggests it probably wasn't formed at the same time as the Hiawatha crater, which is younger. This would be the third pair of craters that sit close to one another that we've found on Earth. "We've surveyed the Earth in many different ways, from land, air, and space. It's exciting that discoveries like these are still possible," says Joe MacGregor, a glaciologist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Tightening the estimate:? (Score:3)
"it was created somewhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years ago"
That's a fairly vague estimate, and I understand at this time it's the best they can come up with, but I'n wondering if this estimate can be tightened with more observations and analysis.
Re:Tightening the estimate:? (Score:4, Funny)
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Why is a quote from the dying St. Francis your signature ? (Just curious.)
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Hmm.. when do you think we can get a better estimate on that planning ?
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It can probably be tightened by drilling into the crater and doing isotope analysis. That's probably not NASA's cup of tea, though.
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Strange, that's the same estimate I use when the wife asks me when I'll do the laundry.
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it was created somewhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years ago
That's a fairly vague estimate, and I understand at this time it's the best they can come up with, but I'm wondering if this estimate can be tightened with more observations and analysis.
New estimates say the crater was created on a Thursday.
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Silly Thursday didn't exist back then. I think you meant to say 'it Happened on Thor's-Day.'.
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"it was created somewhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years ago"
That's a fairly vague estimate,
Earth is 4.5 billion years old. The oldest surface rocks are 4.4x billion years old.
This is like a 45 year old person saying that some newly discovered thing is somewhere between 8 hours and 1 year old. Not vague, especially when you realize it is an estimate taken at a glance that is only intended to help focus further examination.
Or lets say you discover an abandoned building, and you find some activity inside. You know the building was constructed 45 years old. You're able to determine that the activity
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"it was created somewhere between a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years ago"
That's a fairly vague estimate, and I understand at this time it's the best they can come up with, but I'n wondering if this estimate can be tightened with more observations and analysis.
100k years is not even wrong as an estimate in 100 million years.
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More commonly called a "massif" though.
Not good (Score:2)
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Oh good, maybe that will give the cockroaches some slim chance of survival. /s
The Younger Dryas explained? (Score:4, Interesting)
A large impactor in Greenland would melt the whole icecap immediately but temporarily. Could this be the origin of anomalous warming events like the Younger Dryas?
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For the benefit of the non-trolls here an informative and fun graph of the climate in the last 20000 years:
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
Make sure to scroll down to the very bottom (the present).
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For the benefit of the non-trolls here an informative and fun graph of the climate in the last 20000 years:
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
Make sure to scroll down to the very bottom (the present).
"These are the types of changes they're talking about" No, they're explicitly talking about changes over millions of years. The ice age 20,000 years ago wasn't the starting point. It's been way hotter than now, and temperatures have swung wildly before too. Randall was very picky-choosy in this xkcd.
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This is the likely explanation for Meltwater Pulse 1a. Meltwater Pulse 1b was more likely caused by a coronal mass ejection which also left the 'black mat' layer everywhere from weeks of continual lightning.
Between the two humanity went through two massive cataclysms which likely explain some of the commonality among primitive mythologies and the worldwide symbolism of sky gods lines up nicely with the high energy discharge patterns predicted by plasma models of CME aurora.
The second is probably why Gobekl
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Wow... (Score:2)
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He didn't like the movie Prometheus.