If you guys want to read hard science without any mathematical
equations, read ATOM by Larry Krause...
This is as close as you can get to understanding cosmology without
having to take a PhD in physics at the university... If you read this
and take the time to think and understand what he is sayiing I
'garontee' you will see the world in a whole new way...

denny - an old farm boy who never wondered about the ability of cow
**** to stick to your shoes... and "Two quarks for Muster Mark"

In article ,
Harry wrote:

It is believed that in prehistoric times,
an ice comet collided with the
earth with so much force at a
spot near the Yucatan Peninsula,
that a chunk was dislodged and hurled
into orbit. This collected and compacted
becoming the earth`s moon.

I think you will find that the Earth had two moons, and the one in a
decaying orbit hit the Earth - creating the (now burried) crater, as well as
leavin us with a somewhat thinner crust. The bit of green cheeze out there,
over our heads, is as old as the "inner Earth", but like the Earth, it is
steadily growing as more space debris arrives.

As I understand it, the current "mainstream" thinking is that there
were numerous collision events, of greatly different magnitudes, and
very far apart in time.

It's now believed that quite early in the lifetime of the solar
system, when the planets were accreting out of a large dust-ring
around the young Sun, a planetoid of roughly the size of Mars collided
with the proto-Earth, striking a glancing blow. This impact shattered
the smaller body and did really serious damage to the larger (probably
re-melting much of it) and threw a lot of material back up into orbit
around the (now-larger) Earth. Much of this material eventually fell
back to the surface, some escaped entirely, and most of the rest
eventually formed the moon. This event occurred quite a few billions
of years ago.

The impact at what is now Chicxulub in the Yucatan was a lot more
recent (65 million years ago) and involved a much smaller body
(perhaps 10 miles across). Current mainstream thinking is that this
impact was probably the coup de grace for most of the dinosaurs... it
was one of the largest impacts in the history of Earth, but
there are geologic records of earlier impacts that left larger
craters (the Vredefort and Sudbury structures).

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

While the geologic record for Chicxulub is well documented the
commonly known "fact" that this caused the dinosaurs to die out is
debatable since their demise was spread over millions years covering
both pre and post Chicxulub impact; not just over a few weeks or
months, or even a few hundred years..
The seabed record does show Chicxulub caused a drop in temperatures
for some time period and significant species losses.. There have been
a number of other massives die offs seen in the fossil records that
are not well explained and not all can be tied to an impact...

The other issues you point out, such as the genesis of the earth's
moon coming by impact from an extra solar body is the currently
accepted theory of mainstream cosmologists, less a maverick or two...

denny

In article .com,
Denny wrote:

While the geologic record for Chicxulub is well documented the
commonly known "fact" that this caused the dinosaurs to die out is
debatable since their demise was spread over millions years covering
both pre and post Chicxulub impact; not just over a few weeks or
months, or even a few hundred years..

Oh, I agree... that's why I used the phrase "coup de grace" and "most
of the dinosaurs". There's good evidence that there was a lot of
ecological stress from other causes (e.g. volcanism, change in ocean
circulation patterns, etc.) which had been reducing the diversity and
population of many Dinosauria for quite some time before the Chicxulub
impact. And, of course, mainstream scientists now believe that one
branch of the Dinosauria survived right up until present times.

The seabed record does show Chicxulub caused a drop in temperatures
for some time period and significant species losses..

I've seen one report which indicates that the area in which this
asteroid hit consisted of rock which was unusually rich in sulphur,
thus leading to a more severe sulphate-particle "nuclear winter"
effect than what might have occurred if the impact had been elsewhere.

One way or the other, it was probably a rather rotten time to be on
this particular planet.

There have been
a number of other massives die offs seen in the fossil records that
are not well explained and not all can be tied to an impact...

Agreed. Life, and death, are both rather complex matters :-)

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!