I think that the impact hypothesis is wrong because the city-size asteroid grazed the earth, thus left Iridium scattered over an area of New Mexico, AZ, toward gulf region. The asteroid bounced off earth. The deposits of Iridium are wide as it entered earths atmosphere which explains the spread Iridium over large area in heavy concentrations in those areas.The lack of evdience of full impact depth this would have created somewhat differnt damage which we see, The asteroid is heading away from earth as we speak. google can’t find it..
Patrick

2012 is a farce.  Nothing will happen.  The bible is also a farce.  There is no god, no devil, no heaven, no hell.
All of you brainwashed morons feel the nesessity to bring “god” into every conversation.  Keep your fairy tales written by primitive sheep-herders to yourselves.  And please, do me a favor - do NOT pray for me.  I don’t need to be “saved”.

This was an excellent production. Although Jupiter is a much larger target and sits in a more precarious zone, earth carries no special immunity. I do however feel that we may see effects of a “near miss” sooner than an actual impact and wonder what those effects would be. The effects of the moon’s gravitational pull are known and predictable but what about a smaller body that grazes the earth’s extremities at high speed? A body much closer to the earth than the moon would magify its gravitational effects and would be a sudden “pulse” of pulling force over a swath. It would be interesting to see calculations of various scenarios like this and what real effects we could expect to see by such an event. Had it not been for the Shoemakers, the Jupiter impact and its effects may well have gone unnoticed or discovery come too late for any meaningful documentation.