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>Approved-By: "H. Alan Montgomery" <fhd@LCC.NET>
>Newsgroups: sci.space.news
>Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 00:32:24 -0700
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>From: "H. Alan Montgomery" <fhd@lcc.net>
>Organization: Master CraftsMon
>Subject: Earth Battered Through History By Comets
>To: SEDSNEWS@listserv.tamu.edu
>
>Subject: Earth Battered Through History By Comets
>Date: 18 Aug 1999 16:22 UT
>From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
>Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
>To: SEDSNEWS@listserv.tamu.edu
>
>
>Earth battered through history by comets
>Researchers say impacts caused global crises, mass extinctions
>
>BY ROBERT S. BOYD
>San Jose Mercury News
>August 17, 1999
>
>WASHINGTON -- Recent scientific discoveries are shedding new light on why
>great empires such as Egypt, Babylon and Rome fell apart, giving way to the
>periodic ``dark ages'' that punctuate human history.
>
>At least five times during the last 6,000 years, major environmental
>calamities undermined civilizations around the world. Some researchers say
>these disasters appear to be linked to collisions with comets or fragments
>of comets like the one that broke apart and smashed spectacularly into
>Jupiter five years ago this summer.
>
>The impacts, yielding many megatons of explosive energy, produced vast
>clouds of smoke and dust that circled the globe for years, dimming the sun,
>driving down temperatures and sowing hunger, disease and death.
>
>Full story here:
>
>http://www7.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/nation/docs/disaster17.htm
>