TheHimalayan Mountainsform part of a perfect circle, the results of the seismic wave from a meteor impact in the center of Asia. The meteor was probably much larger than 230 miles in diameter. The Tibetan Plateau is what remains of it. |
Introduction This is about the meteors, asteroids and comets that bombarded the Earth over the last billion years or so, how those impacts created our geography, and then how man has used those land forms. What drove me on this research is the increasing exactness in which these discoveries were made. In my mid 20's I was living in the State of Oregon and I came across a map of Oregon that was hand drawn, but done so to a very high degree. As I studied it, I found what looked like a large meteor crater in the southeastern part of the State. Comparing that to other maps I had, I could only get rough 'Maybes' from them for confirmations of the idea. Then one day I ran into a much older man, a professional geologist (whose name is long ago gone), who I thought would have some insight into this, and I queried him on the idea. His response was that there were no meteor craters on the Earth, and the reason it looked like one to me was because the map was hand drawn. That didn't answer my curiosity in the way I wanted to hear, but at the time there were no other sources of information available. And it stayed that way until Google Earth came along. Using that I found my childhood home, where I kissed my high school sweetheart, and a number of other such things, and then I remembered that map! "Is that possible?", I said to myself. So I went to Oregon on Google Earth and looked, and there it was, plain as day. And then - there was another one.... and another and soon I had circles that described nearly every geographic feature of those high desert plains That started a journey of discovery. From there I started to see how the land was formed, over and over again there were circles, just like on the Moon. Yes, they were eroded, covered with vegetation or farmed over for many years, even centuries, but the main features were there. These impact circles formed the mountains, the rivers, the coastlines and more, all over the world. Then after a time, I started to see that many of these impacts left not just one circle, but a series of circles, concentric circles around them, seismic circles. And, I was increasingly amazed at how these circles expanded over vast distances, forming the geography of places hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away from the impact. Then I started to see how man has been using the land forms created by these seismic circles, and so the research continues. While much of this work is here simply to demonstrate why our world is as it is, it is also here to provide evidence of the impacts, and how the Earth was formed. Hopefully some will use these studies as a template, and begin a search for discoveries of your own. There is still much to be done. And when you see those geographical features falling exactly on that perfect circle, you will say as I did "No Way!", "Are you serious?", "That's incredible!" Then by studying more of the evidence you will see that, Yes, it is serious. Yes, it is incredible. Our world did came to be by Catastrophic Impact, and the remains of those impacts, those Seismic Circles, are what formed the geography we have today. |
Forward
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The Far Side of the Moon
If the Earth
did not have its' water and atmosphere to erode the surface, and the
plant life to cover it up, the Earth would look very similar to the far
side of the Moon.
Until recently all of our observations of the Earth were made on the ground. Geographers measure the surface of the Earth and plot their findings on paper, drawing maps of all sorts. While these maps are necessary and useful, using them as a basis for the Earth sciences today is problematic. Maps are drawings of what we understand to be there, rather than the real thing, and the various projections used to draw the surface of a nearly spherical Earth on a flat sheet of paper distorts the dimensions, or cuts the geography into pieces, leading sometimes to questionable conclusions. Then came aerial surveys, photography from five or six miles up. From these are drawn maps of excellent quality which are good for property analysis, roads and land use planning. But even with these we cannot see enough of our planet to get a good look at it, as many of the features of our Earth are 10s or 100s or 1,000s of miles across. Geologists searching the ground use microscopes, gas chromatography, radiation, spectral analysis or other means to analyze what they found on or near the surface. Sometimes they find shatter cones, microscopic diamonds or iridium layers and this is evidence that a meteor impacted the Earth there. This evidence is then compared with other findings to confirm the impact. To understand our Earth, we need to see it as the sphere that it is, and we need to be able to see it at distances where the geographic features can be seen in their entirety, and in relation to the surrounding area. And, we need views that are as free of clouds as possible. Satellite imagery is the only way to do this. Google Earth has made this possible. They have assembled the imagery of a myriad of organizations and companies, which have been filled with an untold number of highly skilled scientific people, all with the quest to understand our Earth better. They have provided us with a tool from which we can see our entire planet in its' entirety, down to fine geographic detail. With this new tool comes new understandings of our Earth. |
The above image of Central America
shows numerous circles, each one encompassing a meteor impact site. If
you study these circles, the impacts should become apparent. These are
the most obvious, others could be noted.This image is linked to a
larger image for more detail. The Earth is covered with impacts such as
these, some larger, many smaller. Once your eye becomes tuned to seeing
them, you will find them everywhere. |
India was hit by many meteors The red spots in the image above denote the center of impact for some of the larger ones. Click on the image to investigate this farther. |
Our Earth was built
over billions of years by the bombardment of an untold number of
asteroids, meteors, comets, and extra terrestrial objects of all kinds,
shapes and sizes, just like the Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury were.
These impacts created the form of our Earth, building it up layer by
layer, one impact after another. Gravity then pulls the Earth into a
nearly perfect sphere, and the rotation of the Earth causes a bit of a
bulge around the Equator. Then, with erosion from the atmosphere,
vegetation covering things over, glaciation, volcanoes and other
natural forces, we have what we have today. |
While it is
certain that the crust of the Earth is shifting in places, which is the
cause of earthquakes, this is something quite different than the idea
of Pangaea and continental plates floating around. These geographic
circles provide evidence that contradicts those ideas. Many of these
seismic circles are hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles in
radius. Some of them span continents, a few circle the globe and
sometimes the concentric circles from individual impacts are visible on
six continents, Antarctica being too ice covered for analysis. Had the continents been drifting, then parts of these
circles would be moved. Yet the circles are intact. |
The Beginning The idea of an
impact, is typically a crater like we see on the Moon. This image of
Tycho Crater on the Moon is generally of how we think of them, as a
depressed area with a circle of steep walls surrounding it, and a
central peak. This is only the case here on Earth sometimes. |
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The actual impact site, the center, may be round or deformed depending on many variables. What was the shape of the object? Was it round, or perhaps some other shape. How did it hit? Straight down or at an angle? Was it a hard rock asteroid, or a dust ball comet? There are many variables, but more often than not, the center is flat, perhaps a little higher or lower than the surrounding area, but generally flat. On some occasions the impact may raise a center peak, or make a deep impression, but most often the center is not much different than the surrounding area, as the impact blasts everything flat. These level areas are then excellent areas for towns and cities to be built, such as Mexico City, Tokyo or Moscow. In the image at right, the Ebano Impact, is on the northwestern border of the State of Veracruz with San Luis Potosi State, Mexico. This impact is on the eastern coastal plane of Mexico. The soil there being relatively soft and wet was easy to penetrate deeply with a high speed, hard asteroid. The asteroid itself ended up deep underground, leaving the surface as a depression where the lake formed, with a raised center area, and low hills surrounding it. |
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Often times the
object may simply go splat, blowing the material of its making out
across the Earth in all directions, and leaving little evidence of its
existence other than a few inches of soil. These impacts would likely
be made up of loosely packed meteors. Gravity on meteors in outer space
is minuscule in comparison to the Earth. Therefore the meteor may be
nothing more than a dust ball that just adds a bit of soil to the Earth
when it hits. |
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There are
many kinds of impacts. When we look at them we must consider what the
object must have been. On one extreme, it may have been formed from a
solar flare that blew heavy metals out into space at tremendous speeds.
These metals fused together by solar heat, and then tempered by the
near zero degrees Kelvin of the deepest expanses of space, could be the
hardest material imaginable. This type of object at incredible
velocities would be like a bullet into the Earth, penetrating deeply
leaving only a minimum crater, but perhaps sending out a shock wave
that circles the impact site at hundreds of miles distance. |
Craters of the Moon National Monument. This impact was one of the hard, high velocity impacts that punched a hole in the Earth, from which the lava flowed on a number of occasions. |
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It is also the form of the impact at El Perdido, Mexico that blasted rays over half the country. |
Asteroids
coming in at various angles, speeds and densities combine to form our
geography. The image to the right of the Eye of the Sahara is an
interesting assemblage of impacts. It is in Mauritania in the western
Sahara Desert in Africa |
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The Center of Impact at the Navajo Impact Site, Arizona-New Mexico. |
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The waves form over long distances similar to the Rayleigh wave form shown above in a thin gold film on glass. |
Then comes the problem of size. How big are these things? Considering the Earth to be 8,000 miles in diameter, and that the formula for the volume of a sphere is: Then 4 /3 x 3.14159 x 4000 x 4000 x 4000 = the volume of the Earth = 268,082,346,667 cubic miles. That
means that if
the average size of an object that hit the Earth was one cubic mile,
But now... The probability is that the largest impacts came first, as larger objects have more gravitational attraction, and that was a very long time ago. What is left for us to see on the surface are with a few exceptions, the remains of much smaller impacts. These impacts generally smash themselves to bits as they hit, throwing the material of their making out over the surface in every direction and adding a new layer to the Earth. Or they bury themselves in the Earth. However the shock waves they produce, in those expanding circles, deformed the land to make the mountains, hills, river valleys, coastlines and more for hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles in radius. When we look at the Earth for evidence of impacts, we need to be thinking on this large scale. We should not be aghast should someone suggest an impact site of 1,000, 2,000 or 5,000 miles diameter. In fact, we should expect them.
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In the image at
the left, the lower Red River joins the Mississippi River Delta and
aligns perfectly with the shock wave from the Adirondack
Impact in New York
State at 1315 miles distance (2,110 kilometers). Then at the top left
of the image the alignment disappears. This shows the difference
between softer soils, and harder packed earth to the north. Thus what
we see are parts of the circle and we must connect the dots. |
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The more
alignments that follow the circle, and the more concentric circles
found, the more evidence of the impact. It may be possible to find one
or two circular alignments from any point you want due to chance.
However to find specific circles, and then again to find concentric
circles, brings the probability of chance closer to zero with each
alignment found. Finding the alignments that follow these guide lines
demonstrates the proof of impact with increasing certainty. |
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Above a large impact in North America formed the South and Southeastern coast of the United States, and the Southwestern coasts of Mexico. |
The Columbia River George is a break in the Cascade Mountain Range. It was caused by the shock wave from an impact 220 miles North. That impact caused Mt Baker, a volcano in northern Washington State, to form. |
It is not
unusual to see the largest alignments at great distances from the point
of impact, with smaller alignments before and after. This may be a clue
as to the speed of impact, density of the meteor and other specifics.
Often, the alignments seem to reverberate from one side to the other,
such that a major alignment will be seen on one side of the impact with
one ring, and then on a different side of the impact with the next
ring. This is because of what the wave encounters as it passes. |
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The larger hits have
the potential to crack the outer shell of the Earth. Some had the power
to shape the continental plates. A knowledge of where these hits were,
can help us define the cracks in the Earth's surface and the various
shifting land masses we have. This would be a basic area of study for
people involved in the science of earthquakes and plate tectonics. |
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The graphic shows surface (S) waves and body (B) waves. The surface waves travel along the surface of the Earth, similar to ocean waves. The body waves travel through the interior of the Earth and reflect from the inner core. As the waves expand and echo, at times they come together at the surface. When they do the increased amplitude of the combined waves often cracks the crust of the Earth causing long lines of varying geographic formations across the surface. This is the reason that the seismic circles form at various intervals, rather than every step of the way, as with ocean waves. Nearer to the center of impact, where the body waves have not had time to reflect back, a combination of other waves is responsible, such as a Rayleigh wave and a compression wave, each which starts at a different time and travel at different speeds. |
The Flatirons, west of Boulder Colorado. These upturned rock faces demonstrate the power of the impact, 80 miles to the East.
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Should we be worried about large impacts today? Our Earth came together violently. Considering that these impacts create shock waves that form mountains and river valleys as they expand, and that the difference in elevations between them is often hundreds, if not thousands of feet, a hit by one of these would be like a circular tidal wave of solid earth, hundreds or thousands of feet high, expanding and reverberating at tremendous speeds. The shock waves may expand for thousands of miles. Entire cities would be reduced to unrecognizable rubble. Plant life could re-root, but anything else that walks, crawls or swims would be devastated. As far as mass extinctions are concerned, noxious gas plumes or dust clouds that blocked out the sun may have happened, but after a land wave 500 feet high passed over the continent, gas and dust clouds would not have much significance. And it looks like there were many, many of these impacts. It must be understood that our Earth, as big as it is to us, is no more than a tiny speck in the universe, and there are many things out there far bigger than us. Just to orbit the Earth requires a velocity of about 15,000 miles per hour. These space rocks may be traveling at 25,000 to 50,000 miles per hour and more. The energy of a medium sized asteroid hitting the Earth would be far greater than anything man has seen before. The impact pictured to the left of the Dinamita Crater near Durango, Mexico shows circular seismic wave alignments that deformed the ground at 950 miles (1,525 km) distance and beyond. It is likely that if this asteroid hit today, every building within 950 miles of it and possibly farther would fall. These things make earthquakes at 9 and above on the Richter scale look like kindergarten play time. Such was the formation of our Earth! |
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As the
Earth was formed by a bombardment of various objects, when they hit,
often times they blew the material that made them in all directions to
form sedimentary layers, one after another which built up the planet.
Every impactor was as different as the universe that it passed through,
and so each layer is as different as that which formed it. |
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We
start in Arizona
with
Barringer's
Meteor Crater
as this crater is well documented and
studied.
Barringer is a small impact, but the effects of it can
be seen for many miles around.
Studying the effects of this
impact on the surrounding land provides a basis of understanding for
the larger impacts.
Index of Impact Sites
North America |
Asia |
Europe |
Africa |
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United States |
Mexico |
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Barringer Crater Many kmzs included |
Dinamita KMZ file here to open in Google Earth, Clickable placemarks. Explore many full circles around the globe. |
Himalayan Impact with kmz
files |
Gibraltar With a video! |
Cape Verde Islands |
Adirondack
Mountains |
Ebano |
With many impacts shown and 10 inpacts detailed
with |
Eurasia |
The
Eye |
Navajo |
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Great Rift |
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Norfolk |
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Kilimanjaro |
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Yellowstone |
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The
Flatirons |
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© Terry Westerman 2012, 2015, 2022