From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: one more thing to worry about: tsunami waves
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 08:26:51 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	So it's fair to say that giant meteors made a deep impact on Steve?

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Smith [mailto:sgs at aginc.net]
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:14 AM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: one more thing to worry about: tsunami waves

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
>
> -----------
> DEEP IMPACT
>
> - Sweeping Civilization Away In A Single Wave
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/deepimpact-03i.html
>
> Santa Cruz - May 28, 2003 - If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is
> likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of
> the planet's surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact
> site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate
> heavily populated coastal areas.

I get a real kick out of this meme.  Its first appearance was in the
March 1966 issue of Analog Science Fiction.  It is also, I think, the
first appearance of the idea that a meteor impact might have wiped out
the dinosaurs, and gives some plausable mechanims.  Turns out that the
author's "back of the envelope" calculations were actually pretty good.

And there are far worse side effects to an oceanic meteor strike than a
tsunami.

Why do I remember this?  Because, with this issue, I started reading
Analog regularly.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."