117. Cobine (Gaseous Conductors), discussing the "Low-pressure Arc Column" (which is the probable analog of an interplanetary discharge burning in a very thin gas, such as might be drawn into a Mars-Moon gap), points out that ionization is most intense at the axis of the column and that the electric potential is also highest at the axis (with respect to other points on any cross section of the column). As a result, positive ions formed in the plasma of the column "are being continually lost to the walls of the tube" (p. 319). If we liken the general surface of the Moon to discharge-tube walls (see note 102), we can imagine a Mars- Moon arc column spraying positive ions across vast regions of the lunar surface, which, under the present postulates, would be of lower potential, thus attracting positive ions to itself.
126. J>M> Somerville (The Electric Arc, 1960) comments: "There is usually a considerable contraction [of the arc column] at the ANODE and the anode spot sometimes moves over the anode surface. . .[and] the motion may be discontinuous, a series of spots being left on the anode instead of a continuous trace." Science 12 May 1972: Vol. 176. no. 4035, pp. 671 - 673 Lunar Glass: Interferometric Evidence for Low-Temperature Shock S. Tolansky , Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey, England Glass objects in the fines from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions are shown, by two-beam reflection interferometry, to have been subject to shock at temperatures below the melting or softening point of the glass. Possible causes for the glass fragmentation are discussed. juergens:
On the other hand, if Aristarchus and Tycho were produced by electric discharges, their clean floors would be just about what one would expect. The abilities of discharges to produce melting on cathode surfaces and generally to "clean up" those surfaces have been remarked upon since the earliest experiments with electric discharges juergens 2: (of the process at Tycho)..
Typical anode effects of a destructive kind, leaving detectable markings after discharges are extinguished, include intense heating by streams of high-energy electrons [J. D. Cobine, "Gaseous Conductors- Theory and Engineering Applications" (1958)], and erosion due to the leaching away of surface matter in the form of positive ions [J. J. and G. P. Thomson "Conduction of Electricity through Gases Vol. 11" (1969)], as well as to the bulk extraction and removal of materials" [E. J. Hellund "The Plasma State" (1961)].
It is instructive, too, to take notice of the thermal effects produced on Earth by mere lightning bolts. One such effect is the formation of fulgurites -- glassy objects, usually tubular and often branching, formed in dry ground (such as dune sands) as concentrated streams of electrons funnel into the Earth from the lower ends of lightning channels (119). Another is the vaporization of surface materials, as shown by their appearance as emission features in lightning spectrograms (120). And of course the fire ignition capabilities of lightning are well-known and too numerous to list. It remains to be added that in most cloud-to-ground lightning strikes the Earth's surface is the ANODE. 74. J. J. and G. P. Thomson (Conduction of Electricity through Cases Vol. 11 11933, New York: Dover Publications, 19691, p. 458) point out that cathode disintegration through the expulsion (sputtering) of atoms of metal was first reported by Plucker in 1858. The cleanup process includes, in addition to the sputtering of cathode metals (an effect long in use technically in the production of semi-transparent metallic films on glass for optical purposes), the generation of considerable fine dust and of cathode-material vapors, which condense and produce fallout beyond the confines of the immediate cathode "spot" or "crater" in which a discharge burns. This last effect suggests a likely source for the Moon's ubiquitous glassy- sphere soil particles. copernicus crater (wiki): The circular rim has a discernible hexagonal form, with a terraced inner wall and a 30 km wide, sloping rampart that descends nearly a kilometer to the surrounding mare. There are three distinct terraces visible, and arc-shaped landslide s due to slumping of the inner wall as the crater debris subsided. The crater rays spread as far as 800 kilometers across the surrounding mare, overlying rays from the craters Aristarchus and Kepler. The rays are less distinct than the long, linear rays extending from Tycho, instead forming a nebulous pattern with plumy markings. In multiple locations the rays lie at glancing angles, instead of forming a true radial dispersal. An extensive pattern of smaller secondary craters can also be observed surrounding Copernicus, a detail that was depicted in a map by Giovanni Cassini in 1680. Some of these secondary craters form sinuous chains in the ejecta. Firestone at George site - dryas/firestonebayevent iron-rich grains traveling at an estimated 10,000 kilometers per second. From: BobK http://www.sciencenews.org/20000325/fob1.asp [no access . . .] Fullerenes are hollow, spherical molecules made of pure carbon (SN: 6/27/98, p. 406). The most famous member of the family is buckminsterfullerene, consisting of 60 carbon atoms arranged in the pattern of a soccer ball. On Earth, fullerenes can be made in the lab and have been found in rocks seared by lightning strikes. Luann Becker of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and her group isolated fullerenes from the Allende and Murchison meteorites. Both are carbonaceous chondrites, a rare meteorite type that contains much organic material. The researchers found, trapped inside the fullerenes, noble gases whose isotopic profile did not match those of gases on Earth. The researchers also isolated fullerenes from a clay sediment layer deposited during an asteroid impact 65 million years ago. Some scientists believe that this collision, marking the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) boundary, led to the demise of the dinosaurs (SN: 3/1/97, p. S20). The sediment fullerenes also contain noble gases with unusual isotope ratios. [. . .] Then in 1990, Wolfgang Krätschmer and Konstantinos Fostiropoulos at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and Donald Huffman and Lowell Lamb at the University of Arizona in Tucson succeeded in making buckminsterfullerene in visible quantities for the first time, not in an elaborate cat's cradle of lasers and cluster beams, but in a simple vacuum chamber with an electric arc between two carbon rods. By another unusual interdisciplinary twist of this tale, these people were physicists who, while investigating the light-scattering properties of carbon smoke, found themselves making in a test-tube the molecule that every chemist wanted. Where the graphite rods came into contact, an electric current of around 100 amps created a carbon vapor. Upon condensation on special surfaces or even on the walls of the vacuum chamber Krätschmer and Huffman found that under certain conditions the soot contained a small percentage of carbon-60. This could be purified by careful vaporization and recondensation or by dissolving the soot in a solvent and extracting the desired constituent. The beauty of the process was anybody could do it. from http://www.nanocentral.com/nanosci/materials/carbonchem/Aldersey_TRC60.html restatement of the nanodiamond paper: The latest study is from Science, and is a follow up on criticism leveled at an earlier paper published in PNAS. From the Science paper: We report abundant nanodiamonds in sediments dating to 12.9 ... thousand calendar years before the present at multiple locations across North America. [there are two types of] diamonds ... in this boundary layer but not above or below that interval. Cubic diamonds form under high temperature-pressure regimes, and n-diamonds also require extraordinary conditions, well outside the range of Earth's typical surficial processes but common to cosmic impacts. .... These diamonds provide strong evidence for Earth's collision with a rare swarm of carbonaceous chondrites or comets at the onset of the Younger Dryas cool interval, producing multiple airbursts and possible surface impacts, with severe repercussions for plants, animals, and humans in North America. D. J. Kennett, J. P. Kennett, A. West, C. Mercer, S. S. Q. Hee, L. Bement, T. E. Bunch, M. Sellers, W. S. Wolbach (2009). Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer Science, 323 (5910), 94-94 DOI: 10.1126/science.1162819 /*"Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation*/ that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundance ratios (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates." -- From "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times" Dr. Richard Firestone and Mr. William Topping PR: They also found evidence of the supernova explosions initial shockwave: 34,000-year-old mammoth tusks that are peppered with tiny impact craters apparently produced by iron-rich grains traveling at an estimated 10,000 kilometers per second. These grains may have been emitted from a supernova that exploded roughly 7,000 years earlier and about 250 light years from Earth. (Firestone and West) (more) In support of the comet impact, Firestone and West found magnetic metal spherules in the sediment of nine 13,000-year-old Clovis sites in Michigan, Canada, Arizona, New Mexico and the Carolinas. Low-density carbon spherules, charcoal, and excess radioactivity were also found at these sites. more: Analysis of the magnetic particles by Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis at the Budapest Reactor and by Neutron Activation Analysis at Canada's Becquerel Laboratories revealed that they are rich in titanium, iron, manganese, vanadium, rare earth elements, thorium, and uranium. This composition is very similar to lunar igneous rocks, called KREEP, which were discovered on the moon by the Apollo astronauts, and have also been found in lunar meteorites that fell to Earth in the Middle East an estimated 10,000 years ago. more: Much higher energies are needed: x-ray analysis determined that the impact depths are consistent with grains traveling at speeds approaching 10,000 kilometers per second. "Its surprising that it works out so well," says Firestone. -- Press Release, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "Supernova Explosion May Have Caused Mammoth Extinction," September 23, 2005 There is an inverse relationship between micrometeorite densities in artifacts and related Paleo-Indian radiocarbon dates. At Gainey and Leavitt where the radiocarbon dates obtained were virtually identical at ~ 2880 bp rcy the particle density was ~ 70,000 cm^2. Particle densities at other sites are lower by latitude/longitude, with older associated radiocarbon dates. At Taylor, for instance, the density of micrometeorites was ~ 40,000 cm^2. This implies particles were deposited in one shockwave of great intensity, with necessary associated neutrons. The most likely culprit is the sun, but this may be incorrect. Independent testing to confirm depleted 235U in the micrometeorites had been considered to "rule out" a supernova since the debris ought to contain "enriched" 235U (assuming uranium actually is formed in supernovae), but now has been discarded because the debris itself would have been subjected to neutrons, and hence depleted "then." Firestone may be correct in hypothesizing a supernova, and there are other possibilities as well. -- William Topping, response more: Second, in a shockwave the relative densities of atmospheric compression into in a "funnel" would have involved entirely different nuclear interactions by latitude/longitude/height including production of nitrogen oxides, and the most probable (essentially, "definite" because of the 14C + n-t,f reactions) associated destruction of 14C, which itself decays back into 14N (t1/2 = ~ 5730 years). Literature on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing makes it clear (5; see 1.36, 2.131, 2.132, 2.140 and 2.150 in particular). Neutron/gamma response to varying degrees of atmospheric density in a shockwave are complicated and symbiotic, and in all fairness to everyone probably "never" calculable in mathematical terms since the event (main) is deep in time, and environmental conditions then so different from modern. THE MAMMOTH TRUMPET (March 2001)* *TERRESTRIAL EVIDENCE OF A NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE IN PALEOINDIAN TIMES * Firestone, Topping - March 2001 At Gainey, large quantities of micrometeorite-like particles appear to be concentrated near the boundary between the B and C sediment horizons. They can be separated with a magnet and are identified by the presence of chondrules and by visual evidence of sintering and partial melting. These particles, dissimilar to common magnetites, are found in association with a high frequency of "spherules." Track and particle data in Table 1 suggest that the total track volume (density times depth) is highest at the Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana sites and decreases in all directions from this region, consistent with a widespread catastrophe concentrated over the Great Lakes region. The nearly vertical direction of the tracks left by particle impacts at most sites suggests they came from a distant source. water: When an ionic or polar compound enters water, it is surrounded by water molecules (Hydration). The relatively small size of water molecules typically allows many water molecules to surround one molecule of solute. The partially negative dipole ends of the water are attracted to positively charged components of the solute, and vice versa for the positive dipole ends. -- wiki on water properties