Spratlies Archipelago as the Australasian Tektite Impact Crater, Details of Formation &amp;amp; Richard Muller’s Dust Cloud Explanation for the Mid-Pleistocene Ice Age Cycle Transition

Hermann G W Burchard

doi:10.4236/ojg.2018.81001

Abstract

Several significant events of a geological nature occurred approximately 800 ka before the present: (1) Australasian tektite fall (AA), (2) Brunhes-Matuyama geomagnetic reversal (BMR), (3) mid-Pleistocene changes in ice age cycles. Add to these the undated fault system (4) in the South-West (SW) of the South China Sea (SCS). Here we offer a unified cause for all four of these in (5), an impact in the SCS of a large, massive cosmic object, likely a comet, obliquely coming from the SW at an extremely shallow angle, striking the Sunda shelf yet unexploded with the shock of its compressed air bow wave, and causing the continual shelf and slope to collapse, resulting in the fault system (4), then traveling almost tangentially to the surface, exploding at impact with the sea surface, ejecting the tektites (1), creating the formation underlying the later atolls of Spratlies Archipelago (6), Nansha Islands in Chinese, & causing the BMR (2). An explanation of event (3) was Richard Muller’s hypothesis of planet Earth passing through an interplanetary dust cloud periodically due to ecliptic precession. Here we hypothesize this cloud actually is a belt of Australasian tektites ejected into space at super-orbital velocities that Earth encounters about every 100 ka.

Highlights

Australasian Tektite Impact Crater Apparent from Google Earth High Resolution UpdateFor quite a long time, the best explanation known for the changes in the ice age cycles at about 800 ka has been the Interplanetary Dust Cloud hypothesis of Richard Muller [1], [2]
The timing, seemed to coincide with events related to the Brunhes-Matuyama geomagnetic reversal, which in turn appeared to be caused by the Australasian tektite fall [3], that can be identified with a cosmic object impact, likely a comet, striking the South China Sea (SCS), giving rise to the formation underlying the later atolls of the Spratlies Archipelago, known as Nansha Islands in Chinese
This paper is based on multiple sources of indirect evidence, even including rumors that have persisted for decades, as well as my correcting mistakes in the evaluation of available data by prior researchers, but primarily hinges on geometry of an image: It rests on the detailed geometric analysis of satellite photographs published by Google Earth, who in turn are depending on others, several photographers & documents

Summary

Introduction

Australasian Tektite Impact Crater Apparent from Google Earth High Resolution Update. Petroleum geologists & engineers began exploring the South China Sea several decades ago & discovered that the Australasian impact crater was located just off the Vietnamese coast, but only rumors came to be known, with no scientific publication forthcoming, perhaps due to concerns in the oil industry of a proprietary nature This rumored scenario can be confirmed, and is available for viewing by the general public due to a recent high resolution update of Google Earth satellite map imagery, that clearly shows the crater centrally located in the South China Sea and identical in geographic extent with the Spratlies Archipelago. The date of 1 Ma reported for the ice age cycle upheaval in the PNAS article [8] is too early

Spratlies Archipelago Astrobleme Cosmic Object Impact Structure

Refinement of Muller 100 ka Glacial Cycle Theory

Sunda Land Shelf Origin of Australasian Tektites

Summary & Conclusions