Advisory
If you arrived here by any means other than from the Index of Impacts,
it is suggested that you start at the Introduction to gain an understanding of what follows.

The Himalayan Meteor Impact
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 1635 km radius.
     The Himalayan Mountains were made by a very old, and probably the largest meteor impact still visable today. The .kmz file for this circle is HERE!
     Depending on your browser, the .kmz file will either save to disk. where you can click on it and it will open in Google Earth, or it will open in Google Earth directly.
If you do not have Google Earth, you can get it here.
     By oppening the .kmz file, you can examine this circle in detail. The file will open in the left hand column under Places, Temporary Places. Click the arrow to the left of the Him1635km.kmz file to expamd the placemarks. Clicking on the placemarks top to bottom will take you on a tour of the major features which mark this circle, and if you wish, you can explore these features in detail, and others you may see along the way.
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains

     The image above is the Himalayan Impact, 1635 kilometer seismic circle, overlaid with several circles showing the locations of impacts that came after the Himalayan. There are many more. These later impacts, broke the form of the Himalayan Impact in many places. Showing the various impacts this way, the reason for the various forms of the geography in the region start to emerge. This also gives the basis for developing an age scale based on the various impacts. The Himalayan must be very old to have been hit this many times after it struck the Earth. If you study this image, you may find many other arcs, parts of circles. If the proper sized circle were to be fitted into those arcs, other impact sites would show themselves.

     Note that the smaller circles appear to be somewhat oval. This is because of the curvature of the Earth being represented in two dimensions. Each of these circles follow geographic land formations that have been photographed using the finest satellite imagery available today.

meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 260 km radius.     The 260 kilometer radius circle. This center is probably not where the meteor ended up, but is the center of the concentric circle shock waves, seismic circles, that emanate from the impact. See the Barringer Impact for a discussion of this. So where is the meteor? Probably it is the Tibetan Plateau, or is under it, causing that area to rise to 5,000 meters elevation, 4,000 meters above the surrounding landscape. This point is where everything rebounded to after impact, and from there the concentric circle, seismic waves emanate. Think of throwing a big rock into the water. The water first parts, making a hole. Then it comes back together, and the expanding perfect circles in the water follow. Afterward there is not much left to see at this point.
Meteor impact, Himalaya mountains, Tibetan Plateau

    If we consider that the Tibetan Plateau is roughly 2,000 kilometers East/West, and 800 kilometers North/South, and that the Tibetan Plateau is about 4,000 meters above the surrounding landscape, then: 2000 x 800 x 4 = 6.400,000 cubic kilometers.
    If the formula for the volume of a sphere is V = 4/3 πr3,  then 4/3*3.14159*115*115*115 =6,370,621 cubic kilometers. Therefore the meteor would have been about 230 kilometers in diameter, (r x 2) if its' density before impact was the same as that of the Earth.

    However, as its' diameter was much smaller than the Earth's, its' gravity would also be much less, in proportion to its' mass. It is very likely then that its' density was far less before impact, therefore its' size probably was much larger.

    These waves travel out from the center at tremendous velocity. They move similar to the waves in the ocean.
While the surface of the wave moves up and down, the inside of the wave moves in a circular patern.

Rayleigh Wave diagram
The waves expand in a way very similar to the circle waves of a stone thrown into a pond of water

     But as the land is much denser than the water, and not as fluid, sometimes the passing wave will leave the land higher or lower than it was before.
     These are the surface waves.

But there are also pressure waves that travel inside the Earth. They bounce around as demonstrated by the graphic below.
And sometimes they return to the surface and meet up with the surface wave. This increased amplitude makes for some quite distinguished formations. Witness the Flatirons in Colorado, U.S.A. 
meteor impact, seismic waves, The Flatirons





meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 3080 km radius.
Above shows the 1635 km and the 3080 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file for the 3080 km radius seismic circle is HERE!
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 5135 km radius.
Above shows the 5135 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file for the 5135 km radius seismic circle is HERE!
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 7990 km radius.
Above shows the 7990 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file is HERE!
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 9767 km radius.
Above shows the 9767 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file is HERE!
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 12505 km radius.
Above shows the 12,505 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file is HERE!

meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 15597 km radius.
Above shows the 15,597 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file is HERE!
meteor impact, seismic waves, Himalaya mountains, circle at 18260 km radius.
Above shows the 18,260 km radius seismic circle. The .kmz file is HERE!


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twest@geoledgers.org

Index of Impact Sites

Introduction
© 2014,2023 Terry Westerman