Guest: Dr. Malcolm LeCompte: Topics: Dr. LeCompte's paper and work, "A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea." see www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3.
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We welcomed Dr. Malcom LeCompte back to the show from his initial Hotel Mars visit on this subject from Oct. 20, 2021 ( https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/20-oct-2021/broadcast-3773-hotel-mars-dr.-malcom-lecompte). Today's show was a far more detail discussion than when our guest was on Hotel Mars. In addition, I certainly suggest you read his paper published in Nature, "A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea." see www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3. For shorter versions there are multiple news stories about the discover the work of Dr. LeCompte's team.
Our program consisted of Malcom talking about the discovery, the actual finding of evidence which included heated materials much like materials that exist after a nuclear bomb blast but without the radiation. He also said there was evidence of widescale destruction and the total death of all the population in the area. In addition, he talked about the analysis of the human remains that were found which provided supportive evidence to the bolide airburst theory about the size of the Tunguska airburst. Their paper documents these findings with specs, stats, and photos so do check it out. You might allow want to read some of the articles about the work. One I used in researching the story was from Science News at http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/tall-el-hammam-10116.html#:~:text=The%20ruins%20of%20Tall%20el,Israel%2C%20and%20the%20Dead%20Sea.
Our guest not only described the work and findings so far (see tags/key words for topic summary), he talked about their future research plans and the return to the area. He talked about finding a crater plus looking for other evidence, in addition to attempting a time lapse historical account of the event. While Malcolm referenced the Genesis biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah which many believe was part of this event, he largely dismissed that part of the story. He did talk at length about the biblical references, those behind the biblical connection and the controversy around this part of the story. Still, he made it clear he was not part of the biblical story controversy but he did talk about it and answer questions on our show. In particular, since he mentioned finding salt in the area which likely destroyed crops with toxic soil, the biblical references to Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt came up as a possible source of the salt since our guest said they did not know how the salt got there. I'm sure you will find this to be an interesting part of this discussion.
Another question I found interesting came in from Shelly when she asked if modern day engineering, architectural design, earthquake reinforcement and such would have protected the structures from massive destruction caused by the airburst. Malcolm did not think so but listen to what he said in response to this question. Your thoughts are welcome on our blog.
Pompeii was brought up as a type of example, especially given the time lapse video that researchers created to show how the city and region was destroyed by the volcano and how quickly it happened. Malcom said they would like to do something like that for this project but it has not happened yet. We had many additional email questions for this program. One such email asked about impact science, another asked if the area has been repopulated or was the soil damaged long term so that even today it can't support regional agriculture.
Our guest offered us a short program summary plus he provided details for upcoming additional research in the area.
Please post your comments/questions on the blog for this show. You can reach Dr. LeCompte through me here at The Space Show.
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