I have sailed around here and your compass will spin erratically...
April 16, 2019 7:41 PM Subscribe
Long day at the studio, pouring a drink, and we should probably talk about this thing sitting at the bottom of Lake Ontario Thats marked on my navigational chart no one really wants to talk about....who’s in for a discussion about an extra terrestrial impact? (single-link Twitter thread)
The Chixi-whatever crater was formed by an 11-km or greater body, not a 100-meter one, so we’re talking about what, on the order of a million-times smaller energy? I don’t think this was a global-extinction event, though it’s interesting that some aliens lost their giant keyring in the lake. Do people make money on Tweeter for stuff like this or something?
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:09 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:09 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
1) Sorry, kiddo, not every extinction is related to a bolide impact and the Ordovician extinction was actually a series of events and was most likely caused by cooling, sea level change, and influenced by tectonic events such as a continent drifting over the South Pole; and 2) that's too small of an impact to cause a global extinction (for comparison let's use the one he compared it to, in Arizona, which happened during the Pleistocene and did not cause such a major extinction event) and 3) and anyway, the impact is middle Ordovician, possibly older, not end Ordovician and 4) a quick google search of academic publications reveals that plenty of people have talked about it, which is why it's hypothesized to be an impact crater with an age. The people talking about it are geologists and astronomers, who, you know, have actual knowledge of magnetic and gravitational anomalies and their causes. And that field of knowledge also includes very basic information of how our solar system formed - information easily discovered through the most basic of google searches - and where bolides originate and their composition and why, and not speculation dressed up as something wild.
Seriously, do people get paid to peddle this?
posted by barchan at 8:15 PM on April 16, 2019 [33 favorites]
Seriously, do people get paid to peddle this?
posted by barchan at 8:15 PM on April 16, 2019 [33 favorites]
There was a big impact there, a big Nickel meteor. My mom was a geologist in Ontario for a while. Try the cyanide lakes...
posted by Oyéah at 8:16 PM on April 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 8:16 PM on April 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
"You know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other people here in the trailer park."
posted by rikschell at 8:22 PM on April 16, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 8:22 PM on April 16, 2019 [25 favorites]
"Extraterrestrial" shouldn't have a space in it. I appreciate that there are more significant issues here and I'm very glad there are people who can identify them, but I just can't get past it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:34 PM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:34 PM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Secret underwater base of the brotherhood more like it.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:37 PM on April 16, 2019
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:37 PM on April 16, 2019
The Chixi-whatever crater
Chicxulub. I live in it and this little dent he is talking about is so ridiculously tiny compared to it that talking about extinction events is just silly.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:39 PM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Chicxulub. I live in it and this little dent he is talking about is so ridiculously tiny compared to it that talking about extinction events is just silly.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:39 PM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
People do not get paid to tweet this on Twitter. What you are seeing here is a little something called "having fun". It's a powerful motivator.
posted by JamesBay at 8:49 PM on April 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by JamesBay at 8:49 PM on April 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
a big Nickel meteor.
Coincidentally, I went to school with a guy named "Big Nick" L. Meteor. He made a large impact at our school, mostly due to his magnetic personality.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:52 PM on April 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
Coincidentally, I went to school with a guy named "Big Nick" L. Meteor. He made a large impact at our school, mostly due to his magnetic personality.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:52 PM on April 16, 2019 [19 favorites]
I feel free in positing a number of critters went extinct when bopped on the head by this thing, but probably not their entire species, unless it was the International Certain-Type-of-Mollusk Convention that day and their picnic coincided with NIck L.'s earthly debut.
posted by maxwelton at 9:46 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 9:46 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I feel free in positing a number of critters went extinct when bopped on the head by this thing, but probably not their entire species, unless it was the International Certain-Type-of-Mollusk Convention that day and their picnic coincided with NIck L.'s earthly debut.
This is why it’s important to never invite your entire species to the family reunion.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:56 PM on April 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
This is why it’s important to never invite your entire species to the family reunion.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:56 PM on April 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
“Say Stan, how’s about you sit out the mollusk convention this year?”
“Ahh geez, Rod, c’mon. I’ve been the Designated Survivor the last three times!”
...
...
“Great, that’s settled. Keep your eyes out for Big Nickel!”
posted by notyou at 10:28 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
“Ahh geez, Rod, c’mon. I’ve been the Designated Survivor the last three times!”
...
...
“Great, that’s settled. Keep your eyes out for Big Nickel!”
posted by notyou at 10:28 PM on April 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
Given the current species extinction rate.... this comment is likely an extinction event.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:41 PM on April 16, 2019
posted by zengargoyle at 10:41 PM on April 16, 2019
A little fooling around with Wikipedia got me here.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:50 PM on April 16, 2019
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:50 PM on April 16, 2019
Hey, I know a fellow named "Big Nick", too. Talked a lot about solid rock too.
Enjoyed the twitter thread, I found it relatively easy to disregard the fellow's overblown conclusions, I could easily empathize with his sensation of getting absorbed with some unique patterns found on a map.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 10:51 PM on April 16, 2019
Enjoyed the twitter thread, I found it relatively easy to disregard the fellow's overblown conclusions, I could easily empathize with his sensation of getting absorbed with some unique patterns found on a map.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 10:51 PM on April 16, 2019
"Extraterrestrial" shouldn't have a space in it. I appreciate that there are more significant issues here and I'm very glad there are people who can identify them, but I just can't get past it.
I assumed "extra terrestrial" meant unusually earthbound.
posted by straight at 1:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
I assumed "extra terrestrial" meant unusually earthbound.
posted by straight at 1:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [11 favorites]
"Big Nick" L. Meteor, not to be convinced with his even larger friend, "Big Nick" L. Meatier.
posted by Literaryhero at 4:57 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Literaryhero at 4:57 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't see this as negatively as other people do. This just reads like someone learning something neat publicly and working through it.
It's just the first two steps of the personal science discovery process of:Cool!, Maybe super cool? Okay not as cool as I thought? Ultimately. still pretty cool though.
It's a narrative form I really like.
posted by srboisvert at 4:59 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's just the first two steps of the personal science discovery process of:Cool!, Maybe super cool? Okay not as cool as I thought? Ultimately. still pretty cool though.
It's a narrative form I really like.
posted by srboisvert at 4:59 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
The tone is way overblown, I guess shades of the "Buckle up" Twitter culture we talked about the other day. But yeah the Charity Shoal crater is pretty interesting and while we have known about it for a while the scholarship is still relatively new. To the best of my knowledge, which is that of a geological enthusiast rather than an actual geologist, the scholarship is still ongoing and no one has stated that it caused a extinction event (as barchan ably states above). The author Andrew King seems to be a bit obsessed with this one as he wrote about it in this 2015 article calling it the Bermuda Triangle of the North. As for Big Nickel, obligatory.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:05 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:05 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
Ridiculous conjectures wrapped around a tiny core of truth is how the Misinformation Age works and why we're completely fucked, and I am 10,000% NOT here for it even if it's "fun".
posted by tobascodagama at 5:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 5:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
In related (slightly more concretely science-y) news, though the Charity Shoal crater is kinda cool:
A meteor that came from another solar system may have hit Earth in 2014
arXiv paper
posted by lazaruslong at 5:31 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
A meteor that came from another solar system may have hit Earth in 2014
arXiv paper
posted by lazaruslong at 5:31 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
...a quick google search of academic publications reveals that plenty of people have talked about it, which is why it's hypothesized to be an impact crater with an age. The people talking about it are geologists and astronomers, who, you know, have actual knowledge of magnetic and gravitational anomalies and their causes. And that field of knowledge also includes very basic information of how our solar system formed...
Pfft. Yes, but that's all just, y'know, science and shit.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:32 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Pfft. Yes, but that's all just, y'know, science and shit.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:32 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Single link Twitter feed ? Waiter, I ordered soup -- not water.
posted by y2karl at 6:56 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 6:56 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
I don't see this as negatively as other people do.
whoa, agreed. some of the comments that are essentially equating this to "fake news" are kinda.. extreme? this was fun. i've never heard of it before, so i liked both THIS post, and then twitter stream. i didn't really think, HOLY SHIT THIS PERSON FOUND THE KEY TO MASS EXTINCTION especially since they say "no land based creatures" during that time period. this was somebody who learned something really cool, and then tried to process that.
look, here's the deal: scientific curiosity and fun are good. and safe. even when the conclusions from a lay person are not perfect (hell, leaning way toward wrong). this becomes problematic if this person goes and starts a religion or something akin to flat earth theories or talks his way with junk science onto a 24/7 news cycle etc etc. in the meantime, the 2 minutes hate on him serves only to say "you're not an expert, leave the intellectual curiosity to the experts, [pats head]" which is an act i dislike strenuously.
cool story, think i'll go down the google earth/wikipedia rabbit hole today.
posted by chasles at 6:57 AM on April 17, 2019
whoa, agreed. some of the comments that are essentially equating this to "fake news" are kinda.. extreme? this was fun. i've never heard of it before, so i liked both THIS post, and then twitter stream. i didn't really think, HOLY SHIT THIS PERSON FOUND THE KEY TO MASS EXTINCTION especially since they say "no land based creatures" during that time period. this was somebody who learned something really cool, and then tried to process that.
look, here's the deal: scientific curiosity and fun are good. and safe. even when the conclusions from a lay person are not perfect (hell, leaning way toward wrong). this becomes problematic if this person goes and starts a religion or something akin to flat earth theories or talks his way with junk science onto a 24/7 news cycle etc etc. in the meantime, the 2 minutes hate on him serves only to say "you're not an expert, leave the intellectual curiosity to the experts, [pats head]" which is an act i dislike strenuously.
cool story, think i'll go down the google earth/wikipedia rabbit hole today.
posted by chasles at 6:57 AM on April 17, 2019
this was somebody who learned something really cool, and then tried to process that.
Yeah, for me that’s sort of where it went off the rails. He wasn’t really asking questions of people who would know, he was speeding off with his own "answers" down more and more untenable avenues.
I don’t think of this as fake news, but a common denominator is the chain of suppositions unchecked by easily accessible expertise.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:12 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah, for me that’s sort of where it went off the rails. He wasn’t really asking questions of people who would know, he was speeding off with his own "answers" down more and more untenable avenues.
I don’t think of this as fake news, but a common denominator is the chain of suppositions unchecked by easily accessible expertise.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:12 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Eh, the misinformation we really need to worry about are the outright counterfactual lies and the kind of disinformation that is being consciously and deliberately pushed on us while disguising the source, the funding, the motivation, or the purported purpose.
Those are the most persistent because they have powerful voices and large numbers of shills coordinating an actual attack.
Individual people speculating and being wrong, even somewhat noisily isn't really a problem, it's just the human condition. Even the flat earth bullshit is largely the product of troll farms propelling it from the extreme fringe into the spotlight in order to keep people arguing about bullshit instead of things that matter and to promote the acceptance of more useful bullshit in the future by conditioning people to ignore obvious flaws in their beliefs.
There's a war on, and it's quite natural to see anyone who looks anything like the enemy as part of that group when the people you care about are being threatened and killed.
posted by wierdo at 7:21 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Those are the most persistent because they have powerful voices and large numbers of shills coordinating an actual attack.
Individual people speculating and being wrong, even somewhat noisily isn't really a problem, it's just the human condition. Even the flat earth bullshit is largely the product of troll farms propelling it from the extreme fringe into the spotlight in order to keep people arguing about bullshit instead of things that matter and to promote the acceptance of more useful bullshit in the future by conditioning people to ignore obvious flaws in their beliefs.
There's a war on, and it's quite natural to see anyone who looks anything like the enemy as part of that group when the people you care about are being threatened and killed.
posted by wierdo at 7:21 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
chain of suppositions unchecked by easily accessible expertise.
I think that's it - he says he looked at the studies and spoke to someone who retired from the Geological Survey yet leapt to a conclusion that none of those sources actually said: that this was a crater of a meteorite that caused an extinction event in the Ordovician. Nothing wrong with curiosity or being excited about science or even coming up with a novel hypothesis but there's a point where supposition becomes overheated and derails actual knowledge. I think the crater is still cool without it having to be tied with an extinction. There's other better studied nickel-iron craters or other magnetic anomalies (caused by "minerals from another world" as he says) in Northern Ontario - there's the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive (speaking of the Big Nickel...), the Lake Wanapitei crater, and the the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly. Those are all quite a bit earlier than the Charity Shoal crater.
Anyways, the area near Kingston has a bunch of interesting geologic features. Not too far away from there is the Lake on the Mountain. People used to think was a meteor crater, among other things, but I believe it is now thought to be a collapsed doline. Its a pretty spot and a provincial park. There is another crater a bit farther north of Kingston which you can see without scuba gear, also kind of neat, near the tiny village of Holleford, which is thought to have happened in the Proterozoic or the early Paleozoic (no extinction events attached to that either). There is also the Hell Holes Nature Trail, yet another pretty spot out that way.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:38 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
I think that's it - he says he looked at the studies and spoke to someone who retired from the Geological Survey yet leapt to a conclusion that none of those sources actually said: that this was a crater of a meteorite that caused an extinction event in the Ordovician. Nothing wrong with curiosity or being excited about science or even coming up with a novel hypothesis but there's a point where supposition becomes overheated and derails actual knowledge. I think the crater is still cool without it having to be tied with an extinction. There's other better studied nickel-iron craters or other magnetic anomalies (caused by "minerals from another world" as he says) in Northern Ontario - there's the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive (speaking of the Big Nickel...), the Lake Wanapitei crater, and the the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly. Those are all quite a bit earlier than the Charity Shoal crater.
Anyways, the area near Kingston has a bunch of interesting geologic features. Not too far away from there is the Lake on the Mountain. People used to think was a meteor crater, among other things, but I believe it is now thought to be a collapsed doline. Its a pretty spot and a provincial park. There is another crater a bit farther north of Kingston which you can see without scuba gear, also kind of neat, near the tiny village of Holleford, which is thought to have happened in the Proterozoic or the early Paleozoic (no extinction events attached to that either). There is also the Hell Holes Nature Trail, yet another pretty spot out that way.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:38 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
People do not get paid to tweet this on Twitter. What you are seeing here is a little something called "having fun."
Well, never say never, but there are, no doubt, thousands of amateurs and more who are perfectly happy to tweet their theories for free.
This just reads like someone learning something neat publicly and working through it.
I've always been very susceptible to catching obsessive enthusiasms out of the blue, so I'm very happy to cut amateurs with enthusiasms a lot of slack. IMO, the only problem with the way a lot of the stories of these enthusiasms get shared on twitter—or more broadly in any medium—is when the narrators can't/won't distinguish between communicating their own enthusiasms and communicating facts. So then you get these kind of "Buckle up, bitches!" narratives where instead of reporting on one's own interior states—"Wow! I've just learned something new and it's totally blowing my mind! I'm so excited!"—the narrator foregrounds some incomplete set of facts or theories and delivers them authoritatively with results that always fall somewhere between a man-on-the-street interview and "Wake up, sheeple!"
And that's the simple problem in these instances—assuming some kind of good faith, that is—it's often a problem of writers not knowing what it is they don't know or of choosing to report on facts they may have an inadequate grasp of instead of on their own responses to learning some set of facts.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:39 AM on April 17, 2019 [6 favorites]
Well, never say never, but there are, no doubt, thousands of amateurs and more who are perfectly happy to tweet their theories for free.
This just reads like someone learning something neat publicly and working through it.
I've always been very susceptible to catching obsessive enthusiasms out of the blue, so I'm very happy to cut amateurs with enthusiasms a lot of slack. IMO, the only problem with the way a lot of the stories of these enthusiasms get shared on twitter—or more broadly in any medium—is when the narrators can't/won't distinguish between communicating their own enthusiasms and communicating facts. So then you get these kind of "Buckle up, bitches!" narratives where instead of reporting on one's own interior states—"Wow! I've just learned something new and it's totally blowing my mind! I'm so excited!"—the narrator foregrounds some incomplete set of facts or theories and delivers them authoritatively with results that always fall somewhere between a man-on-the-street interview and "Wake up, sheeple!"
And that's the simple problem in these instances—assuming some kind of good faith, that is—it's often a problem of writers not knowing what it is they don't know or of choosing to report on facts they may have an inadequate grasp of instead of on their own responses to learning some set of facts.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:39 AM on April 17, 2019 [6 favorites]
And it goes without saying that twitter is a terrible medium for having any kind of serious or involved discussion so it lends itself to *opens whiskey* HEY Y'ALL CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!!!
posted by octobersurprise at 7:46 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 7:46 AM on April 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
ok, i got to the point where this guy invokes the Marysville Vortex and the magnetic forces are rolling my eyes around hard
posted by octobersurprise at 7:54 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by octobersurprise at 7:54 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Ha - the Marysburgh vortex (which the author and I guess others have colourfully called the Bermuda Triangle of the North) was where they found one of the Avro Arrow prototypes. Which is also cool.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:57 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:57 AM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
anyway, the weirdest thing that ever happened to me in Lake Ontario was when I jumped out of a boat maybe 100 feet or so from shore and i suddenly found a rock that i could stand on.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:59 AM on April 17, 2019
posted by octobersurprise at 7:59 AM on April 17, 2019
If you look at the trail of this impact, and where it is on today's planetary orientation, you might ask if Hudson Bay was dug out by its mama, or if there was enough mass at that latitude to tilt the axis. I never burts to ask, it is when you answer wrongly the problems begin. It would also depend on what time of year the strike occurred.
posted by Oyéah at 8:47 AM on April 17, 2019
posted by Oyéah at 8:47 AM on April 17, 2019
Ha - the Marysburgh vortex (which the author and I guess others have colourfully called the Bermuda Triangle of the North) was where they found one of the Avro Arrow prototypes. Which is also cool.
The tiny Bermuda Triangle causes miniature jets to crash. I imagine it is feared by RC boat captains as well.
posted by CaseyB at 10:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
The tiny Bermuda Triangle causes miniature jets to crash. I imagine it is feared by RC boat captains as well.
posted by CaseyB at 10:08 AM on April 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Well, I suppose y'all could just deny him tenure.
posted by srboisvert at 11:13 AM on April 17, 2019
posted by srboisvert at 11:13 AM on April 17, 2019
Focusing on this particular Twitter thread -- and this MetaFilter post -- as misinformation and "fake news" is a great reminder that most of what we regard as "real news" is basically unverified anyway, and we all ought to reply on multiple sources of information.
For example, the closest analogue to this Twitter thread is so-called science reporting, which routinely and predictably conflates or exaggerates or incorrectly extrapolates the published results of scientific studies.
I'm going to stick with my own take that this was a fun little Twitter thread with some cool graphics and visualizations I hadn't seen before. Like others, the Twitter thread prompted to me to research a few things, notably the Ordovician Period, which I hadn't really given much consideration before. I learned that the fundamental event that ended the era was continental drift and a resulting change in sea temperatures and chemistry etc.
As a fake news story, I genuinely doubt anyone would rely on this Twitter thread alone for information about the Ordovician Period or a mass extinction event. Instead, I think this Twitter thread would appeal to those of us who are curious about underwater meteor craters, and who want to learn more.
It's a different dynamic than why so-called "fake news" gets shared so rapidly.
posted by JamesBay at 12:57 PM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
For example, the closest analogue to this Twitter thread is so-called science reporting, which routinely and predictably conflates or exaggerates or incorrectly extrapolates the published results of scientific studies.
I'm going to stick with my own take that this was a fun little Twitter thread with some cool graphics and visualizations I hadn't seen before. Like others, the Twitter thread prompted to me to research a few things, notably the Ordovician Period, which I hadn't really given much consideration before. I learned that the fundamental event that ended the era was continental drift and a resulting change in sea temperatures and chemistry etc.
As a fake news story, I genuinely doubt anyone would rely on this Twitter thread alone for information about the Ordovician Period or a mass extinction event. Instead, I think this Twitter thread would appeal to those of us who are curious about underwater meteor craters, and who want to learn more.
It's a different dynamic than why so-called "fake news" gets shared so rapidly.
posted by JamesBay at 12:57 PM on April 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
The tweet thread did remind me about the Brent Crater a couple hours from North Bay (previously), which I forgot about and have made a note that I will have to check it out one of these summers when we head north. I'll thank him for that.
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:38 PM on April 17, 2019
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:38 PM on April 17, 2019
The Brent Crater two mile wide crater? That is bigger than the Arizona Meteor Crater. That one is pretty big when you stand on the edge of it.
posted by Oyéah at 3:20 PM on April 17, 2019
posted by Oyéah at 3:20 PM on April 17, 2019
It was glaciers...since I was a kid, every land formation in Ontario's been blamed on glaciers.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:28 PM on April 17, 2019
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:28 PM on April 17, 2019
« Older Transforms Hearing Aids Into Smart Wearables | Siamese Jets Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by vogon_poet at 7:43 PM on April 16, 2019 [11 favorites]