Message no. 1

From:	Adam Getchell <acgetchell@*******.EDU>
Subject:	Really big explosions [was Re: Awakened Papacy and Middle East
Date:	Wed, 16 Sep 1998 02:45:03 -0700

>Let me see if this can help, and I'm sure Adam G. has more accurate
>answers...but 3 100 *megaton* nuclear weapons just sent earth spinning off
>it's axis. I know that 500 is a legendary number that would end our world...

Nature outstrips our puny explosions by far.

The Krakatoa eruption in 1883 that caused atypical weather in the globe
(snow in July in England, etc.) was estimated at ~200 megatons. About 20
cubic kilometers of rock was lofted into the atmosphere, and the blast was
audible in the Indian Ocean, 4500 kilometers from the site.

The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 caused "the year without summer" and
dumped 10 times as much material into the atmosphere.

Ancient eruptions in Yellowstone dumped 3000 cubic kilometers of lava onto
Idaho.

The ancient 1650BC Santorini explosion on the island of Thera was roughly
equivalent to Krakatoa. Interestingly enough, the archeologists discovered
that the inhabitants had been evacuated in advance of the ashfall, unlike
the Vesuvius eruption. Nonetheless, it did cause the collapse of the Minoan
civilization.

The Yucatan impact which formed the Chicxulub crater and is the "smoking
gun" for the extinction of dinosaurs vaporized 200,000 cubic kilometers of
the Earth's crust. Scenarios indicate that the enormous plume of nuclear
hell-fire was carried northwards by the winds into North America and across
the globe.

As a comparison, fragment G of Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter with an estimated
6,000,000 megatons. The Yucatan impact has been estimated to be 10,000 -
50,000 times larger.

>-K

--Adam

acgetchell@*******.edu
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent." --Sun Tzu