Too Many Meteor Strikes in 6k Years

I hate to point this out to you: there is no known large impact over the ocean in historic times. Surely you can't be suggesting that a peeble-sized or boulder-sized rock falling into the ocean not causing a tsumnami is some kind of disproof. As Scotty told Capt Kirk: "I cannot change the laws of physics captain." If a kilometer sized rock falls on the oceans at high speed there will be tsumani since physics demainds it. The tsumani that will result will make what happened December 26, 2004 seem like a picnic -- literally a nonevent! No ship has ever encountered a tsumani the size the impact will create. The reason why ships don't notice them is very simple: several kilometers deep of water can handle to the wave: the shore cannot. That depth will is not enough to handle volume of water which will move due to the impact. The answer to this is the same as before. You simply don't comprehend just how bad such an impact will be.This message has been edited by Harlequin, 05-24-2005 10:47 PM

To support this any YEC is asked to consider: The Earth has 81 times the mass of the Moon. That means that Earth has 81 times the gravity of the Moon. The Earth is going to get hit more often than the Moon because of its gravity. And the stuff is going to be coming in, on average, faster. Now look at the Moon; it is just potmarked if many HUGE craters. And it is loaded with with many craters of all sizes. And it is not a fluke: every planet, moon, and asterioid ever seen is also just littered with such craters unless it has active geology which can erase craters or has no solid surface that we can see (like the gas giants like Jupiter).

My answer is simple: two words that are probably not allowed.You are simply sticking your head into the sand. There is nothing hypothetical a 10 kilometer-wide rock hitting the ocean at high speed causing a tsumani. If you reject the physics here, then you are pretty much rejecting all of physics.

Yes the Tsunami is just the begining.Faith need to consider: given the mass and velocity of the object, how much energy must be released is a trivial problem. Just calculate the kinetic energy (one half times the mass times the velocity squared) of the object. All of that kinetic energy will have to be converted into some other kind of energy. All the energy for the 10-km wide objects hitting the Earth must go somewhere. Plus all the energy from the 1-km wide objects. Plus all the energy from every object that hits the Earth.Surely Faith does not consider kinetic energy a mere hypothesis?Maybe someone needs to calculate this in terms how many Hiroshima-sized bombs worth of energy per square kilometer of the Earth?

Yes. You have nailed it. Faith is, without realizing it, asking us to completely reject physics. These principles involved are extremely well-understood and have been extensively tested. They are the basis of much of the technology around us.

"The Bad Astronomer" is the title that Dr. Plait uses on his own web site and indeed is his user name on his site's bulletin board system.

Assuming the mass extinction of the Permian/Triassic was caused by a large impact, the odds are that we will never find a crater. The odds are that that impact hit in the ocean and the vast majority of the ocean floor existing at the time has been since been subjected to the ultimate crater eraser: subduction.

Also notice that the U.S. and Western Europe have more than their fair share of craters. This is due to the fact of where most geologists are at. Other places with concentrations of craters can also be explained by where geologists live/study.

Most definitely. Indeed that was clearly implied by the part of your post that I quoted.Lets summarize:The three factors that determine how many craters are known:1) Where they can could have existed for many millions of years
without getting destroyed.2) Where we have a least a chance of actually finding them if they were present.3) Where there geologists, especially academic geologists and graduate students, actually live and work. With emphasis in the areas where they done so the longests.