Thread by @MarkBoslough

As I continue my quest to find the paper “Kletetschka, G., Radana, K. & Hakan, U. Evidence of shock-generated plasma’s demagnetization in the shock-exposed rocks. Sci. Rep. (2021)” that was cited by #TEHbust, the #TallElHammam #BiblicalArchaeology paper, I'll discuss #Tunguska.

The Sodom & Gomorrah airburst team cited this in support of their claim that a Tunguska-like airburst can generate shocked quartz, even though—according to experts on shocked quartz—none has ever been found that is associated with #Tunguska. Shocked quartz looks like this.

I met the lead author, Gunther Kletetschka, in Russia in 2008 and we enjoyed time together doing field work in the destruction zone of the 1908 #Tunguska airburst. It was for a Discovery Channel documentary shoot on June 30, 2008: the 100th anniversary of #AsteroidDay

We found the remains of some trees that had been uprooted by the blast wave exactly 100 years earlier. Most of the other evidence had disappeared, either through salvage logging or burning.

We slogged through swampy blast zone, looking for trees to core. Gunther was interested in finding trees that survived the event so he could core them and take the cores back to his lab for magnetometer measurements. The trees had to be more than 100 years old, of course.

Gunther taught both me and his son, Karel, how to core trees. We found many there were older than 100 years and had experienced the blast. It occurred to me that the surviving forest still contains information about the direction of the blast and thermal radiation.

This is one of the many cores that Gunther took back to his lab. I’m not sure if these time stamps are local time or my home time. It doesn’t get dark at that latitude near the summer solstice.

Karel also got a lesson from our guide on how to shoot a bear gun.

Not a bullseye, but a solid first shot! I feel like doing this to some of my papers too.

Gunther and I had also found an epicenter, where the blast wave came straight down from above. With no lateral winds, the branches were stripped off but the trunks remained standing. Kulick called these “telegraph poles.” Some were still there.

Gunther also cored some trees right there in Kulick’s base camp. The scar on the tree was roughly facing the epicenter. Our initial idea was that it was a burn scar, like the one Georgy Grechko had talked about in Moscow. We found other trees in base camp like that

Having good tree rings in a living tree allows very accurate dating of the core so we can know exactly which ring is associated with the 1908 blast just by counting backwards.

The Discovery Channel documentary crew filmed Guther coring another nearby tree. It appeared to have a burn scar that was oriented toward the explosion's epecenter.

When I got home I found old photos in the Tomsk archive. These scars are anthropogenic. It's easy to get tricked & think something is natural when it’s not. The inexperienced & untrained #TEHburst field crew may have fallen into the same trap, but have no photos from 1650 BCE.

June 30, 2008 was a big day at Kulik’s camp. Helicopters were everywhere, flying in dignitaries. Remember that the "Tunguska Phenomenon" is a big deal in Russia, and this was the centennial.

They dedicated a monument. That’s cosmonaut Georgy Grechko on the right (I’d just met him in Moscow) with a couple of politicians. The sculpture is pretty clearly a nod to Sergei Korolev, the lead Soviet rocket engineer during the space race, who thought it was a UFO.

While we were at base camp, the Italians arrived by helicopter after having finished their fieldwork on Lake Cheko, using a submersible camera & sounding equipment to look for evidence of an impact. They had another documentary maker in tow. Discovery Channel’s competition.

Romano soon went to the wood pile, where he found pieces of telegraph poles as well as burn-scarred boles. He asked one of the Russians to cut off some cross sections. I brought a piece home, and still have it (somewhere)!

Here’s the scene of their arrival on Youtube. The documentary maker ambushed me and put me on the spot. I admit I was a little buzzed. Russian hosts like to keep you that way even when it’s not at a party for the centennial of one of their biggest events.

I only discovered this online years later. It was much lower-budget than the Discovery Channel one that we were in. It’s quirky but it dives much more deeply into the history of Tunguska in Russia. I recommend it to anyone who wants more background.

On our way out, we had a thrilling helicopter ride over Lake Cheko, the storied location of cosmonaut Georgy Grechko's early research, and the Italian's group quest for an impact crater.

We landed at Vanavara, & old logging town with the nearest landing strip. It's similar to small remote towns in Alaska & Canada. The bar was in a tent. There was a lot of drinking & singing.

The Italians were already there, downloading data from their logger & looking at images from their submersible camera onto their laptop. Luca thought he was seeing trees at the bottom of the lake. I remained skeptical, but was rooting for him.

I'll close this thread with a slideshow of photos I found on the Tomsk archive along with photos from my 2008 trip.

Leonid Kulik and me in the same place.

Kulik's base camp.

Tunguska teepee.

Gennady Plekhanov (KSE commander)

Kulik's camp

This morning, I received this #sodomdebate challenge from Tall El-Hammam Dig Director Steve Collins @TeHEP_TSU. I've already accepted his challenge to a scientific debate, but it has to be right here, right now, on Twitter, while there is still public interest.

Between the Dr. Collins and me, we have nearly 4000 followers. Even more can watch. We can't get that big of a venue in Albuquerque & we can't get it that soon. We can both bring in experts to support our scientific positions & refute the other side. This will be fun!

So, @TeHEP_TSU let's do it starting now. You can bring in your heaviest scientific hitters, Ted Bunch, Allen West, & Jim Kennett. I've already debated each of them in public at least once. To start the debate, please let me know if there is anything in this thread that is wrong.

My next question for @TeHEP_TSU is this: can you post a link or send me a copy to “Kletetschka, G., Radana, K. & Hakan, U. Evidence of shock-generated plasma’s demagnetization in the shock-exposed rocks. Sci. Rep. (2021)” It's hard to read a paper without proper citations.

And please, @TeHEP_TSU, you still haven't answered the question I asked this morning, when I accepted your challenge.

I hope everyone enjoyed this thread. For my next topic, I will switch to the Younger Dryas Boundary Strike #YDBS hypothesis. This is the previous controversial (and fully debunked) hypothesis by the Comet Group.

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