QUAKE OR METEORITE

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

QUAKE OR METEORITE

THE RECENT DISTURBANCE

(By

Rev. B. Dudley,

F.R.A.S.)

According to a cable message it is thought by some scientists that the socalled earthquake of November 21 was really due to the impact of a gigantic meteorite, and not to a seismic disturbance. This is not at all improbable. Enormous cosmic objects have occasionally reached the earth’s surface. Although meteors and comets being often the debris left behind by the latter, the great size of some meteorites makes it unlikely that they can always be cometary wreckage. It has been suggested that these exceptionally large masses, weighing several tons, are rather portions of celestial bodies which have been broken up under the influence of tidal , strain.

The Canyon . Diablo meteorites of which nearly 400 are preserved in the United States Museum, are all members of a great fall which took place in the neighbourhood of the Coon Mountain meteor crater. These meteorites were picked up from among thousands of others which lie strewn concentrically around that mountain (situated in norther Arizona) to a distance of about 5 miles. The mountain itself is really a meteor crater, consisting of a huge round hole about 600 feet in depth and more than 1000 feet in' diameter. It was formed, there is every reason to believe, by the impact of a meteorite, probably within a few thousand years ago. Something like 400 million tons of limestone and sandstone rock were shattered and pulverised by the concussion of this mass, weighing several hundred thousand tons.

This is the largest meteorite fall ever recorded in the history of mankind, and must have shaken the planet to its core, causing a great “earthquake” indeed. The impacting mass has never been found, notwithstanding the boring operations which have been carried out over a period of many years. D. M. Barrington has shown conclusively that this enormous depression was produced by a huge meteorite. No expert is now willing to support, as against this explanation, the theory of a volcanic origin. Though not “recorded” in the written annuals of the human race, the event stands indelibly registered in the phenomenon we see. The Hopi Indians hold the crater in superstitious reverence, and pay- visits to it in order to obtain quantities of the powdered rock which abounds on its outer slopes. This rock, which consists of minute grains of sand gorged out of the hole and which is certainly the result of shock, they use in their religious observances. They believe that the gods descended to earth here, and that the crater was one of their dwelling places. Another great meteorite fall took place at Siberia in 1908 (June 30). Information respecting this event was slow in filtering its way through to the outer world owing io the isolation of the place and the generally disturbed state of the country for a quarter of a century afterwards. The place is some 400 miles north of the Trans-Siberian railway, and far removed from any centre of population. Expedition, parties have, however, been able to ascertain many of the .particulars, and reached the actual spot where the meteorite fell. One result of the mighty bolt from the blue as it struck earth was to fell the trees within a radius of many miles. These were found stripped bare of branch and bark and lying on the ground with their tops turned away from the place where the concussion occurred, only a few remaining here and there, although the entire /valley was formerly covered by woods. The celestrial firebrand had moreover burnt up a. great deal of the forest, everything Raving been scorched immediately around the centre of the spot.

. Professor Kulik, leader of the first expedition party to reach the scene, gives the story told him by a peasant residing nearby. “During the early morning,” it runs, “I had been sitting on the porch with my face to the north, and at this moment, in the north-west direction, ‘ appeared a kind of fire which produced such a heat that I could not stand it. And this overheated miracle I guess had a size of at least a mile. I had only time to lift up my .eyes and is disappeared. Then it became dark, and then followed an explosion which threw me down from the porch about six feet or more. But I heard a sound as if all houses would tremble and move away. Many windows were broken, a large strip of ground was torn away, and at the warehouse the iron bolt was broken.” Other testimony was to the effect that herd-owners lost by the fire associated with the fall large numbers of cattle. In some instances not even the least traces of their carcases were found; storehouses were ruined, everything being burned or melted save a few buckets.. The party was soon' convinced that an. event of the most extraordinary kind must have happened to cause the results' everywhere apparent. The impact was evidently so terrific as to bury the mass, or .masses that struck the earth at this "point to a very great depth, and it must have been a missive of enormous dimensions—the greatest thing of the kind in modern times, though not comparable with the meteorite in Arizona.

There are other well-known instances of great meteorites on a smaller scale. For example, Peary shipped and brought back with him from Greenland a meteorite the. weight of which is 36,J tons. Another such object was found lying on the plain near Bacubirito, Mexico. This weighed 20 tons. The 24-ton meteorite picked up at Chupederos, Mexico, and the Willamette (Oregon) monster of 15 tons-are also well-known.. Lying where it fell in South Africa, and therefore less known, is a great meteorite which is estimated to be from 50 tons to 70 tone in weight

In some instances meteorites have been seen to' fall in great numbers, as many as several hundred thousand individual stones making their descent, the area covered being several square miles in extent. One of the most remarkable cases of the kind happened at L’Aigle, France, in 1803. Here between two and three thousand stones rained down over a region of six and two-tenths miles in diameter, their aggregate weight being not less than 751bs. The actual descent took place in broad daylight, and was attended by violent explosions which lasted for 5 or 6 minutes and were heard for a distance of 75 miles. There fell at Ensisheim, in Alsaer, the earliest meteorite still preserved the date and place of fall of which are known. This occurred on November 7, 1492. Since then examples of meteorites seen to make then- plunge into the earth and afterwards picked up have been quite frequent. Several falls have been accompanied with loud explosions and quakings of the earth. There is therefore ample room for the theory that the recent earthquake was caused by meteorite impact.