Friday, May 28, 2004

Death by Asteroid or "Verneshots"?

"The idea that mass extinctions are caused by impacts from outer space has been one of the best marketed pieces of popular science—it has even inspired Hollywood movies. It would be ironic, indeed, if Dr Becker’s Australian crater, on the face of things such eloquent evidence for the extraterrestrial nature of mass extinctions, turned out to be a crucial nail in that theory’s coffin."

The above is the concluding paragraph from an article in The Economist titled “Bang and blame." The article introduced me to the term “Verneshots,” which, in a nod to Jules Verne, describes the possibility of volcanic action being able to launch large rocks into space, which is part of a theory which postulates that asteroids did not wipe out the dinosaurs, but large scale volcanic activity wiped out the dinosaurs.  It is an interesting concept.

Via Fred Lapides.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/28 at 03:08 AM
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