Update, Developments, and the Deccan Traps

I have been very busy with class work and the like. Since my last post - I've written a set of instructions for measuring strike, dip, etc. with a Brunton. I collaborated on a website project. Yes, there's now a new website that I am partly responsible for - and it is about geological phenomena. It's just a simple site - a class assignment project. Truth to tell we all wanted it to have more "bells and whistles" - via cool links, a Google Earth download, and even a link to this blog - but, alas it was not meant to be. It just became impossible with other projects cramming for limited time and space in our busy schedules. It would have taken less than a couple hours to gather the links, etc. - but converting everything into the website would have likely taken longer and that was the final death nell for those plans. Fortunately, they were not essential for the assignment. We did it in basic HTML coding - much more difficult and time consuming than current methods. Embedding the Google Earth download into it might have been impossible anyhow. The site is aptly named - Environmental Phenomena in Geology - and can be accessed at www.pitt.edu/~ajh32/engcmp1101/.

I believe another good thing came from not adding at least the link to this blog. Some religious type has already seen the site and wrote a handwritten letter to me at my home address with their opinions regarding the phenomena covered in the site's content. This person claims that tsunamis and other potentially destructive natural forces are God's wrath for the sins of humanity. I could go into a massive commentary here about that but since religion is kind of off topic, I will refrain from doing so.

This reminds me of other previous scientists who were sent letters by religious types quoting scripture for all its worth - hopefully it's a foreshadowing of what's to come. If my blog was mentioned in the website - I'd be spending a lot of my time arguing with this woman instead of getting anything worthwhile done. If I believed that a dialogue would help this person see reason and reality, I wouldn't mind so much. Unfortunately folks like this are quite stubborn even when the obvious is put plain. The Mormons in my neighborhood steer clear of me - I think they've heard that they can't win an argument with me. I like to call these types - Sophists - after a group of similar men of ancient Greece. I have about as much respect for them as Socrates did - which is to say, not very much.

As for my research projects... First, I have a new one which may or may not be related to an old one. I went to the Dinosaur Hall Preview at the Carnegie - and while I was there I saw a short film about the Deccan Traps. I had heard snippets about them over the past few years and ran across them in a couple journal articles about the KT Event. They are a set of massive volcanoes located in India which had a massive eruption at the time of the extinction event. From what I've gathered so far on the topic, not many scientists are putting forth a possible correlation between the Chicxulub impact and this catastrophic eruption. The Traps are used as evidence of volcanism being the cause of the extinction - including the source of the Iridium anomaly. However, something the Carnegie paleontologists mentioned alluded to a cause and effect relationship between both events. I remember my physics and my knowledge of the Earth's interior.

Essentially, the Deccan Traps already existed prior to the KT Event. However, and timing is extremely important here, the severity of these End Cretaceous volcanics was catalyzed by an unusually high temperature heat source BELOW the already existent magma chamber and a massive up-warping of the Moho layer underlying the volcanoes. There is no known cause of such phenomena. Tectonic plate movement is currently held as the reason for the Traps strange behavior. Unfortunately, tectonics does not explain the extreme heating or the up-warping.

This is where the meteorite collision may shed some light on the answer. The object that hit Earth was massive enough to create a 3000 foot tsunami that literally travelled the globe. The crater still exists under the Yucatan Peninsula. The connection between both events is likely disturbing enough that scientists are sidestepping it - or just focusing on one event. Obviously, the locations of the two are the problem - one in India - the other in the Gulf of Mexico. How could they possibly be related?

Simple physics combined with the Earth's interior leads paleontologists to the conclusion that some sort of shockwave would have travelled through the Earth to the other side - exiting at the Deccan Traps site in India. It explains the heat source - outer core material carried along through the mantle - along an already existent mantle plume - to its final destination underneath the Deccan volcanoes. It also explains the major upwarping - from below - of the Moho layer.

The shockwave would not necessarily have traveled directly through the center of the planet. This would only have been the case if the object hit the Earth's surface perpendicularly - or straight down. It is already known that it actually collided at an oblique angle - thus sending the shockwave through the Earth's interior at the same angle. This means the shockwave would not have "exited" at the opposite side of the planet - but at some point along the surface that is in direct alignment with the initial impact/shockwave.

Well, I am getting a bit antsy to get on with my own research. And since I seem to always regret not running with a new idea when the topic hits me - I may as well start my newest strategy with this Deccan Traps project. I will mention the new strategy later - once I see if it's going to fly my way. If it works, I may have a new high speed method of getting my work moving along at a good clip. [all puns intended] Moving along...