http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== *Report on the Tunguska International Workshop Bologna, Italy, July 14-17, 1996* (This article was originally prepared for and published by the magazine Meteorite!) Roy A. Gallant Bologna, ITALY: Tunguska is very much alive and well. And it continues to wear its Mona Lisa-like smile of elusiveness despite the scores of models, hypotheses, and bizarre notions generated over the decades since 1927. That was the year of Leonid A. Kulik's first expedition to the remote site in north central Siberia. And despite the International Workshop's more than 50 invited talks, short communications, and posters delivered by delegates to the conference, there still is no consensus about the identity of the cosmic intruder that devastated some 2,100 square kilometers of taiga on the morning of June 30, 1908. Among those who were registered for the conference by the end of the second day were 20 from Russia, 20 from the United States, 6 from Italy, 6 from Japan, and 2 from France. Eventually some 65 people attended. The meeting was held in the central part of Bologna in San Giovanni in Monte, a seventh-century site of religious worship nestled amid a labyrinth of tiny streets lined with myriad shops and sidewalk cafes. Today a church and converted monastery mark the site. Both had undergone restorations and enlargement a number of times since the 13th century. The monastery, with a large open courtyard and adjourning grand hall some 50 by 20 meters underwent restoration in the 16th century, and restoration continues. Open spaces, cloisters, arcades, galleries, and botanical gardens make up the buildings. In 1796 a French occupation abolished all the religious orders and turned the monastery into the city's prison and court house, and a prison it remained until only a dozen years ago. While the large open court served as the meeting place for receptions, luncheons, and coffee breaks, the paper sessions were held in the adjacent grand hall. Coupled with the very poor acoustics in the hall, the heavily accented English of many of the Russian presenters made it virtually impossible to understand what they were saying. Fortunately most of the presenters had provided comprehensive abstracts of their talks, which helped somewhat. The weather was sunny and averaged about 25 C, hardly the uncomfortable heat one usually associates with Italy in July. Some 65 or so participants gave the meeting a truly international flavor. The Russians were out in full force with their Tunguska heavy artillery, which included Chairman N.V. Vasilyev, veteran of more than 35 Tunguska expeditions, G.V. Andreev, S.S. Grigorian, E.M. Kolesnikov, W.H. Fast, V.P. Korobeinikov, and V. Ye Fortov, to name a few. Not to be outdone, the Americans were represented by E.M. Shoemaker, Z. Sekanina, J.G. Hills, B.G. Marsden, and A.W. Harris, also to name only a few. Conspicuous by his absence, but hardly overlooked, was C. Chyba, whose 1993 stony asteroid model generated more heat than light and came under heavy fire by both the Russians and Americans, especially the mechanical aspects of his model. Chairman Vasilyev's report about the history of Tunguska investigations, research strategies and methods, and publications by Russian investigators revealed the enormous research effort exerted by the Russians over the decades to solve the Tunguska puzzle. His report is must reading for anyone who wishes to compile a data base about the Tunguska event. The following is excerpted from his exhaustive report: "Today the Tunguska problem can be considered an important part of the larger problem of the possible collision of Earth with those cosmic bodies called Near Earth Objects (NEO). To estimate the scale of collision danger threatening our planet, one should base research not only on the calculations of the probability of collisions, but also on the investigative results of such events in Earth's history. "The volume of information about the Tunguska Event obtained during approximately 90 years of investigations is enormous. However, most of it derives from work done after 1945 and is published only in Russian and, therefore, has not been available to scientists of the West. We consider it important to present a brief overview of the existing Tunguska information and to discuss its more important aspects, which may play a key role in a final solution to the problem." A sampling of paper presentations will show the wide range of topics discussed: Veteran Tunguska investigator W.H. Fast (Tomsk State University, Russia) reviewed the extent and implications of fallen and damaged forest. G. Andreev (also of Tomsk) described the data base of some 900 testimonials of eyewitnesses of the Tunguska explosion. G. Longo, M. Galli, and R. Serra (University of Bologna) described their search for elemental constituents of the Tunguska body trapped in the 1908 annual ring resins of trees that survived the explosion. E.M. Kolesnikov (Moscow State University) spoke on his more than 15 years of field work in the chemical and isotopic investigation of peat and spherules from the region of the explosion. V.D. Goldin (Tomsk) addressed the problem of the Tunguska event being not a single explosion but a series of several explosions, the local centers of which can be determined on the basis of data from fallen trees. Z. Sekanina (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech) attempted to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that the Tunguska object was a stony asteroid and could in no possible way have been of cometary origin. He was alone in this contention, except for the missing Chyba. Hot on Sekanina's heels came S.S. Grigorian (Moscow State University) who just as strongly argued for the Tunguska object being a small comet. Had it been a stony asteroid, he maintained, by now we would have found stony debris somewhere. Jack Hills (Los Alamos National Laboratory), who discussed damage from the impacts of small asteroids, agreed that if the object had been a stony asteroid by now a swarm of loose gravel about a kilometer in diameter should have been found somewhere in the epicenter area. Hills, perhaps more than any other participant, avoided the sticky dichotomy of comet versus asteroid and instead spoke of "objects" over a range of densities. He said we should be looking for an object with a density around 2 g/cm3 . Comets seem to be about 1g, stony asteroids about 3 g, and irons about 7g. E.M. Shoemaker (US Geological Survey) also avoided the semantic trap of the comet/asteroid dichotomy by saying, "Anyone who says he knows what a comet is, is kidding himself." He then turned to his main subject of the frequency of impact events similar in energy to the Tunguska object and suggested that we can expect a Tunguska-like event about every 300 to 150 years. Other papers addressed the subject of the physical processes induced by the motion of comet nuclei in a planetary atmosphere (V. Fortov, Russian Academy of Science); how a comet nucleus explodes in a planetary atmosphere (V. Kondaurov, RAS); and the hazard from small impacts and what can be done about them (A.W. Harris, JPL). In addition to the presentations listed, there were many more, most of which would greatly interest anyone curious about the nature of the Tunguska object. Hardly a word was said about the bizarre suggestions that the Tunguska object may have been a mini black hole, a piece of antimatter, or an errant 2,000-year-old Japanese nuclear spacecraft returning home but missed the runway. A tight focus was kept on the object being either a comet or stony asteroid, as Vasilyev summarized: "Can the Tunguska explosion be explained as a result of destruction of lumps of comet ice or a meteoroid similar to carbonaceous chondrites? Who is right--Sekanina and Chyba denying such a possibility, or Bronshten, Boyarkina, Korobeynikov, Grigorian, and other investigators seeking to prove the cometary origin hypothesis? If the former are right, then it becomes imperative to revise a large number of calculations dealing with the mechanism of destruction of the Tunguska object that have been published since 1963. It is also necessary to re-explain the isotopic and elemental anomalies found at the epicenter of the area of destruction, and to re-interpret the atmospheric optical anomalies of the summer of 1908." Vasilyev's list of things to be re-explained and re-interpreted--if we accept the stony asteroid hypothesis--goes on and makes for fascinating reading. As he said, an awful lot of very suggestive data have been revealed by Russian investigators over the years, data that the stony asteroid modelists have not been aware of or have chosen to ignore. What is the future of Tunguska investigations, and what research is begging for investigators? Here is Vasilyev's wish list: 1. Establish a Tunguska homepage on the Internet and keep it current. 2. Although a Tunguska "preserve" has been established by the Russian government, there is no money to support it. What happens to the wealth of archival materials that for years have been haphazardly stored in cardboard boxes and under the beds of investigators? 3. Research projects looking for investigators from the international community of scientists:    A. Cut and store peat samples from Tunguska for future analysis.    B. Genetic abnormalities in plants and people on the chromosomal level. Abnormalities first detected in people in 1910: Rh factor abnormalities. Botanists to collect seeds and pollen during the growing season--end of June, July, August.    C. There are rare metals concentrations in the 1908 layer of peat and soil. What is it? How did it get there? Requires not only field work, but laboratory work to analyze samples chemically.    D. Magnetic disturbances of the blast were recorded at Irkutsk. They are very similar to those caused by nuclear test explosions detonated by the English on the island of Palmira at an altitude of from 10 to 12 kilometers. How do we explain those similarities? In the Tunguska epicenter there is a change in magnetic orientation of soil particles. There are only two laboratories in Russia capable of analyzing soil samples for magnetic anomalies."We need assistance," says Vasilyev. The 1996 Bologna meeting was an important one and is bound to keep the Tunguska Event alive and well for some time to come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For comments and suggestions about this site, please send e-mail to rgal@aol.com