The Precious Gift Of Meteorites And Meteorite Impact Processes

This book intends to provide readers an open invitation to liberate themselves and leave aside caution from meteorites threat, which is widely spread over media to survey one of the brightness sides of meteorites; their offering to humans from the economic point of view.

Describes what meteors and micrometeors are, and describes the different types of meteorites, including lunar and martian meteorites, and how meteorites form craters.

Although about 70 percent of known terrestrial meteorite impacts involve sedimentary rocks, the response of such rock to hyper- velocity impact is not well understand. Evans (Missouri State U., Springfield) introduces a dozen papers from a session on impact geology at the 2004 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting. Arranged by rocks' stratigraphic order (oldest to youngest) in proximal and distal settings, papers study topics including: characterization of impact sediments; a model for impact cratering processes; development of breccias (rock composed of sharp fragments embedded in a fine- grained matrix) in the Chesapeake Bay impact structure; and the method of impact stratigraphy applied to aging of the K-T boundary associated with mass extinction. The well-illustrated volume is not indexed.

The face of the Moon we see today has been substantially etched by the effects of meteor impacts. Craters on the Moon are the result of ancient impacts with large meteorites - or small asteroid-like bodies - which produced both primary craters (where the meteorites hit) and secondary craters (where material hurled high above the surface crashed back down). Even some of the vast lunar "seas" - actually basalt plains from ancient volcanic eruptions - may have been the result of impacts that triggered lava outflows. The era of major impacts on the Moon may have passed, but lunar meteorites may well be the cause of what are known as Lunar Transient Phonomena ("LTP" or sometimes "TLP") flashes and puffs of gas or vaporized rock or dust that are observed on the Moon's surface. This book looks at the way the Moon has been shaped by meteorites, proposes lunar meteorites as the most likely cause of most LTPs and describes in practical detail how amateur astronomers can observe impacts on the Moon, past and current.

This book offers a new concept of the possible genesis of primary forms of living matter in the processes that accompany a hypervelocity meteorite impact onto the surface of a planet. The concept is based on results obtained in direct impact experiments and in laboratory simulations of hypervelocity impact processes involving the generation of a plasma torch, on bona fide data on the physical processes occurring in nature, and on the available material evidence of impact consequences on Solar system bodies. The concept can explain the possibility of the emergence of extraterrestrial life in the interiors of celestial bodies with extreme surface temperatures and moderate temperatures in the inner layers provided water is present.

What is unique about Richard Norton's book is that it is both a field guide to observing meteors, and also a field guide to locating, preparing and analysing meteorites. In addition to giving the reader information about observing techniques for meteors, this book also provides a fully detailed account of the types of meteorites, how and where to find them, how to prepare and analyse them. The book provides everything the amateur astronomer (or geologist!) needs to know about meteors and meteorites. It is thus the only complete book on the subject available at present.

An account of the present knowledge about meteorites, and a discussion of what they tell us about the evolution of the solar system and life on Earth. The book is aimed at a wide readership - including secondary students, beginning geologists and general readers.

"This volume contains a sizable suite of contributions dealing with regional impact records (Australia, Sweden), impact craters and impactites, early Archean impacts and geophysical characteristics of impact structures, shock metamorphic investigations, post-impact hydrothermalism, and structural geology and morphometry of impact structures - on Earth and Mars"--

The impact of extraterrestrial material on Earth can lead to effects traceable in both the geological and biological record. This study describes meteorite flux with time, covering small and large bodies capable of producing craters. The effects of impacts on the environment is also covered focusing specifically on the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event.

Thoroughly revised second edition of a highly successful book describing all aspects of meteorites.