[meteorite-list] Scientists Excited About Potential ImpactCraterSite in...

[Gerald Flaherty]

What a GREAT Story!! Jerry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <kelly at bhil.com>
To: <MexicoDoug at aol.com>; <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>; 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Scientists Excited About Potential 
ImpactCraterSite in...


> Hi, Doug,
>
>    The article Ron cited was a newspaper article.  It contains what the 
> reporter
> understood and could remember and we all, sadly, know how that goes!  It's 
> only a little
> muddled, but I was impressed that the news in Springfield, Missouri, did 
> so relatively
> well.
>    You'd have to know Springfield, Missouri to appreciate that, in the 
> "cultural capitol"
> of the Ozarks.  I can be snide about the Mountain William ethnicity, being 
> one myself, down
> to the missing tooth, but nobody else better.
>    Go to the link:
> <http://geosciences.smsu.edu/faculty/Evans/impacts.htm>
>    If you move around through Evans' site, you'll see all the geological 
> evidence nicely
> presented.  He is the guy who has done the drilling and investigation that 
> brought
> attention (and proof of shocked quartz) to the impact site and why this 
> conference was
> there in the deep Missouri boonies.
>    As for the crinoid crowd, my old house, being elevated far above street 
> level, has a
> winding walk and stairway up to the door that was made from slabs from the 
> local quarry
> here on the Mississippi River's edge, hauled home by the two and threes by 
> my father in our
> old Ford in 1939.
>    These stones didn't just have fossils in them -- they are solid fossil, 
> a carpet of
> crinoids and all their former neighbors in the Ordovician seas of the 
> Mid-West.  I think
> there may be some Devonian interlopers in there too.
>    They were my geology text as a child and I spend many long summer hours 
> crawling up and
> down the steps with my nose to the crinoids and other assorted critters.
>    This course of study climaxed at the age of six when I took a small 
> sledge hammer and
> masonry chisel to the steps and removed a large and perfect Dinorthis from 
> them, much to
> the displeasure of my parent!
>    He was wise enough to take me to the quarry's trash pile and let me 
> select a few
> boxfuls of the most fossiliferous fragments to take home and disassemble 
> if I promised to
> leave the steps alone, which I did, so my crinoid walkway is still intact.
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> -----------------------------------------------
> MexicoDoug at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Sterling & Ron commented::
>>
>> > If a  meteorite created the structure, it hit some 300 million years 
>> > ago
>> > when  mid-Missouri was part of an ancient Jurassic Age sea. The strike
>> >  obliterated plant-like crinoids, Koeberl said.
>>
>> Ancient Jurassic Sea 300 million years ago?  ???????  I don't  think 
>> so...So,
>> what does the crinoidal limestone (Burlington Limestone) look  like
>> there...did it "obliterate" FOSSILIZED REMAINS or the CRINOID ANIMALS 
>> THEMSELVES...any
>> more info on this comment?  Is it an assumption or based  on some 
>> observation
>> of some crinoids...I thought their age was ~345 million  years old in 
>> that
>> locality...but the article mentions a strike 300 million years  old...and 
>> the
>> article refers to a Jurassic age...Jurassic is only 136-190  million 
>> years old
>> (in the Mesozoic), so the article seems to have left an  ambiguous
>> chronostratigraphy- and that limestone is from the Paleozoic 
>> Mississipian, or
>> pennsylvanian, I think...I hope someone could elucidate a bit  on 
>> this...Also, crinoids
>> are animals stuck with"plant-like" and the misnomer  "Sea Lilies", but 
>> look a
>> lot more like brittlestars, the feathery starfish in  many parts of the 
>> world,
>> just they frequently had long stems in prior ages that  now look like 
>> stacks
>> of coins when found fossilized.
>> Saludos, Doug
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list