Chapter 1167: 1167. Meteor Crater Discussion (1/5)

Chapter 1167 1167. Meteor Crater Discussion (15)

There is a huge crater under Wilkes, of course Li Du didn't know about it. He paid little attention to Antarctica, let alone studied the geography and geology of Antarctica.

Elson went to prepare dinner, and Steve sat them down and began to chat about the purpose of this trip to Antarctica.

Like he said, he came to find the meteorite. There were many pictures of meteorites hanging in the house, and he showed some of them on the table to Li Du.

The Wilkes Crater was discovered half a century ago. It is located just under the ice sheet of Wilkes Land. It is a large impact crater.

This crater is very large, measured by modern technology, it is believed that the diameter has reached 243 kilometers, and the deepest point can reach 848 meters.

In addition to the crater, a mascon may exist in Wilkes Land.

The mass tumor, as the name suggests, is a tumor with a particularly large mass. It exists inside the planet, and it is a denser aggregate than the surrounding geology.

Humans have found mass tumors on the moon and Mars. According to aerospace research, it is the result of asteroid impacts.

A massoma previously discovered on Earth was in Hawaii, but scientific research results show that it was caused by a volcanic eruption, not by an asteroid impact.

Until later, NASA's gravity measurement and climate monitoring satellites discovered the mascon in Wilkes Land, which is larger than the crater and has a straight length of about 300 kilometers!

There are no large volcanoes in this area of ​​Antarctica, which rules out that it was also formed by volcanic eruptions. In this way, the reason for the formation of this mass tumor is simple and clear:

It is the result of an asteroid strike!

"According to the research of air echo acoustics, there are gravity anomalies in the lower end of the crater and the mascon, and there are a large number of glass meteorites. The widely scattered glass meteorites on the Australian continent now come from here." Steve told him explained.

Li Du asked, "What does this mean?"

Steve said: "It means a lot. First of all, it means that there are a lot of meteorites here. Let's look for these extraterrestrial meteorites."

Li Du smiled and said, "Oh, you want to be a meteorite hunter, right?"

Just like the art hunters he had contacted in Miami before, the meteorite hunters were of the same nature, professionals looking for meteorites.

As we all know, meteorites have always been rare objects, rarer than gold and diamonds, and only 3000 pieces have been collected in the world so far.

Rare things are precious, not to mention that meteorites have scientific research value that ordinary collections do not have, so meteorite collection has always been an important work in various countries. Through meteorites on the earth, it is very important to understand the age of the earth and the evolution of the earth. scientific value.

Most of this collection work is not carried out by people, but more directly funded by the government.

There is competition among governments, and the governments of all countries are very rich, so the price of meteorites has remained high.

When Li Du learned about the world's luxury goods market, he noticed the meteorite market.

Meteorites are not frequent visitors at auctions, but as long as they appear, they are the protagonists.

In 1993, Sotheby's auction house auctioned a lunar meteorite for $442,500, with a mass of only 0.33 grams!

In May 1998, Phillips Auction House in New York bought a heavy Martian meteorite with a transaction price of 3.36 million U.S. dollars and a smaller mass of only 0.28 grams!

Now that humans have been able to land on the moon and Mars, it stands to reason that stones can be brought back from these two planets, so the moon and Mars meteorites that have fallen on the earth should not be expensive.

This is not the case. First of all, it is a few big countries with the permanent council of the United Nations that can go to the moon. Second, only the US probe can go to Mars.

It is very difficult for the probe to transport the ore back, and the cost is very high, and it costs more money than the ore that fell naturally on the earth at the auction.

The U.S. government even uses the ore brought back from Mars as a diplomatic means. If they want to obtain their ore, other governments will have to pay a high price.

Not long ago, Christie's in Paris held a "natural history" auction in the autumn. There was a 43 cm long and 45 kg meteorite at the auction. Its transaction price was 78.25 million euros, and the price was very scary!

After listening to Li Du's words, Steve laughed, and said, "We in the Tucenberg family are all meteorite hunters, and we can all be called meteorite hunters, but I shouldn't be. I came to find meteorites for other purposes. , not for profit."

"Then why?" Li Du subconsciously asked.

Steve fell silent, obviously not wanting to answer.

Sophie secretly pulled Li Du, and changed the subject again: "Are you going to look for meteorites from the crater here? As far as I know, the Wilkes crater is under the ice cap, so it can't be excavated, right?"

Steve nodded and said regretfully, "Yes, the ice sheet is too hard and too thick for existing technology to travel hundreds of meters to sample it."

"My idea of ​​coming here is to look around the crater to see if I can find meteorites splashed on the surface. Another thing is to dig on the shallow surface like Li digging opal mines to find meteorites."

Li Du suddenly realized: "Oh, you went to dig opals with me to prepare for this?"

"Study for this. After all, I have never been exposed to similar jobs due to physical reasons." Steve laughed.

Li Du asked: "I have a hand in finding ores. If you think I can help, then you can just mention it. I can't offer it, because you know, I don't want you to feel that I have violated your privacy." .”

Hearing what he said, Steve laughed helplessly.

He rubbed his hands and said, "Li, don't get me wrong, I don't want to keep anything secret from you, but I think you might not believe what I said."

"If you think I can know, then you can tell me, I trust you very much." Li Du said.

Steve said: "Okay, let me tell you first, according to geological and topographical research, if the crater and massoma in Wilkes Land were caused by the impact of a meteorite, then the diameter of the meteorite should be forty. to fifty kilometers."

"Did you know? The meteorite that caused the Chicxulub crater is only ten kilometers in diameter."

The Chicxulub Meteor Crater is a crater impact relic discovered in Yucatan, Mexico or the Yucatan Peninsula. It is currently the largest crater accessible to the earth.

This impact event is considered to be the main cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. After the impact, the asteroid completely evaporated, releasing up to 5.0×10^23 joules of energy, which is equivalent to 120 trillion tons of yellow explosives, triggering a large tsunami. And let a large amount of dust enter the atmosphere, completely cover the sun, change the global climate, and cause a nuclear winter.

Many people may not understand these things. To put it simply, this impact event led to the end of the age of dinosaurs. For a long time, people have speculated that the dinosaurs that once ruled the earth were extinct by this meteorite!