Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe
brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
In a previous Space News Series Thunderbolts contributor Andrew Hall
presented his groundbreaking thesis on new aspects of Electric Universe Geology.
Of course, electrical scarring of any kind
is not part of the traditional geological toolkit.
In Hall’s Arc Blast Theory,
he has attempted to explain the formation of mountains and other features on Earth
through the principles of plasma physics and electrical engineering.
In this episode, Hall explores the possible role
of electrical discharges in Earthly volcanism.
El Pinacate Y Grand Desierto de Altar is a geological wonderland for volcanologists.
It should also be a laboratory for the study of the Electric Earth.
Pinacate is a monogenic volcanic field in Sonora, Mexico.
It lies just south of the Arizona border,
70 miles East of where the Colorado River empties into the Sea of Cortez.
It is a protected Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site.
Monogenic volcanic fields, meaning each eruptive feature in the field,
is the product of a single short eruption of unique magma,
are not uncommon in North America.
In fact, Pinacate is one of fifty that dot the landscape from central Mexico to Colorado.
What makes Pinacate special, is its pristine nature.
For it is largely untouched by human hands or the effects of severe erosion.
Its location in the desiccated Altar Desert of Sonora
is the reason it has remained pristine.
As Edward Abbey wrote of the Altar:
“This region is the bleakest, flattest, hottest, grittiest, grimiest,
dreariest, ugliest, most useless, most senseless desert of them all.
It is the villain among badlands, most wasted of wasteland,
most foreboding of forbidden realms.
In other words, it was one of Abbey's favorite places.
Geologists insist Pinacate is dormant, but recently so.
Its last eruption is dated a mere 10,000 years ago,
but local lore of the Tohono O’odham people,
descendants of the ancient Pueblo culture known as Hohokam,
insist there have been two minor eruptions in the last century,
one in 1928 and again in 1934.
Seismographic records don't bear this out, say geologists,
indicating no seismic event associated with volcanic activity was recorded at the time.
Its many lava flows and tephra beds portray the Pinacate
as the result of three volcanic periods.
First, it developed as a shield volcano,
raising the mountain that gives the field its name.
Pinacate is derived from the Aztec word for black beetle
and is commonly used for the desert stinkbug.
Identity with the mountain is understandable,
since stinkbugs hold their rear high and emit a foul odor.
The next period brought blooms of pyroclastic eruptions
that left over 500 volcanic fans and cinder cones across 770 square miles.
Its final phase created several maar craters.
The Pinacate is best known for maars and the rings of tuff they create.
There are about a dozen maars and tuff rings in the Pinacate.
The crown jewel is El Elegante.
One mile in diameter, with steep sides sloping to a depth of 800 feet,
it looks like a giant bottle cap was pressed into the Earth, to leave the depression.
Its size, symmetry and scalloped edges, earned The Elegant One its name.
Maars are one expression of a Diatreme volcano.
Their creation is brief and explosive.
Magma rises beneath moisture, held in an aquifer, subsurface stream, or permafrost,
and vaporizes the water in a series of blasts that last from a few hours to several weeks.
A shallow crater with a bowl floor and a low, raised rim is left
over a rock-filled fracture, called a Diatreme.
Typically, maars fill with water following an eruption, leaving a lake.
The maars of Pinacate are dry and accessible.
No certainty as to formation is truly known in consensus science.
The inverted cone shape of a maar diatreme has been generally assumed
to form by shallow explosions first, followed by progressively deeper explosions.
The explosions are thought to be caused by the instant vaporization of groundwater
when it contacts hot magma.
If deep explosions occurred first,
they would hollow out a wide void, not a conical pit.
But the shallow-first theory should produce ejecta of shallow rock,
covered by later deposits of deeper volume.
Examinations of maars show that deep rock fragments are well mixed with shallow rock,
implying explosions occurred throughout all depths at once.
Geologist Greg Valentine, a professor at the University of Buffalo in New York
and James White, an associate professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand,
have created a new model to account for the jumbled order of explosions.
Their model, published online by the journal Geology,
suggests individual explosions are relatively small,
and shallow explosions are more likely to cause eruptions than deep ones.
The model did not include subsurface electrical discharge as a possible causation.
Perhaps it should.
The likeness of Pinacate’s craters to lunar craters
made it a perfect training ground for Apollo astronauts.
It's also a reason the area should be of interest to the study of Electric Earth phenomena.
Close inspection of craters and other features in Pinacate
reveal more than a casual resemblance to the craters of the Moon.
Let's take a look.
Beginning with El Elegante,
the Google Earth image below shows a rim crater at four o'clock position,
the only flaw in its beautiful symmetry.
It is explained as an older cinder cone that was split in half by the maar eruption.
Rim craters also occur on other maars in the Pinacate.
In fact, more than half the maars have features that appear to be rim craters.
Perhaps it’s normal for maars to occur at the edge of older volcanic vents.
Perhaps the older vent plays a role in creating the maar,
or they may be what they look like:
a feature caused by a filament of electrical discharge.
Rim craters occur with such regularity on rocky bodies in our solar system,
it is statistically absurd to think they're caused by chance impacts.
They are a known feature of electrical discharge,
as filaments of spark will form craters within craters,
and often stick to the rim of a crater previously formed, leaving rim craters.
This maar shown is 0.9 miles wide and 250 feet deep.
It also displays scalloped edges and a large rim crater at the five o'clock position.
Another small rim crater is at the nine o'clock position.
Most confusing, assuming the consensus science view of how maars are created,
is the small tuff rings in the floor of the crater beneath the large rim.
In this case the rim features can't be the remnant of an older cinder cone,
since they could not possibly have pre-existed the maar eruption.
It must be the remnants of events
that followed the sequence of eruptions that made the maar.
But where is the debris from this later event?
This maar, 2,400 feet in diameter x 50 feet deep,
at half-past six o'clock, has three apparent rim craters,
blanketed by inflow of red ash,
as if the event flattened the cinder cone next to it, by pulling it in.
The next images show a rim crater at six o'clock
in a primary crater that is 2,600 feet in diameter x 150 feet deep.
The triangular wedge you see, is actually a slice from a pie-shaped depression at the rim.
The next images are of a maar 3,400 feet in diameter x 600 feet deep.
It shows a rim crater at eleven o'clock.
Gray ejecta blankets the rim crater,
but the side view shows the rim crater has a steep,
conic depression below the gray material.
The gray ejecta is obviously associated with the maar
and blankets the slopes and lava flow of the red cinder cones nearby.
This appears to be the case with the other maars,
indicating they occurred in the latest series of eruptive events.
However, the question should be asked whether the material was blown out,
or sucked in by the event that made the crater.
The gray blanket is formed into dunes
seen at the top center of the photo, above the rim.
Dunes exhibit a gentle slope to windward, and a steep reverse slope to leeward,
suggesting at least the final winds of this dramatic event
were directed inward to the crater.
The best example of a rim crater in the Pinacate is Cerro Colorado.
Thought to be the result of multiple blasts through several vents,
the main crater is 3,200 feet across with a canted rim.
The lopsided rim is thought to have been created by prevailing wind
depositing ejected material preferentially to the south,
or because subsequent explosions caused the north side of the rim to collapse,
depending on which consensus theory is chosen.
Neither provides a satisfactory explanation of the rim’s appearance.
On closer look, it could also be interpreted that the material was drawn in,
the way a tornado draws ground winds to it, to create the lopsided rim.
The neat, even edges and compact symmetry of the aureole around the rim,
appear to be caused by inflowing winds,
rather than the several explosive outward blasts.
In the next image along the crater rim can be seen layers of deposition,
consistent with the effects of winds being drawn inward to the crater.
There's no question that Pinacate is a volcanic field.
The lava flows, ash and tuff attest to that.
We see active volcanoes around the world.
The Ukinrek eruption on the Alaska Peninsula in 1977 created two maar craters.
The largest of these maars, now filled with water to form a lake,
erupted for 10 days to create a crater 1,000 foot wide.
The photos show the eruption and resulting maar.
The largest Pinacate maars are one mile in diameter.
The largest known maar on Earth is on Alaska's Seward Peninsula and is five miles wide.
The magnitude of the Pinacate and Seward Peninsula events dwarf the Ukinrek,
or any other eruptions seen in historical times.
Consensus science does not explore the electrical nature of volcanoes
and the potential effects of an intensified electric field.
They should be interpreted with electromagnetic effects in mind to understand them fully.
In this news article we've looked at the physical similarities
of Pinacate maars to lunar craters,
including the distinctly electrical appearance of rim craters.
Lunar craters are believed by consensus science to be formed by impacts.
Pinacate’s craters are a known volcanic event.
Could it be their similarity isn't coincidence, but commonality of cause;
that cause being electricity?
In part 2 of the maars of Pinacate,
we will look at more similarities and expressions of electrical scarring.
Thank you.
For continuous updates on Space News from the Electric Universe,
stay tuned to
Thunderbolts.info