Could the Chicxulub asteroid have changed Earth's orbit or axis at all

[GreatBigBore]

I heard that the recent Chile earthquake moved Earth's axis by 8cm or so. Could the Chicxulub asteroid (or the even bigger, Antarctic one I just http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/03/did-the-planets-most-massive-asteroid-impact-ever-occur-in-antarctica-nasa-gravity-maps-point-to-yes.html" about) have changed our orbit or our axis in a way that would have affected climate or life or anything that we can investigate?

 

[Xnn]

No; the size of these asteroids in comparison to the Earth are very small. While the could alter the Earth's orbit on the order of a cm or so, that would not be enough to alter Earth's climate in a meaningful way.

The immediate impact of such collisions on the other hand, have an immmense short term effect on the earth. The surface is incinerated followed by a cooling period from all of the dust obscuring the sun. Once the air clears, the climate returns to near it's previous norm.

The biggest control knob for the Earth's climate is well known and understood.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf

This video is interesting. Richard Alley is a well respected lead author for the IPCC.
Here, he gives an interesting talk on the history of the Earth and what has changed over time.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

 

[D H]

The question raised in the title of the thread, "Could the Chicxulub asteroid have changed Earth's orbit or axis at all" and the question raised in the original post, "Could the Chicxulub asteroid have changed our orbit or our axis in a way that would have affected climate or life" have very different answers. It certainly did change the Earth's orbit and rotation somewhat, and equally certainly that "somewhat" is a rather insignificant amount. I calculate that the change in length of day would be less than a millisecond and that the change in the Earth's rotation axis of less than 10 milliarcseconds. That is not going to change the climate in and of itself.

The impact almost certainly did change life. It is the leading suspect in the extinction of dinosaurs, for example.

 

[GreatBigBore]

The biggest control knob for the Earth's climate is well known and understood.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf

This video is interesting. Richard Alley is a well respected lead author for the IPCC.
Here, he gives an interesting talk on the history of the Earth and what has changed over time.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

Wow. Wow. Thanks so much. These are...just...wow.

 

[Gannet]

I find this question very interesting

The following are excerpts from
Flannery, Tim; The Eternal Frontier, an ecological history of North America and its peoples; Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY; 2001

p13

was at ten kilometers in diameter

p13 & 14

It was not an equatorial aspect … for the asteroid was approaching from the south.

p14

When it hit, the rock released the equivalent of 100 million megatons of high explosive, about one hundred times the energy needed to create a global catastrophe, bringing the Mesozoic era - the age of dinosaurs - to a close.

p14

The massive scar, around 180 kilometers in diameter, is buried under a kilometer of limestone rock,

p14

The sea into which the great lump of rock splashed down was about ten meters deep.

p16

This rock hit the Earth at a speed of at least twenty-five kilometers per second, the atmosphere providing little if any cushioning effect.

p16

It almost certainly disintegrated on impact, as stony meteorites are prone to do.

p16

it opened a hole five kilometers deep in the Earth's crust, blasting thousands of times its original mass into the atmosphere and back into space, where some earthy fragments doubtless became heavenly wanderers themselves.

p17

The celestial chip shot had other unfortunate consequences, for it took a huge divot of molten rock and debris and propelled it straight up the Bearpaw seaway.

Therefore, based on the above bold information it appears plausible to me that the Earth's tilt axis was impacted but not sure the extent.

One thing that was quoted in the above book about tree growth rings prior to Chicxulub states on pages 12 & 13

Just two million years before the asteroid struck, these trees had formed a great belt of evergreen tropical forest that extended in a swath, south of 60 degrees latitude (the present latitude of Nunivak Island, Alaska), right across the continent's middle. This forest did not entirely replace the great conifers, however, for some were now gigantic trees, towering above the canopy of broad-leaved flowering plants. Growth rings are difficult to detect in the fossilized timber of these trees, which indicates an absense of seasons.

I am not sure if this indicating that there was a zero tilt angle prior to Chicxulub.

 

[Andre]

Therefore, based on the above bold information it appears plausible to me that the Earth's tilt axis was impacted but not sure the extent.

One thing that was quoted in the above book about tree growth rings prior to Chicxulub states on pages 12 & 13 I am not sure if this indicating that there was a zero tilt angle prior to Chicxulub.

Maybe check your basic mechanics. Any force impulse on a rotating body causes nutation, basically it does not change the direction of the spin axis.

About the relative sizes, if we'd decrease the probably some 10 km diameter of the meteorite to a sand grain of one millimeter, the Earth would have had a diameter of 1.27 meters of solid rock with a density more like lead or even mercury in the core. Now what is that sand grain doing?

Another thing, if something had enough impulse to start changing anything to the Earth's rotation, mind that such an impulse takes about 90 minutes to reach the other side of the earth. So if the first side starts doing things like that, the other side would not know about until 90 minutes later, hard to imagine what that would do to the earth.

On the other hand, such an impact would change the balance of mass on Earth, which could change the direction of the inertia tensor. That would mean that the Earth would rotate slightly to realign the inertia tensor with the spin axis. But this would not change the direction of the spin axis, only Earth's orientation in relation to the spin axis. This is known as http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/maloof/tpw.html. But don't expect a lot of this, since the equatorial bulge is playing a major role to the direction of the intertia tensor.

Not that a lot can happen with such an impact. Interesting is the hypothesis about antipode volcanism in relation to such a major impact and in this case the Indian deccan traps could be a candidate.

 

[D H]

Maybe check your basic mechanics. Any force impulse on a rotating body causes nutation, basically it does not change the direction of the spin axis.

That is the wrong physical model, Andre. That paper refers to the problem of the motion of a symmetric top with one point fixed. The right physical model for an impact is conservation of angular momentum. An impulsive torque applied to an otherwise isolated rotating body with a spherical mass distribution will change the body's rotation rate, its rotation axis, or both. The body will not precess or nutate as a result of this impulsive torque because isolated bodies with a spherical mass distribution cannot precess or nutate.

Ignoring effects due to changes in the Earth's inertia tensor, the sole effect of a north-south meteor impact will be to change the axis about which the Earth is rotating. The change would have been a very, very small amount in the case of the Chicxulub asteroid. In post #3 I indicated that this would be on the order of 10 milliarcseconds for a pure north-south collision. A shift of 10 milliarcseconds is not going to affect the climate.

 

[Andre]

You are right, thanks

Could, however, the equatorial bulge have some function as sort of 'fixed point' in the gravitational interaction with sun and moon, changing the precession rate?

 

[billiards]

Interesting is the hypothesis about antipode volcanism in relation to such a major impact and in this case the Indian deccan traps could be a candidate.

Careful! The link you referred to has no mention of "antipode volcanism". Rather, this work talks about volcanism at the site of impact due primarily to decompression melting. There is absolutely no mechanism there to suggest the Chicxulub impact had anything whatsoever to do with Deccan Traps volcanism.

Looking at this further, if this work is correct why did we not get volanism at Chicxulub? Probably because impact related volcanism is most likely to occur on oceanic crust, and Chicxulub is on the continental crust.

 

[Andre]

Okay I try to be careful. I'm not stating anything. Merely mentioning that there is a hypothesis about bolide impact and antipode trap volcanism. In this published paper a link is made between the K-T extinction and the Deccan traps (caption fig 1). I'm not aware that there is any concrete proof or refutation yet.

 

[LURCH]

Maybe check your basic mechanics. Any force impulse on a rotating body causes nutation, basically it does not change the direction of the spin axis.

Yet most astronomers attribute the axial tilt of Uranus (almost 90^o). So, impacts can cause axial tilt, according to those who know a lot more about it than I, but the K/T Killer wasn't impact enough, as has been pointed out.

 

[Andre]

Yet most astronomers attribute the axial tilt of Uranus (almost 90^o). So, impacts can cause axial tilt, according to those who know a lot more about it than I, but the K/T Killer wasn't impact enough, as has been pointed out.

You can also consider the axial tilt of Venus to be almost 180 degrees, considering the retrogade spinning but that has been attributed to resonance between precession and obliquity cycles in the chaotic zone

 

[billiards]

Okay I try to be careful. I'm not stating anything. Merely mentioning that there is a hypothesis about bolide impact and antipode trap volcanism. In this published paper a link is made between the K-T extinction and the Deccan traps (caption fig 1). I'm not aware that there is any concrete proof or refutation yet.

What is that link?

The paper you linked to argues that the largest mass extinction might require that a large meteorite impact occur during the same period of time as massive continental volcanism. That's a far cry from what you appear to be proposing: that meteorite impacts trigger antipode volcanism.

Just to be clear, that paper makes only a statistical link (given the frequency of those events) that they will probably have occurred at the same time. There is no causal mechanism proposed.

 

[Andre]

What is that link?

The paper you linked to argues that the largest mass extinction might require that a large meteorite impact occur during the same period of time as massive continental volcanism. That's a far cry from what you appear to be proposing: that meteorite impacts trigger antipode volcanism.

Just to be clear, that paper makes only a statistical link (given the frequency of those events) that they will probably have occurred at the same time. There is no causal mechanism proposed.

That's not the point, the point is that the hypothesis exists and that I did NOT propose it.

Here is another one.

Basu showed that massive lava flows in India date back precisely to the Chicxalub impact, and recently he also reported that similar giant lava flows in Siberia coincide exactly with the Bedout impact.

And I'm not married to that hypothesis, the scientific method requires attemps to falsify it, to see if it can withstand any scrutiny. If it can, then it might be feasible. You can demonstrate maybe that N times pairs of apparently simulataneous bolide impacts and trap volcanism at the other side of the globe can be statistically coincidal but that does neither proof nor falsify anything.

 

[billiards]

That's not the point, the point is that the hypothesis exists and that I did NOT propose it.

Andre, thank you for finally backing up your claims with the Hagstrum paper you linked to, we got there in the end.

Boslough et al. [14], however, used shock-hydrodynamic
simulations to generate source functions for
seismological modeling of the entire Earth, and
estimated the effects of antipodally focused seismic
waves from a Chicxulub scale impact (10-km-diameter
asteroid impacting at 20 km/s). They found that the
largest displacements (F 10 m at antipode), stresses,
and strains occur in the antipodal lithosphere and
upper asthenosphere, and that these large amplitudes
are due primarily to the convergence of fundamental
mode Rayleigh surface waves. Although peak stresses
and strains fall off rapidly with depth beneath the
antipode, the seismic energy remains sharply focused
down to the core–mantle boundary. Indeed, motions at
the core–mantle boundary are greater beneath the
antipode than beneath the impact site itself.
Because the focused seismic energy would be most
strongly attenuated in the partially molten asthenosphere,
Boslough et al. [14] suggested that dissipation
of the seismic energy could cause heating and
additional melting, and possibly antipodal flood basalt
volcanism. Ivanov and Melosh [48], however, concluded
that the antipodal thermal anomaly generated
by a Chicxulub scale impact would be negligible.
Accepting that the upper mantle is likely hotter and
more fertile than generally presumed in dstandardT
mantle plume models [8,9], lithospheric fracturing by
focused seismic energy from large-body impacts
might have played a major role in the formation of
antipodal flood basalts. As shown in Boslough et al.
[14], peak antipodal displacements, stresses, and
strains would occur throughout the lithosphere.

And I realize you are not married to the hypothesis, when I said that is what you claimed I did not intend it to mean it was YOUR hypothesis and that you were married to it. I just noticed that the links you provided to back up your statement were not actually doing the backing up, so I flagged it, and now I have seen this paper that I might not have otherwise seen and it is very interesting to me. Incidentally, this field (particularly with regards to mantle convection and hotspots) is not too far from what I will be doing my PhD in, which is why I have an interest in this.

The news is less good with regard to the link between Chicxulub and the Deccan Traps however, according to the Hagstrum paper:

The Cretaceous–Tertiary (K/T) Chicxulub impact
was neither antipodal to nor coeval with initial Deccan
volcanism on the Indian subcontinent.

 

[Andre]

Andre, thank you for finally backing up your claims with the Hagstrum paper you linked to, we got there in the end.

No, I am NOT claiming anything, again I merely point out that the hypothesis exists. And the reason that I'm splitting hairs is the regime here.

 

[billiards]

No, I am NOT claiming anything, again I merely point out that the hypothesis exists. And the reason that I'm splitting hairs is the regime here.

Chill man. I didn't mean to misrepresent you.

 

[Gannet]

I recently found this article and since it wasn't previously cited in this thread, I added it for completeness.

http://www.physorg.com/news132853165.html"

It is about Pyrite deposits across the Pennsylvania that may be tied to an Eocene (approximately 35.5 mya) meteor (Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater).

During the late Eocene epoch, a massive object up to three miles in diameter and moving at 12 miles per second slammed into the coastal shallows of what is now the Tidewater region of Virginia. The evidence for this event, known as the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, runs some 52 miles across and nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon.

"My guess is it probably changed the axis of the Earth," Scheetz said of the collision. "Everything within a 600-mile radius was utterly destroyed."

I envision, with the Appalachians as a firm anvil that the impact energy of the meteor forced magma through fractures in the crust.

Also, I read recently http://www.impacttectonics.org/impact-strains.html"

plate motions associated with the Chicxulub impact and a suspected (Middle Paleozoic?) impact in the Shaanxi province of China are pivoting around these impact sites, suggesting that large impacts can temporarily pin the crust to the mantle. Taken together, these relationships show that large impact events produce long-lasting geodynamic responses, probably operating to dissipate energy fluxes imparted by large-impact events. Moreover, most of these impacts show nearby fragmentation of tectonic plates, especially in hinterland regimes of crustal extension. Large-bolide impacts therefore appear to drastically influence Earth geodynamics to a degree that we are only beginning to realize.

My main interest in this subject is how these impacts affect the world we live in today. It is believed that the Chesapeake Bay would not be located where it is, if it wasn't for the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater and maybe there wouldn't be a Gulf of Mexico without Chicxulub because before, it was a shallow sea that most likely would have been filled in like the Great Plains.

 

[Xnn]

That statement attributed to Scheetz: "My guess is it probably changed the axis of the earth" is probably a misquote or misunderstanding.

From the USGS here are the consequences of the Chesapeake Bay impact event:

• The bolide carved a roughly circular crater twice the size of the state of Rhode Island (~6400 km2), and nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon (1.3 km deep).
• The excavation truncated all existing ground water aquifers in the impact area by gouging ~4300 km3 of rock from the upper lithosphere, including Proterozoic and Paleozoic crystalline basement rocks and Middle Jurassic to upper Eocene sedimentary rocks.
• A structural and topographic low formed over the crater.
• The impact crater may have predetermined the present-day location of Chesapeake Bay.
• A porous breccia lens, 600-1200 m thick, replaced local aquifers, resulting in ground water ~1.5 times saltier than normal sea water.
• Long-term differential compaction and subsidence of the breccia lens spawned extensive fault systems in the area, which are potential hazards for local population centers in the Chesapeake Bay area.