Holes in the ground

From Wikipedia we read that ‘Crater’ may refer to:

In landforms:

• Impact crater, caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet
• Volcanic crater or caldera, formed by volcanic activity
• Subsidence crater, from an underground (usually nuclear) explosion
• A maar crater, a relief crater caused by a phreatic eruption or explosion
• pit crater, a crater that forms through sinking of the surface and not as a vent for lava
• Crater lake
• Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surface.

Here we see a small Crater field on Mars. The largest of the small craters you see here is about 500 meters across. The consensus is that they are all impact craters. The problems we have here is in the uniform condition of the craters, and their sizes, and distribution.

If, as is assumed, impact events do indeed happen at a steady rate, and these impacts all happened one at a time, over a long period, then we should see some variation of condition from the earliest, to the most recent. Also, they are concentrated into fields of craters surrounded by large areas with no craters at all. If they fell one at a time, then they should be evenly distributed all over entire the surface of the planet.  They could only be in a concentrated cluster like this, in exactly the same condition, if they all fell at the same time, in a meteoroid swarm.

On Mars, it is assumed without question that we are looking at impact craters. But here on Earth, if we see the same fractal distribution of craters, the tendency is to deny that so many impact craters could happen in a terrestrial surface; much less that a large cluster of small fragments could hit all at the same time.

Our astronomers tell us that a meteoroid swarm of small fragments is a more probable event, than a large, solid bolide. Yet most geologists agree that such things cannot be…. At least, not here on Earth.

But we are orbiting around in the very same shooting gallery as Mars. And in central, and eastern, New Mexico, there are thousands of  small craters. All in the very same geologic condition. They are a bit small compared to the ones we see above. But the New Mexico craters have exactly the same fractal distribution as some of the crater fields on Mars. And except for differences in weathering that can be accounted for by different atmospheric conditions, they are in the very same geologic condition.

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If those in New Mexico didn’t form by impact there is no reason to assume those in the images from Mars did either.

Until we’ve been there on the ground.

More New Mexico Craters

Much of the academic community assume that a typical catastrophic impact event consists of a single, large bolide. When asked what he thought of the possibility of a cluster impact event of smaller fragments, NASA’s David Morrison expressed doubt. He said he thought such an event would be “highly unlikely”. And since he’s the senior scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, his views are representative of mainstream planetary science.

But ongoing inventories of the objects orbiting in the Taurid complex are bringing data to light that indicates that, in fact, the last extinction level impact event in the northern hemisphere was probably the work of a very large cluster of debris from a large disintegrating comet, not the kinetic impact of a single, solid bolide.

And in a 2009 paper by W.M. Napier, and titled Comets, Catastrophes, and Earth’s History we read ,

“The evidence that an exceptionally large (50-100 km) comet entered a short-period, Earth- crossing orbit during the upper Paleolithic, and underwent a series of disintegrations, now seems compelling. The idea is not new, but it has been strengthened by an accumulation of evidence from radar studies of the interplanetary environment, from the LDEF experiment, from numerical simulations of the Taurid complex meteoroids and ‘asteroids’, and from the latter’s highly significant orbital clustering around Comet Encke.

The disintegration of this massive Taurid Complex progenitor over some tens of thousands of years would yield meteoroid swarms which could easily lead to brief, catastrophic episodes of multiple bombardment by sub-kilometer bolides, and it is tempting to see the event at ~12,900 BP as an instance of this. Whether it actually happened is a matter for Earth scientists, but from the astronomical point of view a meteoroid swarm is a much more probable event than a 4 km comet collision.”

If Professor Napier is correct, we should expect to find the planetary scarring of a geologically recent super cluster impact event of smaller fragments somewhere in North America.

And in the world according to Google Earth, that planetary scarring does indeed exist. And a good case can be made that New Mexico, and West Texas, were a couple of the major impact zones. But in spite of posting pictures of these ‘enigmatic depressions’ for a couple of years now, none of the mainstream scientists I’ve written to seems to be interested in talking about them. And I haven’t been able to find evidence that anyone has done any real science at any of them either.

I struggle with the mystery of how they can be so dramatically obvious in satellite imagery, and yet,  no one has gotten curious about them.

Their existence plays hell with the idea that we can estimate the age of a planetary surface by the number of craters we can see in a satellite image.

Even if they can be proven to have formed by something besides an impact event, we still have a problem. In satellite images they are visually indistinguishable from impact craters. If such geologic features can be shown to have a non-impact origin here on Earth, then what does that say for the very same geomorphology elsewhere in the solar system? Or the idea that you can estimate the age of a planetary surface by counting them?

Which would have the most profound effect on planetary science?

A series of  large crater fields in North America describing the simultaneous impacts of thousands of small comet fragments, with thousands of sports stadium sized craters all the same late Pleistocene age?

Or proof that there is an active geologic process at work in the solar system that can produce thousands of circular depressions with raised rims, that are visually identical to impact craters?

If they are indeed impact craters, then they have a very profound effect on impact threat assessment. And they represent the cusp of a major paradigm shift in impact research. As we move away from thinking of a catastrophic impact event as being the result of the kinetic impact of a single solid body,  to thinking of multiple fragment impact storms of mostly air-bursting smaller fragments.

Are they only sinkholes? Personally, I doubt it. Because if they are, and if any given sinkhole is only part of a larger cave system beneath, then they represent the surface manifestations of a giant, interconnected, cave system stretching across two states, and covering tens of thousands of square miles. It would have be the largest known cave system on Earth. And again, they are visually indistinguishable from impact craters.

If they weren’t formed by impact, then we can no longer assume that identical looking geologic features on the moon, and Mars, were formed by impact either, until we have been there ‘on the ground’.

No one’s talking about them yet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep pointing at them.

Here’s a few more.

The map coordinates, view height, and scale, are in the info bar at the bottom of each image.

If you’d like to see more, I’ve put a few other places in a photo gallery called Crater Field