A really, really, really, really stupid idea. Really.

[GSP1954@aol.com]

I was reading about this stuff about the supposed micro-impact debris found 
imbedded in  mammals remains dating from ~13000 yrs ago and I suddenly realized 
that the people proposing this inanity or being really stupid. They have been 
watching too many SciFi flicks in which the boulder sized asteroids crash 
into the ground at thousands of miles per hour leaving an incandescent trail. 
This is something the Myhtbusters would bust in short order. 

Consider what happens when a ner-do-well tourist chucks a quarter from the 
top of the Empire State Building. When I was a kid a cousin was all excited 
about how it hits the side walk at soemthing like a thousand miles per hour 
because of the acceleration of gravity. if that were true then folks hit by 
coinage 
tossed from high places would end up dead. Of course, what really happens is 
that any object the size of a boulder or smaller soon reaches terminal air 
velocity as drags slows it down to its maximum gravity powered aerodynamic 
speed. 
This was shown on Mythbusters when Jamie and Adam found that pistol rounds 
fired straight up at about 1000 mph returned at around 100 mph (they never did 
find the rifle rounds, wind drift). If a meteorite that hits the outer 
atmosphere at 40000 mph is the size of a fist when it smashes through your 
window it 
will be traveling over 100 mph, and will probably be air cooled enough to 
immediately pick up. 

The drag induced deacceleration when an extraterrestrial object hits the 
lower atmosphere produces such high G's that city block sized asteroids break 
up 
and explode as per the Siberian event about a century ago. 

When a giant meteorite explodes either in the atmosphere or on the ground, 
the sand sized debris is creates immediately slows down to well under a hundred 
miles per hour once it hits the lower atmosphere. Any animals or bones so 
close to the explosion that sand sized objects bury deep inside them or do 
injury 
will be wiped out by the blast and heat in the first place.  Assuming anything 
is left the scorch and shock damage will be obvious. The 13K extinction 
scenario has the oblect detonating over the N American ice sheet far from any 
large 
mammals. For animals and bones not in the lethal blast and burn zone any 
micro debris that hits them will be in the form of a gentle rain of sand from 
above as the debris cloud renters the atmosphere and filters down to the 
ground. 
Might irritate the eyes a little but that's about it.  

I cannot believe that grown up scientists would propose that micro blast 
debris was gouging bones and skin. Cannot believe it is taken seriously by 
anyone 
else. Here we are trying to deal with a science skeptical public and they say 
something so dumb. Just great. 

GSPaul<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR>See AOL's top 
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