Sally Stephens offers a primer on asteroid collisions with Earth.

A Cosmic trail with destruction in its wake by Nick Nuttall is an article from "The Times" of London, May 24, 1990. Nuttall interviews Victor Clube, who discusses the danger of impacts, especially from the Taurid stream.

The Fall and Rise of Catastrophism is based upon a lecture by Trevor Palmer given at Nottingham Trent University on April 25, 1996. Palmer discusses the history of orthodox catastrophist thinking, from its low point in the middle of the last century, to the current neocatastrophist revival.

Horizon - Hunt for the Doomsday Asteroid offers the transcript of a television program about the impact danger. The program included snippets from interviews with scientists like Victor Clube, Gene Shoemaker, and Duncan Steel.

Klet Observatory in Southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic operates a search program for minor planets and performs follow-up astrometry of NEOs and other unusual minor planets and comets.

Meteor Defense by Bob Kobres discusses possible methods for deflecting incoming objects.

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission intends to rendezvous with the asteroid Eros, the largest of the near Earth asteroids

Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) by S. Pravdo at NASA/JPL has observed almost 7,000 near-earth objects, over half of which were previously unknown.

The NEO Page (near-Earth objects) page of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Center (MPC) offers

Planetary Defense Watch Advisory Page offers information on impacts, possible defenses, publications, and a list of scientists working on the impact danger.

On the lighter side, The Worldwide Institute for the Preservation of Everything offers some thoughts about a Protective satellite force shield ,

Report of the Near-Earth Objects Survey Working Group from NASA's Near-Earth Object Survey Working Group discusses a program to "discover, characterize, and catalog within ten years (to the extent practicable), the potentially threatening comets and asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter."

Spaceguard Canada , "The University of Victoria/ Dominion Astrophysical Observatory near-Earth object astrometry program is designed to provide real-time astrometric confirmation, recovery, and follow-up of newly-discovered Earth approaching objects (comets and asteroids)."

The Spaceguard Foundation is an association aimed at the protection of Earth's environment against bombardment by comets and asteroids. The association was officially set up on March 26, 1996 in Rome, Italy.

Spaceguard UK discusses the June 1996 proposal concerning the establishment of a coordinating office to study the threat posed to the United Kingdom by the possibility of an impact by an asteroid or a comet. The proposal was sent to the Minister for Science and Technology and to the Secretary of State for Defence.

The Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona "is an ongoing research project whose ultimate goal is to survey the Solar System to completion. One of our primary goals is to develope a system to automatically discover the hazardous asteroids and comets which can impact Earth, causing widespread devastation."

Target: Earth by Peter Jedicke discusses the impact danger and possible defense strategies.

Impact Cratering on Earth

Asteroid And Comet Impact Hazard Bibliography (1992-1994) offers a short list of important papers and books on this subject from 1992-1994 collected by David Morrison.
Cosmic Collisions by Joseph Robert Jochmans from Atlantis Rising discusses misses and near-misses from near-Earth objects. Includes comments on the theories of Otto Muck who suggested Atlantis was destroyed by an asteroid impact.
Impact Cratering on Earth from Natural Resources Canada offers a introduction to the subject. Includes sections on crater morphology (with images), crater identification, the impact hazard, and suggestions for further reading.
David Morrison at NASA/Ames maintains an Impacts page dealing with the hazards from comet and asteroid impacts. You will find a short bibliography of recent scientific publications about impact hazards as well as links to other Web sites with related information.

Near Collisions

Close calls with comets by Johnny Horne discusses the near approach of asteroid 1996 JA1 to the earth on May 19, 1996.
Skipping Meteoroid offers portions of an AP news story that. according to David Morrison, concerns "the possible first observations of a meteoroid skipping out of the atmosphere, making a full orbit, and then re-entering." In other words, this meteoroid appears to have become a temporary moon for a single orbit. Such temporary captures have been advanced theoretically but not previously observed (at least, not in modern times).

Tunguska and similar events

1908 - Explosion In Siberia offers the idea popular among UFO afficionados that the Tunguska event resulted from the explosion of a spaceship.
Brazilian Tunguska by Dennis Stacy from The Anomalist offers a short essay on the Curucá incident in Brazil in 1930 which appears to have been a Tunguska-like airburst in the one megaton range.
Reading The "Fine Print" of Climate History in Greenland's Ice by Lynn Simarski discusses results from Greenland ice cores. An iridium enrichment appears for 1908, suggesting it may have been caused by the Tunguska event.
Searching for the cause offers the suggestion first made by Ignatius Donnelly and greatly expanded upon by Mel Waskin that the Great Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871 and the concurrent enormous Wisconsin and Michigan forest fires were ignited by a small cometary impact.
Pib's comment: some of the eyewitness accounts from Wisconsin and Michigan do lend some support the possibility that these fires were the result of an airburst. October 8 is the first day of the maximum of the October Draconids, associated with debris from comet Giacobini-Zinner.
Please check out the online exhibition on the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 at the Chicago Historical Society. This exhibit is curated by Carl Smith, professor of English here at Northwestern University.
Southworth Planetarium -- Tunguska by Roy A. Gallant describes the Tunguska event and offers a summary of current ideas about its cause.
Tunguska offers abstracts from the Tunguska96 conference held in Bologna, Italy on July 14-17, 1996. This conference was held to
- assess the current understanding of the Tunguska event as resulting from field research;
- review models of the presumed extraterrestrial impact event and inferences about the nature of the projectile body;
- discuss the implications of Tunguska on the broader issue of the impact hazard on human civilization.
Tunguska '96 meeting report by Alan Harris of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory offers a brief summary of this meeting.
Tunguska Catastrophe from the Siberian Center for Universal Catastrophe is a nascent site which intends to offer a large collection of data about the Tunguska event. Right now there is bibliographic and mathematical methods information available (in Russian only).
Tunguska Event by Eric Weisstein offers a brief description of the Tunguska event along with a short bibliography.
Tunguska, 1908 is a poem by Jerry Jenkins originally published in Deep South magazine.

Books and Articles on the Danger Posed by Earth-Crossing Objects

Several fairly recent books discuss the ongoing role of impact processes and the danger from near-Earth objects.

Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets by Duncan Steel of the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the University of Adelaide provides a readable non-technical discussion of the hazards posed by near-earth-crossing objects. Steel discusses the most recent results of the search for such objects as well as the proposals for diverting objects which appear to be headed for a collision with the Earth.
Arthur C. Clarke provides the foreword.
Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets contains 308 pages, annotated bibliographical references, and an index.
```
     Date     : 1995
     Price    : $24.95
     ISBN     : 0-471-30824-2
     Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
                New York, NY.
```
Craters, Cosmos, and Chronicles by Herbert R. Shaw of the U. S. Geological Survey applies nonlinear dynamics to the impact pattern on the Earth. Shaw argues that much of the impact cratering record on Earth (and in the solar system in general) is nonlinearly organized rather than random. He suggests that an intermittently filled and emptied geocentric reservoir of resonantly held impactors has played a key role in the patterns of impacts on Earth during the Phanerozoic Eon (the last 570 my) and probably for much of the Precambrian as well. Shaw sees this patterned input of impacting energy reflected in mountain building, volcanism, plate tectonics, geomagnetic field behavior, and the fossil record.
William Glen provides the forward.
Craters, Cosmos, and Chronicles contains 688 pages, 37 figures, 27 appendices, extensive chapter notes, a bibliography, and an index.
```
     Date     : 1995
     Price    : $79.95
     ISBN     : 0-8047-2131-9
     Publisher: Stanford University Press
                Stanford, CA.
```
Rain of Iron and Ice by John S. Lewis, co-director of the NASA/University of Arizona Space Engineering Research Center, also discusses the hazards posed by near-earth-crossing objects. A particularly useful feature is the table listing property damage, injuries, and deaths caused by meteorite falls on pages 176 through 182.
Rain of Iron and Ice contains 236 pages, several photographs, and an index.
```
     Date     : 1996
     Price    : $25.00 (US)
     ISBN     : 0-201-48950-3
     Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
                Reading, MA.
```
Fire on Earth by John and Mary Gribbin also discusses the hazards posed by near-earth-crossing objects. Includes sections on the great extinctions, the Tunguska incident, and Clube and Napier's work on the Taurid complex.
Fire on Earth contains 264 pages, bibliographical references, and an index.
```
     Date     : 1996
     Price    : $23.95 (US)
     ISBN     : 0-312-14335-4
     Publisher: St. Martin's Press
                New York, New York.
```
Impact! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids by astronomer Gerrit L. Verschuur offers a review of the idea of dangerous impacts as proposed by various nineteenth and twentieth century authors. He includes unorthodox viewpoints such as those of Clube and Napier and the Tollmanns as well as more mainstream ideas such as the Alvarez "dinosaur killer" impact at the end of the Cretaceous. Verschuur also talks about the relationship between impact events and tsunamis, the probabilities of impacts, the Great Jupiter Comet Crash of 1994, and other topics. His dicussion of who knew what and when about the Chicxulub crater is particularly interesting.
Impact! contains 237 pages, several photographs, a bibliography, and an index.
```
     Date     : 1996
     Price    : $25.00 (US)
     ISBN     : 0-19-510105-7
     Publisher: Oxford University Press
                New York, New York.
```
"Cosmic Dancers on History's Stage? The Permanent Revolution in the Earth Sciences" by Mike Davis appears in the May/June 1996 issue of New Left Review. Davis surveys the influence of neocatastrophists including Clube and Napier, Duncan Steel, Herb Shaw, Stuart Ross Taylor, Michael Rampino, Edith and Alexander Tollmann, the Alvarezes, and others on current thinking in the earth sciences. Davis offers one of the best non-technical summaries currently available of the ideas of Herb Shaw.

You should also read David Morrison's reviews of recent books and articles on the impact hazard which includes the books by Lewis and Steel, among others.

Web Sites Devoted to Meteoritics

Bill Arnett at the University of Arizona offers a number of Web pages about meteoritics and small bodies in the solar system.

Small Bodies introduces the subject and talks about the differences among comets, asteroids, and meteorites.
Asteroids talks about asteroids in general.
Comets talks about comets in general.
Comet Halley talks about one of the most famous periodic comets in history.
Meteorites introduces basic meteorite facts.
SL9 discusses the recent breakup and impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter.

Each of Arnett's pages provides links to other sites with information about small bodies.

The Web page of the Meteorite and Impacts Advisory Committee to the Canadian Space Agency contains information about meteorites and impact structures in French and English.

My astronomy page provides more links to sites with information on meteoritics.

Terrestrial Catastrophism

My Web page on Volcanos and Earthquakes lists resources providing information about these destructive agents. As various authors point out -- see, for example, Stephen Harris in his book Agents of Chaos -- impact events can trigger volcanic eruptions and earthquakes by tectonic slip. Harris suggests the enormous volcanic activity in the Deccan flats in India at the close of the Cretaceous stemmed from an impact which penetrated the earth's crust down into the mantle. Harris also suggests an impact origin for the Columbia River plateau and associated Snake River plateau and Yellowstone volcano. Large volcanic eruptions can also effect global climate changes.

Catastrophist Bibliography

I am compiling an annotated bibliography of works which I consider relevant to the study of astronomical catastrophism, and especially on its effects on humankind during the Holocene. Initially, this bibliography will include only works which I have read myself. I will list standard works on mythology, archaeology, astronomy, and archaeoastronomy as well as a variety of works on catastrophism.

I haven't had time to work on this bibliography for many months. I'm still hopeful I'll find some time to work on it again!

Criticisms of Catastrophism

Traditionally, talk.origins has been the principal USENET news group hosting discussions of catastrophism. Thus you will find criticisms of catastrophist positions (primarily those of Velikovsky and the Saturnists) at the talk.origins archive maintained by Brett Vickers. The USENET news group alt.catastrophism, not available at all sites, is intended to be a new focal point for discussions of historical catastrophism.

My Web page on Astrology, Psychic Stuff, and Skepticism provides links to resources containing criticisms of other catastrophist positions such as those of Zecharia Sitchin.

You may be interested in some messages about Clube and Napier's work which I posted to the USENET news group talk.origins. These messages contain responses to criticisms and comments about Clube and Napier's hypotheses from catastrophists who subscribe to the Saturnist and Velikovskian viewpoints.

Response to Ev Cochrane on Clube and Napier.
Response to Ev Cochrane on how much do Clube and Napier owe Velikovsky?
Response to Ted Holden's comments on Clube and Napier vs. the Saturnist position.

Tell Me More

If you find other sites with information about catastrophism, pro or con, please send me email telling me the URLs. Thanks!

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Last modified by pib on November 9, 1996. Back to Index