widespread Carolina Bay type craters from Clovis comet 12,900 Ya BP? -- 0.7 M long NS crater with fractured red sandstone on SW rim, CR C 53A, 20 miles E of Las Vegas, NM: Rich Murray 2009.06.08
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.htm
Monday, June 8, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/27
Google Maps Satellite image link:
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Las+Vegas,+New+Mexico&sll=35.587894,-105.919641&sspn=0.000612,0.001608&ie=UTF8&ll=35.614186,-104.827251&spn=0.078289,0.205822&t=h&z=13>
I hope to arouse intense curiosity about the many rather obvious crater
fields of shallow impacts with a fractal distribution of sizes, that I've
scouted within a hundred miles of Santa Fe. Google Maps and Google Earth
make it easy to locate many such fields in the Northern Hemisphere.
The one in the center of this image has a small white rock quarry, about 2
decades old, used for making the road, right at the edge of County Road C
53A, about 20 miles east of Las Vegas, New Mexico. It is unfenced, with no
warning signs and no livestock, so it is unusually easy to inspect at
leisure.
Fields of craters like these are readily found with Google Earth and Google
Maps all the way west along State Road 104 to the center of Las Vegas.
Overall, the terrain is somewhat eroded flat red sandstone bedrock.
It is easy to walk along the SW edge of this crater and see that the flat
red sandstone bedrock is progressively exposed, cracked, and shattered into
1-2 m size blocks, while the center is a few meters deeper, with a cow
wallow of damp, black, sandy soil, between two small NS ridges of dark sandy
material. I have samples, if someone can find a lab that will determine the
chemistry and isotopes at an affordable price, ie, free?
George Anderson Howard has an excellent site for the Carolina Bays:
http://georgehoward.net/Vance%20Haynes%27%20Black%20Mat.htm
http://georgehoward.net/Haynes%20(2008)_PNAS_YD.pdf 6 p
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/18/65
www.pnas.org/content/105/18/6520/suppl/DC1 Supporting Information 18 p
http://picasaweb.google.com/Swampmerchant/...889901367112994
image #1 of 34 LIDAR jpg color images of Carolina Bay elevation terrain
data 2009.01.21
http://picasaweb.google.com/Swampmerchant/...819822906998290
image # 2 gives clear elevation color code and length scale: many Carolina
Bays are about 0.05 - 1.3 miles long
http://picasaweb.google.com/Swampmerchant/...sJanuary182005#
165 fine aerial color photos of Carolina Bays 2005.01.18
http://picasaweb.google.com/Swampmerchant/...AndPhotographs#
37 excellent color photos, maps, and charts
www.agu.org/ American Geophysical Union 2007.05.22-5, Acapulco, MX,
Joint Assembly, Supplement
11:35h
AN: PP42A-05
TI: Evidence for an Extraterrestrial Impact Origin of the Carolina Bays on
the Atlantic Coast of North America
AU: * Howard, G A
EM: george@restorationsystems.com
AF: Restoration Systems, L.L.C., 1101 Haynes Street Suite 107, Raleigh, NC
27604, United States
AU: West, A
EM: allen7633@aol.com
AF: GeoScience Consulting, P.O.Box 1636, Dewey, AZ 86327, United States
AU: Firestone, R B
AF: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA
94710, United States
AU: Kennett, J P
EM: kennett@geol.ucsb.edu
AF: Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Santa
Barbara, CA 93106, United States
AU: Kimbel, D
AF: Restoration Systems, L.L.C., 1101 Haynes Street Suite 107, Raleigh, NC
27604, United States
AU: Newell, W
AU: Kobres, R
AF: Univ. of Georgia Libraries, Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United
States
AB: The Carolina Bays, one of the most conspicuous geomorphic features on
the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States, are a group of about
500,000, oriented, crater-like, elliptical lakes, wetlands, and depressions,
ranging from a few dozen meters to about 11 km in length.
Although long proposed as impact structures (Melton and Schriever, 1933;
Prouty, 1934), this origin for the Carolina Bays has remained controversial
mainly because of an apparent absence of associated extraterrestrial
materials.
Analyses of Bay orientation showed that their long axes converge near the
Great Lakes, suggesting that an impact or airburst over that region may have
formed the Bays (Eyton and Parkhurst, 1975).
However, Bays dates have been reported over a wide range, calling into
question whether all Carolina Bays could have formed simultaneously,
although this issue remains unresolved and controversial.
Many Bay researchers, who subscribe to widely differing theories, agree that
modern Carolina Bays have been subject to repeated modification and that
they most likely evolved from some type of ancestral depressions.
Now for the first time, we present conclusive geochemical and sedimentary
evidence in support of an extraterrestrial connection for the Carolina Bays.
Analyses of sediment from the rim sands and basins of fifteen Bays, widely
distributed across North and South Carolina, reveal anomalously high
abundances of microspherules, iridium, fullerenes with ET helium, carbon
spherules, glass-like carbon, and other potential markers for
extraterrestrial impact.
No such markers were found in paleosols beneath the rim sands or basal
sediments of the Bays examined.
The assemblage of geochemical and sediment signatures of extraterrestrial
impact found in Bay sediments are essentially the same as in the
pan-North-American Younger Dryas impact boundary layer (the YDB), dated at
12.9 ka.
We hypothesize that at least some Bays were formed by the YD impact during
the last deglacial, and we present OSL and radiocarbon dating, along with
stratigraphic profiling, in support of this age.
Data from the Carolina Bays we have examined suggest that at least some
modern Carolina Bays may have evolved from depressions which were excavated
by primary ejecta, secondary ejecta, and/or the shock wave from the Younger
Dryas impact event.
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly
http://www.georgehoward.net/cbays.htm
http://georgehoward.net/htmlfiles/bio.htm
http://restorationsystems.com/contact/
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016.abstract
Restoration Systems, LLC
1101 Haynes Street, Suite 211
Raleigh, North Carolina 27604
tel 919-755-9490
fax 919-755-9492
3150 N. Elm Street, Suite 206
Greensboro, North Carolina 27408
tel 336-272-7190
fax 336-286-5250
GEORGE A HOWARD 100 PRESTON DR, JACKSONVILLE, NC 28540
http://fireballs-meteorites.blogspot.com/2...ruary-2009.html
http://fireballs-meteorites.blogspot.com/2...and-cycles.html
http://www.agu.org/meetings/ja07/waissm07.html
Scientific Drilling, Impact Craters, Paleoclimate, and Mass Extinctions ; I
D A Kring, Lunar and Planetary Institute; J Urrutia-Fucugauchi, Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Did a Bolide Impact Trigger the Younger Dryas and Wipe Out American
Megafauna? A Skeptic's Reaction to an Intriguing Hypothesis.; Fiedel, S J
Geophysical evidence of an impact crater in northwestern South America;
Hernandez, O
Exploring the Human Ecology of the Younger Dryas Extraterrestrial Impact
Event; Kennett, D J, Erlandson, J M, Braje, T J , Culleton, B J
The Younger Dryas ET Impact Theory and Terminal Pleistocene Mammalian
Extinctions in North America; Erlandson, J M ,Kennett, D J, Braje, T,
Culleton, B
Triggering of the Younger Dryas Cooling by Extraterrestrial Impact; Kennett,
J P, Becker, L, West, A.
Evidence for an Extraterrestrial Impact Origin of the Carolina Bays on the
Atlantic Coast of North America; Howard, G A, West, A, Firestone, R
B,Kennett, J P, Kimbel, D, Kobres, R
Evidence for a Massive Extraterrestrial Airburst over North America 12.9 ka
Ago; Firestone, R B, West, A,Revay, Z, Belgya, T,Smith, A, Que Hee, S S
Extraterrestrial Markers Found at Clovis Sites Across North America; West,
A, Firestone, R B, Kennett, J P,Becker, L.
http://restorationsystems.com/who/blog.asp
Metro Magazine 2009 January
posted by Bryan on 2/18/2009
Journeys with George: Did A Comet Cause The Carolina Bays?
By Liza Roberts
http://www.georgehoward.net/metro.pdf 5 p many color photos
George Howard is many things. He is the president of the Raleigh-based
Restoration Systems mitigation bank and a conservationist; he is a history
buff, a science geek, a cartographer. The 42-year-old family man is a
talented amateur artist, a dedicated if unprolific fisherman and a politico
whose office photos show him chummy with folks including Jesse Helms, Newt
Gingrich, Lauch Faircloth and both George Bushes.
But what really gets Howard going -- gets him talking a mile a minute,
playing hooky from work and waking up at night -- is his research into a
geographical oddity known as the Carolina Bays.
These elliptical, wetland depressions, often rimmed with white, crystalline
sand, are sprinkled along much of the North Carolina coast and parts of the
eastern seaboard from Georgia to the District of Columbia. To Howard and
those who share both his interest and his theory, these droplet-shaped dents
(often choked with bay trees, hence the name) were most likely caused by a
life-obliterating comet that landed on earth about 13,000 years ago: in
geologic terms, quite recently. Howard wants to prove this, and he wants the
world to take note.
He also knows how his theory can sound: nuts. (His word.) But it's not, and
he's not. In fact, the theory has some impressive bona fides: The National
Academy of Sciences published a paper he a and a small group of fellow
researchers wrote on their findings. National Geographic has produced a
documentary on the subject, and Howard and his research team were recently
asked to speak on the subject at the prestigious American Geophysical
Union's
fall meeting.
But he also knows that real believing requires seeing. His favorite
quotation, borrowed from the state motto of North Carolina, is "Esse Quam
Videri," -- "to be rather than to seem." He wants to show the evidence to
prove his case. And so he is delighted for the chance to show an interested
party just what he's talking about: these Carolina Bays, from above.
The Grand Tour
"You ready for the Grand Carolina Bays Tour?" Howard grins as the journey
begins. The drive from downtown Raleigh to Fayetteville Regional Airport
takes about an hour and a half -- not nearly enough time for Howard to begin
to say all he wants to say about what we're about to see. His primer begins
with a basic refresher course on the evolution of the planet, veers into
mythology, geology, ancient cultures, climate science, dinosaurs, botany;
sidesteps frequently into humor and pop culture -- and ends up deadly
serious.
Howard would be aghast at the idea that it could be summed up, but here
goes: 13,000 years ago, he says, a "cataclysmic event" happened when a comet
hit the earth somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. It hit an ice
sheet, acting like a big kid's cannon ball in the shallow end of a pool,
throwing off a vast airborne splatter of "flying detritus," including
extra-terrestrial particles that landed as far away as North Carolina. It's
also possible that it created a shockwave that rippled across the landscape,
dimpling it in the process, or that a little bit of both happened. Howard
says it is certain that the comet decimated everything in its path,
including the mammoths and the Clovis people, a well-documented Paleo-Indian
civilization.
It Can Happen Here
Believing that such a thing happened as recently as 13,000 years ago implies
that it could happen again, and possibly soon: not something most people are
prepared to contemplate. But it's clear that for Howard, zipping down
Interstate 95 and half-listening to CNBC's market-meltdown report on the
radio, this possibility is neither abstract nor unimaginable. He waves his
hand out the window, vaguely northward. "You wonder what came flying from
that direction and landed here in these fields. Or what hell storm swept
through and left these depressions."
Howard's fascination with that hell storm, these depressions and what it
means for the future of our planet began years ago as a staffer for Lauch
Faircloth in the US Senate. Studying a US Geological Survey map of
Faircloth's
farm, he noticed something unusual. "What are all those elliptical dotted
lines on your farm, Senator?" he asked. Faircloth's casual reply: "Oh, you
know, meteor holes."
Howard's "natural ferocious curiosity" took over, and he quickly became an
expert on the subject. These "meteor holes," mostly too shallow to notice at
ground-level, are clearly evident from above. First observed in the 1930s
when the agricultural programs of the New Deal mandated county-by-county
aerial photographs, they caused a sensation at the time. The number (more
than 500,000 is the estimate), the symmetry, the fact that they all point in
the same direction (toward Lake Michigan) -- all gripped the public
imagination, culminating in a 1933 piece in Harper's Monthly entitled "The
Comet That Hit the Carolinas," by Edna Muldrow. But the scientific
establishment ultimately pooh-poohed the comet theory, arguing that the bays
were caused by wind, water and erosion over time, and the subject fell off
the public radar.
If Howard has his way, that will change.
The Bays from Above
When we arrive at the airport, the fall weather is unseasonably warm. The
skies are bright and clear, with a slight breeze, like a day in May. Our
chartered plane is miniscule. It's so small we have to climb over its
balsa-thin wings to pop into our seats through a Plexiglas-bubble hatch-top.
We barely fit inside. Takeoff feels like racing down an empty street in a
Matchbox car, until the thing lifts off -- then it's just like floating.
We meander above the airport before crossing over I-95 and heading south
into "Bays Territory." At first, nothing jumps out. And then it does. Two
blurred, white-sand-edged ellipses, about 100-yards long and 30-yards wide,
chase each other across a field of soy. Another one nearby forms a visible
swamp. A ghostly pair of ovals lurk in a cleared field. Once you know what
to look for, they're impossible to miss.
"They're everywhere," Howard says gleefully, snapping away with a long lens
camera. The jigsaw of green fields, punctuated here and there by these
graceful, sandy shapes, is a beautiful sight, but as we head over the border
into South Carolina, Howard points out a less lovely landmark: "Make sure
not to miss the big purple lagoons of pig piss!" He's not kidding. Countless
pig farms pepper the horizon, their low-slung, silver-roofed pig houses each
accompanied by a large, strangely purple, chemically treated lagoon of
waste.
But as our flight path takes us over the Cape Fear River, the Bays are once
again quite noticeable. They've multiplied, lying side-by-side now, then in
rows, then in clusters. The chalk-white sand that surrounds many of them
stands them out in stark relief; others are made distinct by the darker
color of vegetation within their borders.
Bays are fertile ground, Howard points out. Blueberries in particular grow
well in them. So do carnivorous plants: Venus flytraps, pitcher plants,
sundews. "The highest concentration of Venus flytraps in the United States
are found in Eastern North Carolina," he says. (According to the
International Carnivorous Plant Society, this is in fact the case.) Is he
implying that these plants literally . came from Venus? "Well," he demurs,
"that's far into the realm of speculation."
But Howard does not consider it speculation to point out the other
extra-terrestrial evidence he says are harbored in the Bays: tiny magnetic
spheres, iridium-laced grains and nanodiamonds. The chemical composition of
these materials, as the science press has noted, is most similar to lunar
rocks and meteorites. Howard describes nanodiamonds as a veritable diamond
dust that lines the bottoms of the Bays -- too minute to have any value
except as proof of great carbon impact. He regularly sends Ziploc bags full
of the stuff to Arizona geophysicist Allen West and to a lab at UC Berkeley
for testing. In the past four years Howard estimates he's sent off more than
a ton of sand from the Bays.
Looking Skyward
But despite his efforts and those of his fellow researchers, including
scientists from the University of South Carolina, UC Berkeley, Brown
University and UCLA, among others, the endorsement of the broader scientific
community remains elusive. "It's hard for people who are steeped in their
own paradigm to accept a radically different way of viewing the past," he
says. He also points to a lack of understanding, knowledge and communication
between different areas of the science establishment. As Howard puts it,
"the astronomers won't look down and the geologists won't look up."
If Howard's efforts bear fruit, we'll all start taking a cautious look
skyward, and not a moment too soon. "There should be more attention paid to
planetary protection," he says. "We're way behind the curve on that. The
number of people working on it could staff a McDonald's." NASA does provide
the global majority of research funding into near-earth-object detection and
disaster prevention, but Howard's not alone in fearing it's not nearly
enough.
"I am a catastrophist," Howard concedes. "I think that things have happened
in the past that were horrible and were recorded for us. We don't recognize
the tune, but it's all there in myth and fable." And, he is certain: It's
also recorded in the elliptical, wetland pocks that speckle our coastline;
it's recorded in the magnetic, extra-terrestrial matter he says is embedded
in the Mammoth tusk that hangs over his television; it's recorded in the
diamond dust he FedExes across the country. The evidence is all there, he
says, you just have to know how to look for it.
Indeed, Howard's wife kids him that he sees Carolina Bays everywhere he
looks, even in the shapes of the raindrops on the windshield of his car. He
smiles at the thought, forcing himself to end the day-long tutorial as his
Grand Carolina Bays Tour draws to a close. "You ain't even heard half of
it," he says, and he's not kidding.
Though uniform in the broad sense, the Bays are dramatically different in
the particulars of their measurements and hydrology.
The length of Bays ranges from Lake Waccamaw, N.C., at 7 miles, to
depressions only 200 feet long, with a median length of approximately 1/4
mile.
The depth of Bays ranges from 0 to 23 feet below the elevation of the
surrounding terrain. (Kaczorowski).
Eyton and Parkhurst detail additional characteristics of Carolina Bays
below:
1. The Carolina Bays are ellipses and tend to become more elliptical
with increasing size. Many bays, however, lack true bilateral symmetry along
either the major or minor axis. The southeast portion of many bays is more
pointed than the northwest end and the northeast side bulges slightly more
than the southwest side. Known major axis dimensions vary from approximately
200 feet to 7 miles.
2. The Carolina Bays display a marked alignment with northwest-southeast
being the preferred orientation. Although there are minor local
fluctuations, deviations from the preferred orientation appear to be
systematic by latitude (Prouty, 1952).
3. The bays are shallow depressions below the general topographic
surface with a maximum depth of about 50 feet. Large bays tend to be deeper
than small bays, but the deepest portion of any bay is offset to the
southeast from the bay center.
4. Many bays have elevated sandy rims with maximum development to the
southeast. Both single and multiple rims occur, and the inner ridge of a
multiple rim is less well developed than the outer rim. Rim heights vary
from 0 to 23 feet.
5. Carolina Bays frequently overlap other bays without destroying the
morphology of either depression. One or more small bays can be completely
contained in a larger bay.
6. Some bays contain lakes, some are boggy, others are either naturally
or artificially drained and are farmed, and still others are naturally dry.
7. The stratigraphy beneath the bays is not distorted (Preston and
Brown, 1964; Thom, 1970).
8. Bays occur only in unconsolidated sediments.
Bays in South Carolina are found on relict marine barrier beaches associated
with Pleistocene sea level fluctuations, in dune fields, on stream terraces
and sandy portions of backbarrier flats (Thom, 1970).
No bays occur on modern river flood plains and beaches.
Bays exist on marine terraces as much as 150 feet above sea level in South
Carolina but also occur on discontinuous veneers of fluvial gravels on the
Piedmont in Virginia (Goodwin and Johnson, 1970).
9. Carolina Bays appear to be equally preserved on terraces of different
ages and formational processes.
10. Bays occur in linear arrays, in complex clusters of as many as
fourteen bays, as scattered individuals, and in parallel groups aligned
along the minor axes.
11. Bays are either filled or partly filled with both organic and
inorganic materials.
The basal unit in some bays is a silt believed to represent loess deposited
in water.
12. No new bays appear to be forming although Thom (1970) and Frey
(1954) cite evidence for recent enlargement of existing Carolina Bays. Price
(1968) states that most bays appear to be getting smaller by infilling.
13. Bays are underlain by carbonate, clastic and crystalline bedrock
overlain by variable thicknesses of unconsolidated sediments in which the
bays are found.
14. Ghosts of semi-obliterated Carolina Bays appear to represent former
bays which were filled after formation by terrestrial sediments and organic
materials.
15. Small bays deviate further from the mean orientation per region than
large bays do.
16. No variation in the heavy mineral suite was found along a traverse
of the major axis of one South Carolina bay, even though samples were taken
from the bay floor, bay rim and the adjacent non-bay terrace (Preston and
Brown, 1964).
The range and number of Carolina Bays are a significant (if crudely
catalogued) factor in their description.
Bays are identified along the entire range of the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard,
from New Jersey to Florida, and increase in frequency to a highest
concentration along the border of North and South Carolina.
Estimates of the total number of Bays within this range are from 500,000,
to 2.5 million (if faint so-called "ghost" features are included.)
Along the highest area of concentration, single counties are pocked with
thousands upon thousands of Carolina Bays.
Dr. Tom Ross of Pembroke State University is in the process of counting the
Bays in Robeson County from Soil and Conservation Service soil maps.
Ross's efforts, though still underway, have thus far yielded over 8,800 bays
in Robeson County alone. (PC Tom Ross.)
Geomorphic Origin
The precise geomorphologic process responsible for creating these
extraordinary features has long been debated, and more than a dozen theories
of origin are commonly cited in the Carolina Bay literature:
* marine theories include sand bar dams across drowned valleys (Glenn,
1895);
*swales in underwater sand dunes (Glenn, 1895);
*submarine scour by eddies, currents and undertow (Melton, 1934);
*progressive lagoon segmentation (Cooke, 1934);
*gyroscopic eddies (Cooke, 1940; 1954);
*fish nests created by the simultaneous waving of fish fins in unison over
submarine artesian springs (Grant, 1945).
*subaerial hypotheses include artesian spring sapping (Toumey, 1848);
*peat burning by paleo-Indians (Wells and Boyce, 1953);
*eolian deflation and/or deposition (Raisz, 1934; Price, 1951, 1958, 1968;
*and Carson and Hussey, 1962);
*solution (Johnson, 1936; Lobeck, 1939; Le Grand, 1953; and Shockley and
others, 1956);
*periglacial thaw lakes (Wolfe, 1953);
*wind deflation combined with perched water tables and lake shore erosion at
a 90o angle to the prevailing wind (Thom, 1970);
*artesian spring sapping and eolian deposition (Johnson, 1936);
*and progressive lagoon segmentation modified by eolian processes stabilized
by climatic changes (Price, 1951, 1958, 1968)
In general, however, the debate is properly divided into two camps: those
who propose a number of terrestrial mechanisms operating together to form
the Bays, and others who conclude that a single encounter with a space borne
object best accounts for their unusual characteristics.
The fifty odd year exchange between these two groups reveals a fundamental
division of geological science and, indeed, other earth and human historical
sciences.
The question at hand is an old one: Are all earth's features and geological
phenomena best explained by slow mechanisms, identifiable today and
operating over long periods of time -- or is it reasonable to include
dramatic, if seemingly rare, catastrophic events as punctuating factors in
earth's evolution?
The search for the origin of the Carolina Bays is heavily, and negatively,
influenced by this wider dispute.
The Debate Begins
The scientific dispute concerning the origin of Carolina Bays debate began
ironically with the arrival of seemingly unrelated science, aerial
photography.
In the 1930's, county by county aerial photographs were mandated by the
Roosevelt Administration as part of the government's effort to provide
stability and assistance to farmers in the Depression. (Savage p.21)
When first examined, these photographs revealed to astonished Southern
farmers and scientists alike an incredible array of elliptical, repeating
patterns in the previously familiar landscape.
It is easy to imagine the wonder expressed by the locals at the sight of the
magnitude and symmetry of the Carolina Bays viewed from aerial photographs.
These were structures that for generations had been regarded only as a
peculiar nuisance.
Many observers were quick to conclude that the depressions were obviously
remnant scars from a collision of a number of bodies with Earth (Savage p.
21).
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/firewate.html Robert E. Kobres hypotheses:
Simply put, I believe that these near flat, shallow, structures were formed
by terminal flare induced steam explosions of wet exposed ground.... ( many
photos of various types of craters that resemble Carolina Bays )
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/shoelett.html
http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/hydro.htm Richard V. Fisher re
hydrovolcanic processes ( many photos ) 1997
Photograph of Cerro Colorado volcano, Pinacate Volcanic Field, northern
Mexico. Cerro Colorado is a maar volcano with a broad crater and low rims
formed by hydrovolcanic processes. Prevailing winds blew toward the
southwest at the time of eruption to form the high point of the rim.
Hydrovolcanic processes are those involving explosive or nonexplosive
interaction of water and magma. Explosive hydrovolcanic eruptions produce
low-standing volcanoes with bowl-shaped craters. Explosive hydrovolcanic
eruption plumes commonly collapse to form base surges that spread outward
from the base of the eruption column.
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/relea...7/asteroid.html 8 movie
clips of supercomputer simulations of asteroid impacts 2007.12.17
http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2...and-cycles.html
long, complex, detailed
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?...=40692&page=all
Carolina Bays discussion
http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/...il/article.html
Comet strike would be cataclysmic
Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 10:00
A DEVASTATING collision between the Earth and a wayward comet which wiped
out nearly every living thing across an entire continent will happen again
and cost millions of lives, a Westcountry scientist claims.
The three-mile wide comet, named Clovis after the fledgling North American
civilisation it drove to extinction, exploded in the atmosphere 13,000 years
ago with a force of 20 million megatons -- larger than a simultaneous blast
by all the nuclear weapons in history, says Professor Chris Turney, of the
University of Exeter.
It left no impact crater but sparked the biggest wildfires in history, which
stretched across the continent and suffocated humans and animals with
overwhelming amounts of soot and smoke, leaving the few survivors with no
vegetation or prey to live on.
Fiery debris from the comet also melted huge portions of the ice sheet,
which drastically altered the planet's climate. Massive volumes of fresh
water found their way into the oceans and changed their currents, plunging
the Earth into an Ice Age for 1,000 years.
http://www.uc.edu/News/NR.aspx?ID=8625
Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened by New Evidence Located in Ohio,
Indiana
Was the course of life on the planet altered 12,900 years ago by a giant
comet exploding over Canada? New evidence found by UC Assistant Professor of
Anthropology Ken Tankersley and colleagues suggests the answer is
affirmative.
Date: 7/2/2008 12:00:00 AM
By: Carey Hoffman
Phone: (513) 556-1825
Photos By: Lisa Ventre
UC ingot Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is
strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North
America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase
of extinction for animals and humans - to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid
explosion over top of Canada.
A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist Allen West in
the past two years says that an object from space exploded just above the
earth's surface at that time over modern-day Canada, sparking a massive
shock wave and heat-generating event that set large parts of the northern
hemisphere ablaze, setting the stage for the extinctions.
Now University of Cincinnati Assistant Professor of Anthropology Ken
Tankersley, working in conjunction with Allen West and Indiana Geological
Society Research Scientist Nelson R. Schaffer, has verified evidence from
sites in Ohio and Indiana - including, locally, Hamilton and Clermont
counties in Ohio and Brown County in Indiana - that offers the strongest
support yet for the exploding comet/asteroid theory.
Samples of diamonds, gold and silver that have been found in the region have
been conclusively sourced through X-ray diffractometry in the lab of UC
Professor of Geology Warren Huff back to the diamond fields region of
Canada.
The only plausible scenario available now for explaining their presence this
far south is the kind of cataclysmic explosive event described by West's
theory. "We believe this is the strongest evidence yet indicating a comet
impact in that time period," says Tankersley.
Ironically, Tankersley had gone into the field with West believing he might
be able to disprove West's theory.
Tankersley was familiar through years of work in this area with the
diamonds, gold and silver deposits, which at one point could be found in
such abundance in this region that the Hopewell Indians who lived here about
2,000 years ago engaged in trade in these items.
Prevailing thought said that these deposits, which are found at a soil depth
consistent with the time frame of the comet/asteroid event, had been brought
south from the Great Lakes region by glaciers.
"My smoking gun to disprove (West) was going to be the gold, silver and
diamonds," Tankersley says. "But what I didn't know at that point was a
conclusion he had reached that he had not yet made public - that the likely
point of impact for the comet wasn't just anywhere over Canada, but located
over Canada's diamond-bearing fields. Instead of becoming the basis for
rejecting his hypothesis, these items became the very best evidence to
support it."
Additional sourcing work is being done at the sites looking for iridium,
micro-meteorites and nano-diamonds that bear the markers of the
diamond-field region, which also should have been blasted by the impact into
this region.
Ken Tankersley in the field
Ken Tankersley seen working in the field in a cave in this publicity photo
from the National Geographic Channel.
Much of the work is being done in Sheriden Cave in north-central Ohio's
Wyandot County, a rich repository of material dating back to the Ice Age.
Tankersley first came into contact with West and Schaffer when they were
invited guests for interdisciplinary colloquia presented by UC's Department
of Geology this spring.
West presented on his theory that a large comet or asteroid, believed to be
more than a mile in diameter, exploded just above the earth at a time when
the last Ice Age appeared to be drawing to a close.
The timing attached to this theory of about 12,900 years ago is consistent
with the known disappearances in North America of the wooly mammoth
population and the first distinct human society to inhabit the continent,
known as the Clovis civilization. At that time, climatic history suggests
the Ice Age should have been drawing to a close, but a rapid change known as
the Younger Dryas event, instead ushered in another 1,300 years of glacial
conditions. A cataclysmic explosion consistent with West's theory would have
the potential to create the kind of atmospheric turmoil necessary to produce
such conditions.
"The kind of evidence we are finding does suggest that climate change at the
end of the last Ice Age was the result of a catastrophic event," Tankersley
says.
Currently, Tankersley can be seen in a new documentary airing on the
National Geographic channel. The film "Asteroids" is part of that network's
"Naked Science" series.
[ http://www.history.com/video.do?name=How_the_Earth_Was_Made "Asteroids",
Part 4 ]
The new discoveries made working with West and Schaffer will be incorporated
into two more specials that Tankersley is currently involved with - one for
the PBS series "Nova" and a second for the History Channel that will be
filming Tankersley and his UC students in the field this summer. Another
documentary, this one being produced by the Discovery Channel and the
British public television network Channel 4, will also be following
Tankersley and his students later this summer.
As more data continues to be compiled, Tankersley, West and Schaffer will be
publishing about this newest twist in the search to explain the history of
our planet and its climate.
Climate change is a favorite topic for Tankersley. "The ultimate importance
of this kind of work is showing that we can't control everything," he says.
"Our planet has been hit by asteroids many times throughout its history, and
when that happens, it does produce climate change."
UC News
University of Cincinnati | 2600 Clifton Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
University Information: 513-556-6000 | Copyright Information © 2006
http://nia.ecsu.edu/ureomps2008/team-dryas/yd2008.pdf 6p
Younger Dryas Impact Study
Mentor: Dr. Malcolm LeCompte
MyAsia Reid (ECSU)
Leroy Lucas (MVSU)
Devina Hughes (MVSU)
Abstract -- The events precipitating the dramatic,
millennial long climatic cooling known as the Younger
Dryas, that occurred approximately 13,000 years ago
remain a mystery. Recent evidence suggests an
extraterrestrial impact on the Laurentide ice sheet may
have provided the trigger for a massive influx of fresh
glacial melt water theorized to have flooded the North
Atlantic and shut down the Thermohaline circulation that
moderates climate in the northern hemisphere. The
apparent absence of an easily identified impact crater has
focused the search for evidence of an impact on a search
for extraterrestrial markers embedded in the Earth's
sedimentary record.
Association of an impact with coincident reduction in the
numbers of megafauna species and human population of
North America has suggested a strategy for the search for
evidence of the impact. If an impact is responsible for
initiating the onset of the Younger Dryas, the ultimate
disappearance of megafauna species and the decline in
human population, then the evidence should lie at the
sedimentary boundary (YDB) separating the Younger
Dryas from the preceding Bolling-Allerod at a depth
corresponding to 12,900 years before present.
Some of these evidential markers (magnetic grains and
spherules, charcoal, and glass-like carbon) were relatively
easy to extract and identify while others (nano-diamonds
and fullerenes) required great care, expensive
instrumentation and considerable training. Fortunately,
the vessels (carbon spherules) containing the more
challenging markers were identified and extracted during
the soil processing for magnetic spherules and charcoal.
The research project also included an investigation of local
paleo-lake depressions known to harbor impact markers
and whose stratigraphy could have revealed a clearer
understanding of the processes that shaped the coastal
topography during the Younger Dryas. The research was
carried out using a combination of Ground Penetrating
RADAR (GPR) and sample coring to probe the subsurface
deposits of selected depressions.
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In mutual service, Rich Murray
Rich Murray, MA Boston University Graduate School 1967 psychology,
BS MIT 1964, history and physics,
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
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