The Mid Atlantic Ridge forms a perfect circle arc centered on the Cape Verde Islands off the Northwestern coast of Africa. This is an example of the seismic circles produced by a meteor impact, and how our Earth was formed by them. |
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Introduction
This is about
the meteors, asteroids and comets that bombarded the Earth over the
last billion years or so, how those impacts created our geography, and
how man has used those land forms. What drove me on this research is
the increasing exactness in which these discoveries were made.
As a child, my family would take excursions in the car, to see the country and what was there. To keep me occupied, my Mother would give me the map, and she showed me how the different lines and symbols meant different things. From that, I learned to read and understand the maps, and this set me on a course of my life that I would read and collect all the maps that I could find of the area where I was, because they gave me a better understanding of the world around me.
In my
mid 20's I was living in the State of
Oregon and I came across a map of Oregon that was hand drawn, but done
so to a very high degree. As I studied it, I found what looked like a
large crater in the southeastern part of the State. Comparing that to
other maps I had, I could only get rough 'Maybes' from them for
confirmations of the idea. Then one day I ran into a much older man, a professional geologist (whose name is long ago gone),
who I thought
would have some insight into this, and I queried him on the idea. His
response was that there were no craters on the Earth, and the reason it
looked like one to me was because the map was hand drawn. |
Then
I started to see how man has been
using the land forms created by these seismic circles, and so the
research continues. Hopefully some of you will use these studies as a template, and begin a search for discoveries of your own. There is still much to be done. And when you see those geographical features falling exactly on that perfect circle, you will say as I did "No Way!", "Are you serious?", "That's incredible!" Then by studying more of the evidence you will see that yes, it is serious. Yes, it is incredible. Our world did came to be by Catastrophic Impact, and the remains of those impacts, those Seismic Circles, are what formed the geography we have today. |
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Until recently all of our observations of the Earth were made on the ground. Geographers measure the surface of the Earth and plot their findings on paper, drawing maps of all sorts. While these maps are necessary and useful, using them as a basis for the Earth sciences today is problematic. Maps are drawings of what we understand to be there, rather than the real thing, and the various projections used to draw the surface of a nearly spherical Earth on a flat sheet of paper distorts the dimensions, or cuts the geography into pieces, leading sometimes to questionable conclusions. Then came aerial surveys, photography from five or six miles up. From these are drawn maps of excellent quality which are good for property analysis, roads and land use planning. But even with these we cannot see enough of our planet to get a good look at it, as many of the features of our Earth are 10s or 100s or 1,000s of miles across. Geologists searching the ground use microscopes, gas chromatography, radiation, spectral analysis or other means to analyze what they found on or near the surface. Sometimes they find shatter cones, microscopic diamonds or iridium layers and this is evidence that a meteor impacted the Earth there. This evidence is then compared with other findings to confirm the impact. |
To understand our Earth, we need to see it as the sphere that it is, and we need to be able to see it at distances where the geographic features can be seen in their entirety, and in relation to the surrounding area. And, we need views that are as free of clouds as possible. Satellite imagery is the only way to do this. Google Earth has made this possible. They have assembled the imagery of a myriad of organizations and companies, which have been filled with an untold number of highly skilled scientific people, all with the quest to understand our Earth better. They have provided us with a tool from which we can see our entire planet in its' entirety, down to fine geographic detail. With this new tool comes new understandings of our Earth. |
![]() India was hit by many meteors The red spots in the image above denote the center of impact for some of the larger ones. Vlick on the image to investigate this farther. |
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While it is
certain that the crust of
the Earth is shifting in places, which is the cause of earthquakes,
this is something quite different than the idea of Pangaea and
continental plates floating around. These geographic circles provide
evidence that
contradicts those ideas. Many of these seismic circles are hundreds and
sometimes thousands of miles in radius. Some of them span continents, a
few circle the globe and sometimes the concentric circles from
individual impacts are visible on six continents, Antarctica being too
ice covered for analysis. Had the continents been drifting, then
parts of these circles would be moved. Yet the circles are intact. |
The Beginning The idea of an
impact is typically a
crater like we see on the Moon. This image of Tycho Crater on the Moon
is generally of how we think of them, as a depressed area with a circle
of steep walls surrounding it, and a central peak. This is only the
case here on Earth sometimes. |
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The actual impact site, the center, may be round or deformed depending on many variables. What was the shape of the object? Was it round, or perhaps some other shape. How did it hit? Straight down or at an angle? Was it a hard rock asteroid, or a dust ball comet? There are many variables, but more often than not, the center is flat, perhaps a little higher or lower than the surrounding area, but generally flat. On some occasions the impact may raise a center peak, or make a deep impression, but most often the center is not much different than the surrounding area, as the impact blasts everything flat. These level areas are then excellent areas for towns and cities to be built, such as Mexico City, Tokyo or Moscow. In the image at right, the Ébano Impact, is on the northwestern border of the State of Veracruz with San Luis Potosi State, Mexico. This impact is on the eastern coastal plane of Mexico. The soil there being relatively soft and wet was easy to penetrate deeply with a high speed, hard asteroid. The asteroid itself ended up deep underground, leaving the surface as a depression where the lake formed, with a raised center area, and low hills surrounding it. |
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Often times the
object may simply go
splat, blowing the material of its making out across the Earth in all
directions, and leaving little evidence of its existence other than a
few inches of soil. These impacts would likely be made up of loosely
packed meteors. Gravity on meteors in outer space is minuscule in
comparison to the Earth. Therefore the meteor may be nothing more than
a dust ball that just adds a bit of soil to the Earth when it hits. |
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There are
many kinds of
impacts. When we look at them we must consider what the object must
have been. On one extreme, it may have been formed from a solar flare
that blew heavy metals out into space at tremendous speeds. These
metals fused together by solar heat, and then tempered by the near zero
degrees Kelvin of the deepest expanses of space, could be the hardest
material imaginable. This type of object at incredible velocities would
be like a bullet into the Earth, penetrating deeply leaving only a
minimum crater, but perhaps sending out a shock wave that circles the
impact site at hundreds of miles distance. |
Craters of the Moon National Monument. This impact was one of the hard, high velocity impacts that punched a hole in the Earth, from which the lava flowed on a number of occasions. |
The shock waves may form a circular rim of hills, or they form valleys lower than the surrounding areas. Hills and valleys may appear on the same circle, this is because it depends on what the wave is moving through. If the wave moves through a hard rock area, it may uplift the rock to form hills or mountains. If the wave moves through a softer area, it may just shake up the ground. This softer area leads to erosion and rivers then form there. This is why many of the rivers flow where they do, and why many lakes, mountains and coastlines are where they are, and shaped as they are. This is the case for the Tamiahua impact site on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, pictured left, where the Rio Panuco defines the northwest edge, and the Rio Tuxpan defines the southern edge. An examination of the image at left will show other smaller impacts, some of them are marked, most of them are not. As each impact is marked, the formation of the land becomes more and more organized, so that the majority of land forms can be ascribed to one or more impacts. By defining the land this way, then the effects of the various other geological forces can be more easily recognized and understood. Since most impacts do not leave craters, it is more accurate to call these Impact Sites. |
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It is also the form of the impact at El Perdido, Mexico that blasted rays over half the country. |
Asteroids coming in at various angles, speeds and densities combine to
form our geography. The image to the right of the Eye of the Sahara is
an interesting assemblage of impacts. It is in Mauritania in the
western Sahara Desert in Africa |
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The Center of Impact at the Navajo Impact Site, Arizona-New Mexico. |
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The waves form over long distances similar to the Rayleigh wave form shown above in a thin gold film on glass. |
Then comes the problem of size. How big are these things? Considering the Earth to be 8,000 miles in diameter, and that the formula for the volume of a sphere is: Then 4 /3 x 3.14159 x 4000 x 4000 x 4000 = the volume of the Earth = 268,082,346,667 cubic miles. That
means that if
the average size of an object that hit the Earth was one cubic mile,
But now... The probability is that the largest impacts came first, as larger objects have more gravitational attraction, and that was a very long time ago. What is left for us to see on the surface are with a few exceptions, the remains of much smaller impacts. These impacts generally smash themselves to bits as they hit, throwing the material of their making out over the surface in every direction and adding a new layer to the Earth. Or they bury themselves in the Earth. However the shock waves they produce, in those expanding circles, deformed the land to make the mountains, hills, river valleys, coastlines and more for hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles in radius. When we look at the Earth for evidence of impacts, we need to be thinking on this large scale. We should not be aghast should someone suggest an impact site of 1,000, 2,000 or 5,000 miles diameter. In fact, we should expect them.
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In the image at the left, the lower
Red River joins the Mississippi River Delta and aligns perfectly with
the shock wave from the Adirondack
Impact in New York State at 1315 miles
distance (2,110
kilometers). Then at the top left of the image the alignment
disappears. This shows the difference between softer soils, and harder
packed earth to the north. Thus what we see are parts of the circle and
we must connect the dots. |
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The more
alignments that follow
the circle, and the more concentric circles found, the more evidence of
the impact. It may be possible to find one or two circular alignments
from any point you want due to chance. However to find specific
circles, and then again to find concentric circles, brings the
probability of chance closer to zero with each alignment found. Finding
the alignments that follow these guide lines demonstrates the proof of
impact with increasing certainty. |
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Above a large impact in North America formed the South and Southeastern
coast of the United States, and the Southwestern coasts of Mexico. |
The Columbia River George is a break in the Cascade Mountain Range. It was caused by the shock wave from an impact 220 miles North. That impact caused Mt Baker, a volcano in northern Washington State, to form. |
It is not
unusual to see the
largest alignments at great distances from the point of impact, with
smaller alignments before and after. This may be a clue as to the speed
of impact, density of the meteor and other specifics. Often, the
alignments seem to reverberate from one side to the other, such that a
major alignment will be seen on one side of the impact with one ring,
and then on a different side of the impact with the next ring. This is
because of what the wave encounters as it passes. |
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The larger hits have the
potential to crack
the outer shell of the Earth. Some had the power to shape the
continental plates. A knowledge of where these hits were, can help us
define the cracks in the Earth's surface and the various shifting land
masses we have. This would be a basic area of study for people involved
in the science of earthquakes and plate tectonics. |
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![]() The Ninety East Ridge is a sea mount in the Indian Ocean. It runs approximately North/South for 5,000 kilometers along the 90 degree East longitude line. It is part of a series of seismic circles that emanate from an ancient meteor impact 9,575 kilometers to the East. |
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These seismic waves expand across and through the Earth as depicted at left from the seismic wave program of Alan Jones. The graphic shows the waves from the 2002 Alaska Earthquake as they circle the Earth. The graphic shows surface (S) waves and body (B) waves. The surface waves travel along the surface of the Earth, similar to ocean waves. The body waves travel through the interior of the Earth and reflect from the inner core. As the waves expand and echo, at times they come together at the surface. When they do the increased amplitude of the combined waves often cracks the crust of the Earth causing long lines of varying geographic formations across the surface. This is the reason that the seismic circles form at various intervals, rather than every step of the way, as with ocean waves. Nearer to the center of impact, where the body waves have not had time to reflect back, a combination of other waves is responsible, such as a Rayleigh wave and a compression wave, each which starts at a different time and travel at different speeds. |
The Flatirons, west of Boulder Colorado. These upturned rock faces demonstrate the power of the impact, 80 miles to the East.
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Should we be worried about large impacts today? Our Earth came together violently. Considering that these impacts create shock waves that form mountains and river valleys as they expand, and that the difference in elevations between them is often hundreds, if not thousands of feet, a hit by one of these would be like a circular tidal wave of solid earth, hundreds or thousands of feet high, expanding and reverberating at tremendous speeds. The shock waves may expand for thousands of miles. Entire cities would be reduced to unrecognizable rubble. Plant life could re-root, but anything else that walks, crawls or swims would be devastated. As far as mass extinctions are concerned, noxious gas plumes or dust clouds that blocked out the sun may have happened, but after a land wave 500 feet high passed over the continent, gas and dust clouds would not have much significance. And it looks like there were many, many of these impacts. It must be understood that our Earth, as big as it is to us, is no more than a tiny speck in the universe, and there are many things out there far bigger than us. Just to orbit the Earth requires a velocity of about 15,000 miles per hour. These space rocks may be traveling at 25,000 to 50,000 miles per hour and more. The energy of a medium sized asteroid hitting the Earth would be far greater than anything man has seen before. The impact pictured to the left of the Dinamita Crater near Durango, Mexico shows circular seismic wave alignments that deformed the ground at 950 miles (1,525 km) distance and beyond. It is likely that if this asteroid hit today, every building within 950 miles of it and possibly farther would fall. These things make earthquakes at 9 and above on the Richter scale look like kindergarten play time. Such was the formation of our Earth! |
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As the Earth
was formed by a
bombardment of various objects, when they hit, often times they blew
the material that made them in all directions to form sedimentary
layers, one after another which built up the planet. Every impactor was
as different as the universe that it passed through, and so each layer
is as different as that which formed it. |
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North America | Asia | Europe | Africa | Australia |
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United States | Canada | Mexico | | |||
Adirondack
Mountains |
Baffin
Island |
Chicxulub |
Himalayan Impact |
Gibraltar With a video! |
Cape
Verde Islands | Australia Sixteen major impacts and every one of them hit the Earth upside down Amazing stuff!
KMZ attached. |
Barringer
Crater |
British Columbia Impact formed parts of the eastern
U. S. |
Dinamita KMZ file here to open in Google Earth, Clickable placemarks. Explore many full circles around the globe. |
Eurasia
A ring of Volcanoes and more |
The
Eye
of the Sahara A Double Hit | ||
Navajo A Huge Dust Ball with Seismic Circles around the Earth |
Alberta Curved the Coast Range |
Ebano |
The Ninety East Ridge A 5000 km long sea mount kmz file included! |
The formation of the southern coast of Finland
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Great Rift Valley Seismic waves cacked the Earth. | New Zealand kmz file included! |
El Perdido |
This impact defines the west coast of India
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English Channel |
Kilimanjaro the impact the volcano the mountain | |||
Yellowstone |
Bermuda |
Tamiahua |
The Mariana Trench Deepest in the World |
Mogadishu | ||
Craters of the Moon |
Isla Guadalupe | Indonesia The Big Three |
Lake Victoria | |||
The Flatirons Boulder, Colorado |
Isla Socorro | Tunguska 1908 Russia |
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Aral Sea Many Formidable Formations Formed by this impact |
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With many impacts shown and 10 inpacts detailed with
KMZ files attached |
© Terry Westerman 2012, 2015