Origin of Asteroids

I don't know, but my past experiences tell me that even the hardest hard-core creos usually try to hide their crackpot ideas from the world and only express them to their fellow creos. They usually try to emphasize the less obvious crackpot ideas and only say the really obvious crackpot stuff in whisper.

I don't know. It just seems too crackpot to be the real thing.

This asteroid crap is part of the theories Dr. Walt Brown who is probably most famous (i.e. laughed at) here at EvC for his Hydroplate Theory.

There have been several threads devoted to his ideas in the 18 months I've been here.

Actually now I come to think of it I can't believe you don't know that Lam - are you playing some sort of Devil's Advocate? On the other hand maybe you don't read the Geology & The Flud Forum.

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I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

I'm not playing around. I just find it odd that creos actually loudly promote something like this. They usually try to appear less idiotic.

There's not too much introductory data online, because it's not really something too interesting to people who don't study meteorites. Essentially it goes something like this- troilite (FeS)forms via the gas-solid reaction of iron and hydrogen sulfide:
Fe + H2S --> FeS + H2
The thermodynamics of this equation are such that the reaction occurs at ~750 K (500 C). The reverse reaction (loss of sulfur gas) occurs a bit higher, around 900 K, due to some other thermodynamic factors, mainly eutectic melting. Analogous arguments can be made for clays and magnetite. All of the reaction temperatures are much lower than Brown's quartz melting.

There are a lot of other problems with Brown's asteroid nonsense, and I'd think the site was a spoof too if the guy wasn't so serious.

Here's a Science article by Brearley that provides a quick bit of info:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/285/5432/1380

It is very much like something I was taught in Bible College, only more highly developed and to a different end.

What I was taught (re: an underground body of water) was in an attempt to explain how the earth could be uniformly warm. To wit: the water circulated from equator to poles and back. I recall wanting to see evidence of this circulatory system but then, it was presented as a speculation not as a scientific hypothesis. That makes it considerably different from what this fellow is trying to do.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

That link requires membership but thanks for trying.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

That link requires membership but thanks for trying.

Not membership, just free registration: everything from '96 to a year before today is open access. http://www.pnas.org/ is even a better deal - they're free from 1915.

Thank you for that.

minnemooseus writes: Per An Introduction to the Rock Forming Minerals by Deer, Howie, & Zussman, the ultimate melting point of SiO2 is 1730o Celsius, which (if I did the conversions correctly) equals 3115o Fahrenheit.

That 1730 Celsius number was for a high pressure crystal form of SiO₂ (Beta-Cristobalite). My guess is that temperature was such at much higher than atmospheric pressure. The previous mention of 1600 Celsius may well be correct for SiO₂ at atmospheric pressure.

I tried and failed to find a good online silica temperature/presure phase diagram. If one wishes to venture into some highly technical material, you can look at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0406/0406192.pdf.

One also may find some amusement in consulting this Scirus.com search, for "silica phase diagram". That is where I came up with the previous link.

Moose

Hi, Doc. Just ran across this message, and it prompted recollection of a recent report that the ocean current that drives the warming Gulf Stream flow to Britain has decreased by 30% in 12 years.

By the way, no, I don't think the web site is a spoof. That extremity is one possible fate for the True Believer.

doctrbill writes: What I was taught (re: an underground body of water) was in an attempt to explain how the earth could be uniformly warm. To wit: the water circulated from equator to poles and back.

Just so, but underwater instead:

FirstScience.com writes: The beneficial aspects of ocean currents have long been known. For countries on the east side of the Atlantic, winters are a balmy holiday compared with the same latitudes on the west: the frigid coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. It's a reminder that "weather" is not just a matter of the Sun's heat affecting the Earth's atmosphere. The world's interconnected oceans can store up solar heat in one part of the globe in one season, and invisible rivers in the ocean can transport the warmth thousands of kilometres to another part of the globe and deliver it in another season. In the case of the North Atlantic, heat is carried northward and eastward by the Gulf Stream. This current warms the coast evenly through the year, in winter as well as summer. Averaged over a year, the Gulf Stream provides Western Europe with a third as much warmth as the Sun does.

Alas for dreams of fine British vintages! The warm years may be passing...

mediacynic.com, summarizing The Guardian, writes: Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago. The current, which drives the Gulf Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. The researchers found that the circulation has weakened by 6m tonnes of water a second. Previous expeditions to check the current flow in 1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998. The decline prompted the scientists to set up a £4.8m network of moored instruments in the Atlantic to monitor changes in the current continuously.

I guess my point is that folks will engage in fantastical theorizing in a field they remain willfully ignorant of, but then refuse to accept the authentic cautionary tale that ocean science and climatology can tell them.

The evidence-based notion that planetary-scale human impacts on the earth will have planetary-scale consequences?

Bad science, driven by Godless, politically motivated environmental radicals.

The evidence-free notion that planetary-scale cataclysms could leave no planetary-scale signs?

Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket...

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What I refuse to accept is your insistence that your beliefs about your beliefs constitute evidence in support of your beliefs.

side topic rising 2 points off the stbd bow .... thar she blows!!!

the ocean current that drives the warming Gulf Stream flow to Britain has decreased by 30% in 12 years.

this slowing down would also mean that more temperature is lost from the current while along the east coast, warming us more, and that more warm temperature water is backed up in the hurricane belt?

might need a new topic.

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It would make a good topic, RAZD, but I'm clawing my way out of both a parainfluenza and culture shock from a week in Texas--maybe later.

Like the affect of warming on hurricane intensity, the magnitude of the Gulf Stream changes is greater than most models predicted.

While I don't push environmental doomsday scenarios, there are recent indications that our wake-up calls will come faster and louder than expected.

On good days, I want to try harder to resist the globe-despoiling political alliance of Profits-and-Prophets; on bad days, I want the earth to scrub itself clean of us and start over.

Today is a medium bad day.

To paraphrase Nirvana, we're so stupid, and contagious.

Back to the OP, it just occurred to me: the Main Belt asteroids all orbit direct - in the same direction as the Earth. In Walt's scenario, they were "launched" by a huge explosion along the earth-girdling mid-oceanic ridge. How did they all end up in similar orbits with differences of at least 50,000 miles per hour of orbital velocity at launch? The ones that took off at 6 AM local time would be going at earth's orbital velocity plus escape velocity (25,000 mph), while the ones leaving the opposite side of the earth at the same time would be going orbital minus escape.

'Course, this is mighty like worrying about how many invisible pink unicorns can stage their own Kentucky Derby around the edge of a pore on the butt of a manticore.....

Hello Omnivorous one,

I agree. We have seen this brand of misguided sincerity many times before in this forum.

You introduce an interesting topic. Saw something on television recently which addressed the relationship between ocean temperature and hurricane strength. I don't know if the info is debatable but if it is, I would like to see a discussion of it.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

What a wonderfully poignant insight. I had not even considered the question of orbital mechanics.

Correct me if I am wrong but couldn't he counter this argument by suggesting that those rocks which didn't meet the velocity requirements simply fell back to earth or became otherwise lost in space?

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -