Theories of Mass Extinction :: essays research papers

Scientists take a leak found the first evidence that a desolate meteor concussion in the Middle East might progress to triggered the mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years ago.Studies of broadcast images of southern Iraq build revealed a two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears all the hallmarks of an impact volcanic crater. If confirmed, it would commove to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with the violence equivalent to hundreds of nuclear bombs.Todays crater lies on what would have been shallow sea 4,000 years ago, and any impact would have caused devastating fires and flooding.The catastrophic effect of these could explain the mystery of why so many archean cultures went into sudden decline around 2300 BC.They include the demise of the Akkad culture of profound Iraq, with its mysterious semi-mythological emperor Sargon the end of the fifth dynasty of Egypts Old Kingdom, following the expression of the Great Pyramids an d the sudden disappearance of hundreds of early settlements in the Holy Land.Until now, archaeologists have put forward a host of separate explanations for these events, from local wars to environmental changes. Recently, some astronomers have suggested that meteor impacts could explain such historical mysteries.The craters abstemious outline was found by Dr Sharad Master, a geologist at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, on satellite images of the Al Amarah region, about 10 miles north-west of the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates and home of the marshland Arabs."It was a purely accidental discovery," Dr Master told The Telegraph last week. "I was reading a magazine article about the canal-building projects of Saddam Hussein, and thither was a photograph showing lots of formations - one of which was very, very circular." exact analysis of other satellite images taken since the mid-1980s showed that for many years the crater contained a small lake. The draining of the region, as part of Saddams c axerophtholaign against the fenland Arabs, has since caused the lake to recede, revealing a ring-like ridge inside the larger bowl-like depression - a classic feature of meteor impact craters.The crater also appears to be, in geological terms, very recent. Dr Master said "The sediments in this region be very young, so whatever caused the crater-like structure, it must have happened within the ult 6,000 years."Reporting his finding in the latest issue of the journal Meteoritics &amp Planetary Science, Dr Master suggests that a recent meteor impact is the most plausible explanation for the structure.