Friday, 8 November 2024

Darwin Glass

The Blob's Southern Correspondent TBSC aka the BiL in Kaapstad ZA sent me an enigmatic email:
>> Subject: Darwin . . . May be of mild interest to you.
but no attachment; to which I replied:
>> Subject: Re: Darwin . . . Missing link Darwin? or Oz City? or Uruguayan footballer? 1999 asteroid?lunar crater? All interesting.

But closer to home than the moon, there is Darwin Crater: a terrestrial geo-feature near Mt Darwin in Tasmania. This is a circular 1.2km ⌀ dimple in the landscape, about 15km South of the mining community Queenstown (pop ~1800). The peaks hereabouts: Mt Darwin [1030m] Mt Owen [1150m] Mt Lyell [920m] Mt Sedgwick [1150m], all named after 19thC Brit geologists, are 'mountains' in a cosy not very tall sense, such as we have outside our own back door in Mt Leinster [800m]. Although they look a bit more craggy than Mt Leinster.

There are strict criteria for deciding whether divots in the surface of the Earth are cause by extra-terrestrial impacts and none of these have been clocked for the Darwin Crater. But the smart money is on meteorite because a 20km x 20km area round about is rich in Darwin Glass [fragment R]. Geologists, like all good scientists, get narked by by the niggling unknown and so  “[Dr. Ramsay J] Ford accompanied a team that bulldozed a path from the Franklin River Road into the centre of Darwin Crater in 1974. The team drilled cores up to 230m deep in search of diagnostic shock features.

That quote is from an account by Brad Dare, as part of his project to map and visit all the known, and aspirational, impact craters in Australia. It looked straightforward on the map. All he needed to do was park on the Franklin River Road, find the bulldozer track, yomp in, take some pictures and yomp out - it's only 2 miles = 3 km. Not so fast puny mortal

Mother Nature has had 50 years to return the rainforest to its pre-dozer state and soon Dare and his companion found themselves in Woozle statusAfter battling the swamp for some time, we noticed some footprints and, feeling elated that we must be closing in on the original track, followed them. Our hearts sank when we realised not too long after they were our own footprints, and we had inadvertently gone around in a circle. “ and later their 21stC equipment blinks out “The swamps’ humidity had allowed water to get inside the housing of our electronic equipment. With a flicker of the screen, both the GPS and compass went dead, and we were on our own. “ 

They did make it out, as do almost all folks who are lost in the woods, but it does put into perspective what a daunting task it is mount a search when folks get lost in wilderness national parks. See also when my neighbour lost his dog and his phone forever [last para] in a treeless (but fissured and scrub-covered) area a few dozen hectares in extent.

Turns out that Darwin Crystal is an asset, at least among the Woo: €31.16 Darwin Glass Healing Crystal ~28mm. Having physically transformed by the celestial slam-dunk “Close to 11,250 cubic metres of Darwin Glass was thrown into the air and scattered over a circular area totalling 400 square kilometres.”
Q: What would that be worth aliquotted as €30 = 30mm 🧊s?
A: There are ~30 x 30 x 30 = 30k such 🧊s in 1cu.m so about 300 million frags in total; valued retail at ~€9 billion. That's A Lot of sugar: enough to run all the schools in Ireland for a year.

Imagine! an asset that you just have to pick up from the ground on either side of the Franklin River Road! I've high-lighted the just because it's doing some heavy lifting. By happy coincidence the Darwin glass is spread over 400 million sq.m. or one chunk per sq.m. Since they were scattered far and wide 800,000 years ago, a good bit of a) jungle, b) swamp c) razor sharp grass d) leeches have moved in on top. There must be easier ways of earning $30.

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