Re: Suspicious impact craters and iridium layers?

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Jaime A. Headden wrote:

>   Using such imagery or belief to name geologic features is nothing new. 
> "Pele"
> is a type of lava named for the Hawai'ian goddess of fire and mother of the
> islands, whereas Chatterjee's Shiva Crater is named for the Hindu goddess 
> of
> death, destruction (and rebirth), Siva (or or spelled, but pronounced the 
> same,
> Shiva).

Don't forget Gondwana.

We also have a whole swag of geographical names derived from classical 
mythology: Atlas Mountains (and Atlantic Ocean), Pillars of Hercules, Amazon 
River...  A great many dinosaur names are also based on classical gods and 
heroes: _Atlantosaurus_, _Titanosaurus_, _Achillobator_, _Rhoetosaurus_, 
_Apatosaurus ajax_, _Charonosaurus_, _Kerberosaurus_, _Achelousaurus_, etc.  
There is a new ceratopsian genus in the pipeline that will reference a 
snake-haired personage in Greek mythology.

>   Not sure whaty this is getting at, since paleontologists don't usually
> involve themselves in drunken orgies.

We have ichthyologists for that.  Particularly those shark people.

> However, biologically, to get a hit for
> names from Bacchus, you'll have to take an extension through the term 
> bacculite
> to get to invertebrates, such as *Bacculites*, so named for the resemblance 
> of
> its shell to that of the mammalian bacculum, which is named for the 
> "priapic"
> nature of Bacchus.

There is a 'phylum' of wormy invertebrates named Priapulida, for that same 
reason.  Priapus was another (later) Greek demi-god, reputed to be the son 
of Dionysus by the love-goddess Aphrodite.  His genitals were said to be 
enormous.

Cheers

Tim