neutron stars and what ever

[PWSPARKS@aol.com]

Hi gang

There has been a bit of blathering about KT exterminations due to neutrons
and neutrinos. Unfortunately it has all been balderdash. (none of this is due
to Steve C who was just the messenger) The random path of a neutrino is about
the width of the universe. It just does not interfere with anything. The
detectors for neutrinos are stuck down in very deep old mine shafts to get
rid of the noise and they use very large tanks with liquids that will have
the best chance and then there are only a few verifiable events each year.
And there are a lot of neutrinos arriving at the earth from the sun. Any
other cause would be less likly to generate a flux much bigger than we have
now unless it were very close to the earth, in which case we would have a lot
of more pressing things to worry about.

A neutron star could cause havoc with land and sky animals if it were close
enough and aligned so we were in the stream of neutrons.  However the water
would quickly decrease the number and energy level of the incoming neutrons
so that they would not be a problem to life. The water borne life would not
have been effected anywhere as much as the land animals. As they both took it
on the chin somewhat evenly this mode of extinction is also unlikly. In
addition the neutrons decay in a very short time and so there might not be
anythat really got here in the first place.

Let's get back to our bolides. Which reminds me of the paper in the quartly
dino society report bySankar Chatterjee. In it he claims that there was
another bolide that struck India in the Shiva Crater and was bigger than that
at the Chicxulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico. He surmizes that:

1. They were in the same path and hit the earth like the chain that recently
hit Jupiter.
or
2. there was only one hit (in India) and the mexico crater is due to the
shock waves from India. The hit in india was much larger than the damage in
mexico.

Well..........comments??? For me I have never heard of the crater at 65 mya
in india. I had done some back of the envelop stuff that indicated that the
mexico event would have caused a very large reaction in india (about a 12 on
the Ricter (sp) seismic scale). So the idea that there could be a reaction
the other way from this new (to me) bolide would not surprise me. 

FWIW on page 15 there is a nice drawing of the migration routes of the
abelisaurs and titanosaurs from south america to france.

paul sparks