Number 106, December 14, 1992 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE has been more directly linked to manmade chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco last week, Joe Waters of JPL, Aidan Roche of Lockheed, and other scientists using the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) reported that the seasonal destruction of stratospheric ozone in September is preceded in the summer by a buildup of ozone-killing chlorine compounds deriving from CFCs. The UARS team released the first images of this buildup, showing a considerable gathering of chlorine monoxide in June in extreme southern latitudes. Ralph Cicerone of UC Irvine (714-725-2157) said that the amount of chlorine measured corresponded to the levels one would expect from the known release of manmade pollutants. AN ASTEROID IMPACT MAY HAVE CAUSED THE MASS EXTINCTION that occurred at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods 250 million years ago, said Michael Rampino (212-998-8995) of NYU at the AGU meeting. He asserted that he has found evidence---in the form of gravity anomalies and certain rock deposits---for such an impact in the South Atlantic, in an area where, many scientists believe, South America, Africa, and other land masses fit together in the primordial supercontinent called Gondwanaland. Rampino claims that the gradual breakup of Gondwanaland into present-day continents may have been initiated by the catastrophic impact. Another scientist at the meeting, Verne Oberbeck of NASA/Ames (415-604-5496) also believes an impact may have sundered Gondwanaland and that, in general, impacts should be given more credit for shaping earlier Earth geology. In particular, he believes that the small rock sediments called tillites, usually thought to result from the grinding and plowing action of glaciers, may in part be debris from impacts. Consequently, Oberbeck suggested, there might have been fewer glacial periods than is usually believed. Rampino went so far as to say that all tillites are of impact origin. Unlike the theory that describes the KT (Cretaceous-Tertiary) catastrophe 65 million years ago (when the dinosaurs became extinct) in terms of an asteroid impact, the notion that the PT catastrophe was caused by an impact or that tillites result from impacts is anything but a majority opinion; indeed, many scientists at the meeting were skeptical about Rampino's and Oberbeck's ideas. Thomas Crowley of the Applied Research Corp. (409-846-1403), a paleo-climatologist, said that his reaction to the proposed impact origin of tillites was one of "considerable disbelief, bordering on incredulity." For one thing, he said, tillite deposits are too extensive over time and physical extent to have been caused by an impact. THE GALILEO SPACECRAFT GOT A GRAVITY BOOST from the Earth on its Dec. 8 close encounter. On its way by, Galileo offloaded more images from last year's flyby of the asteroid Gaspra. Meanwhile, Galileo took many photos of Earth and, on its flight over the Moon, the first color pictures of the north lunar regions. Galileo is now traveling toward Jupiter (arrival date: Dec. 1995) at more than 8 km/sec, allowing it to cover the Earth-Moon distance in 12 hours (it took the astronauts 3 days). At the AGU meeting, Torrance Johnson of JPL said that Galileo would be taking the best photo yet showing both the Earth and Moon in one frame.