Hi monksgirl,
I hold Dave Talbott, and Wal Thornhill in the highest, and warmest, regard. They were the first to take what I've been saying seriously.
But while I agree with them that electric plasma phenomena are a fundamental, driving force in the universe, we are in complete disagreement about the nature of the planetary scarring of electric discharge phenomena.
The claim of the Thunderbolts group that an impact can not plausibly account for the geomorphology of a crater is false. They disregard, and/or invalidate the experimental data produced by decades of hypervelocity impact research at the Hypervelocity Vertical Gun Range at the NASA Ames Research center. Yet while they claim that inter-planetary electric discharges can explain the geomorphology of a crater better, they fail to give an even remotley plausible explanation of the physics of exactly how.
No one has ever made an electric crater happen, complete with shock metamorphic effects, into Earth-normal materials, and under Earth-normal conditions, in an experiment. And so far no one can even begin to design an experiment that can.
I'm not a physicist. But as an Ironworker, and certified welding instructor, I have more than 25 years of practical experience with the electric plasma technology used in cutting, welding, and fabricating steel. I've seen equipment malfunctions that blew 3 inch holes in 5 inch thick steel armor plate. And I've seen large capacitors used in laser cutting equipment produce the damndest electrical explosions you could ever imagine.
I have no doubt but that electric discharges might be capable of significant planetary scarring. But if electric discharge phenomena are infinitely scalable as they say, that scarring won't have even the remotest resmblance to an impact crater.
It will look like a giant plasma burn.
