Consensus opinion does hold a cosmic impact accountable for an enigmatic Pleistocene event - the Australasian tektite strewn field - despite the failure of a 60-year search to locate the causal astroblem. Ironically, a cosmic link to the Carolina bays is considered soundly falsified by the identical lack of a causal impact structure. Our conjecture suggests both these events are coeval with a cosmic impact into the Great Lakes area during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, at 786 ka ± 5 k.
Hundreds of cosmic impacts have been identified in the Earth’s geological record, yet only four are known to have an accessible tektite strewn field. The Australasian strewn field is the largest of those in aerial distribution (China to Madagascar to Antarctica), and estimated tektite mass (~60 billion tons). Although only 800,00 old (yesterday, geologically), it is the only one not paired with an astroblem.
The Australian tektites are composed of non-marine sedimentary strata lofted by the MPT Impact, suggesting the missing impact structure must be located on a continental surface. These unique constraints demand that a truly rare cosmic impact event is at play, one that does not fit the impact model used over the past 50 years.
Urey observed that:
In our proposed scenario, the ground flow is driven laterally away from the trench in a butterfly pattern, creating the Carolina bays along an annulus with an 800-1200 km radius. Tektite precursor sediments near the surface were heated to a molten state by direct contact with the impactor, and expelled vertically out at near escape velocity. Ejecta velocity was enhanced by the outflow of vaporized ice sheet. Australasian tektites are accepted to have transited outside the atmosphere and re-entered at near Earth’s escape velocity, mandating a loft time measured in hours. Despite this, most workers are invoking astroblemes within the strewn field, and do not consider the effects of the Earth’s rotation during an extended near-escape velocity transit.
A great scientific battle raged through the 1960s, as a influential group proposed that tektites were extraterrestrial, and likely from the Moon. Upon the return of Lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions, the concenscus opinion was moved soundly into the camp that proposed terrestrial impacts as a source. From our perspective, there is a wealth of data that supports a flight from “far away” - most of which is directly supportive of our Mid Pleistocene Impact location in North America. Sadly, once the debate was settled, ALL the supportive findings for a long transit time for the Australasian Tektites was “thrown out with the bathwater”, as the Lunar contingent lost respectability.
Chief among the Lunar advocates was John A. O’Keefe. He was a respected researcher in the Theoretical Studies Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1976 he published a book that set the case for a Lunar origin - Tektites and Their Origin. A web site hosts a web-formatted version of that text, created and operated by the dependents of Dr. O’Keefe. We encourage all interested in where the missing impact crater is to be familiar with the evidence for long flight times details in O’Keefe’s work. We include a link here for the web site: Tektites and Their Origin
Hundreds of cosmic impacts have been identified in the Earth’s geological record, yet only four are known to have an accessible tektite strewn field. The Australasian strewn field is the largest of those in aerial distribution (China to Madagascar to Antarctica), and estimated tektite mass (~60 billion tons). Although only 800,00 old (yesterday, geologically), it is the only one not paired with an astroblem.
The Australian tektites are composed of non-marine sedimentary strata lofted by the MPT Impact, suggesting the missing impact structure must be located on a continental surface. These unique constraints demand that a truly rare cosmic impact event is at play, one that does not fit the impact model used over the past 50 years.
Urey observed that:
The residual crater may be very difficult to identify; but it might well be looked for
while keeping some flexible ideas as to what its properties may be.
In our proposed scenario, the ground flow is driven laterally away from the trench in a butterfly pattern, creating the Carolina bays along an annulus with an 800-1200 km radius. Tektite precursor sediments near the surface were heated to a molten state by direct contact with the impactor, and expelled vertically out at near escape velocity. Ejecta velocity was enhanced by the outflow of vaporized ice sheet. Australasian tektites are accepted to have transited outside the atmosphere and re-entered at near Earth’s escape velocity, mandating a loft time measured in hours. Despite this, most workers are invoking astroblemes within the strewn field, and do not consider the effects of the Earth’s rotation during an extended near-escape velocity transit.
A great scientific battle raged through the 1960s, as a influential group proposed that tektites were extraterrestrial, and likely from the Moon. Upon the return of Lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions, the concenscus opinion was moved soundly into the camp that proposed terrestrial impacts as a source. From our perspective, there is a wealth of data that supports a flight from “far away” - most of which is directly supportive of our Mid Pleistocene Impact location in North America. Sadly, once the debate was settled, ALL the supportive findings for a long transit time for the Australasian Tektites was “thrown out with the bathwater”, as the Lunar contingent lost respectability.
Chief among the Lunar advocates was John A. O’Keefe. He was a respected researcher in the Theoretical Studies Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1976 he published a book that set the case for a Lunar origin - Tektites and Their Origin. A web site hosts a web-formatted version of that text, created and operated by the dependents of Dr. O’Keefe. We encourage all interested in where the missing impact crater is to be familiar with the evidence for long flight times details in O’Keefe’s work. We include a link here for the web site: Tektites and Their Origin