Comet Impact Theory Challenged

This one of those items where the headline promises more than it actually delivers. Once again lack of evidence is hardly evidence of lack. This is about evidence supporting an increase in fires as a result of an improving climate. That is all well and good. It does not disprove the existence of a comet explosion, or an asteroid impact leading to the initiation of the climatic change.

That headline writers were extrapolating fires from the shock wave was optimistic. In fact, what evidence that existed was in the form of charcoal, and that is not evidence of burning so much as a blast of heat that toasted large areas.

If significant charcoal survived wildfires then all our soils would be terra preta. The reality is that the charcoal succumbs to fire sooner or later.

The evidence of a blast is in the rock scatter throughout the Ohio Valley. That others have suggested that a Tunguska like event would have ignited a continental wildfire is purely a speculation and as suggested, not supported. There are related charcoal deposits that are not lake sediment related and likely need to be understood.

A charring event following a shock wave passing over grassland is likely to produce a carbon layer if it did not ignite, except it would be consumed during the next season’s grassfire. The same event passing over a forest might just leave enough carbon buried in fallen trees to protect the fresh carbon layer. This tells us that a lot more data is needed, in order to put the early claims in proper perspective.

That a cosmological event took place is not in dispute although this headline claims that. The event put a lot of dust, rock and ice on a trajectory toward the Carolinas from just west of Hudson Bay. It created a shock front that flattened exposed ground but likely left huge tracts untouched.

It was a large object whose energy was largely absorbed by the crust. Much of the shock was absorbed by the ice. And it may have broken up just before impact.

It would be nice if the continent was probably burned over also, but really begs the question of why? It is amazing how a good tale runs ahead of the facts that are dramatic enough.

They did prove that a warmer climate produces more biomass and that this produces more fuel which produces more fire.


Comet Impact Theory Disproved

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Comet_Impact_Theory_Disproved_999.html

by Staff Writers
Bristol, UK (SPX) Jan 28, 2009

New data disproves the recent theory that a large comet exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, causing a shock wave that travelled across North America at hundreds of kilometres per hour and triggering continent-wide wildfires.

Dr Sandy Harrison from the University of Bristol and colleagues tested the theory by examining charcoal and pollen records to assess how fire regimes in North America changed between 15 and 10,000 years ago, a time of large and rapid climate changes.

Their results provide no evidence for continental-scale fires, but support the fact that the increase in large-scale wildfires in all regions of the world during the past decade is related to an increase in global warming.

Fire is the most ubiquitous form of landscape disturbance and has important effects on climate through the global carbon cycle and changing atmospheric chemistry. This has triggered an interest in knowing how fire has changed in the past, and particularly how fire regimes respond to periods of major warming.

The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,700 years ago, was an interval when the temperature of Greenland warmed by over 5 degrees C in less than a few decades. The team used 35 records of charcoal accumulation in lake sediments from sites across North America to see whether fire regimes across the continent showed any response to such rapid warming.

They found clear changes in biomass burning and fire frequency whenever climate changed abruptly, and most particularly when temperatures increased at the end of the Younger Dryas cold phase. The results published, January 26, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Understanding whether rapid changes in climate have caused wild fires in the past will help understand whether current changes in global temperatures will cause more frequent fires at the present time. Such fires have a major impact on the economy and health of the population, as well as feeding into the increase in global warming.

Exploding Asteroid Hypothesis Strengthens

Ohio Diamonds linked to Arctic Diamond Fields

We observe that there is a straight line between this Ohio site described in the attached article, the Arctic diamonds fields and the impact craters in the Carolinas. We can reasonably assume that the primary impact took place on the diamond fields and obviously penetrating the ice and causing a great amount of debris to be hurled into the Ohio Valley. Additional parts of the asteroid obviously impacted in the Carolinas. Little of the evidence for this extreme event is terribly obvious today, but now that we know that it is likely to be there and also to be very extensive, we can start looking.

It seems very unlikely that any argument for glacial transport can hold up as an alternative.

I would like to see a more extensive search for the 12900 horizon and the related charcoal. The extraordinary burn off surely succeeded in leaving an uncommon charcoal zone throughout the eastern USA and the event obviously sent a shock wave that likely killed of the majority of the mega fauna both in North America and also Siberia. Survivors needed to be in the lee of a natural obstruction and then they had to survive the heat wave also.

The initial explosions likely took place over Siberia culminating with the primary impact in the ice shielded diamond field area. Other parts of the incoming object likely exploded over the Carolinas as they neared the surface. It is worth observing that the Mammoth evidence in Siberia strongly supported just such an abrupt extinction and has been commented on decades ago by others. Animals died with food in their mouths.

This impact event was almost ideally placed to promote a shift of the crust thirty degrees south, taking the northern ice cap centered in Hudson Bay out of the polar region. Had I ordered it up to do exactly this job, I hardly could have done better. So all you enthusiasts for divine intervention now have something to chew on. This put the Caribbean into the tropics and turned the Gulf Stream into a powered up deicing machine.

When I laid out the arguments for the Pleistocene Nonconformity, I was hardly going to argue for a silver bullet. I tried to work around something far uglier. And now we have a silver bullet that also damaged the one continent that was clearly both barely populated and home to the saber toothed tiger. It needed to wipe out the mega fauna to make it as hospitable as it is today.

I do not like amazing coincidences. This has the signature of a planned human Terraforming project. Otherwise, it is simply too good to be true. And to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when all other explanations are eliminated, one must consider the unthinkable. Humanity had the time on Earth to do this in spades. They certainly had several convenient tropical homelands to develop an advanced civilization in.

And once the resources and knowledge existed, it was a simple step to execute this crustal shift program. The crust may even have shifted in the past to demonstrate the feasibility. All that was needed was the knowledge to be able to send a large mass into the appropriate orbit. And then to get everyone well out of the way. That means that our predecessors became space faring and have spent the last twelve thousand years elsewhere, but obviously not too far away if the UFO phenomenon means anything at all. In fact this provides us with a very believable and satisfying UFO paradigm to work with.

We can assume that these hypothetical humans have genetically modified themselves to prosper in space and may not be in any rush to live here. And they have allowed the recovering earth to be an interesting experiment in natural human development.

I have sketched out an unusual paradigm for us to contemplate. It is vastly more real and possible to me than is can ever be to you. It resolves a whole range of unspoken questions that have been hanging over our heads and studiously ignored. Like what was modern man doing for fifty thousand years before the abrupt end of the ice age? Particularly in view of what we have done in the 12,900 years since.

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

By: Carey Hoffman

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.

Ken Tankersley

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.

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."

http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=8625

Alternative History of the Holocene.

As my readers know, I am presenting an alternative history of the Holocene that is radically different than that ascribed to by everyone else. It is my expectation that this alternative history will require much of a generation to pass before it is actually accepted into the mainstream.

Fifteen years ago, it was very obvious to me that the Pacific coastal route was a major highway for human migration into the Americas. I live there, after all. It is only now that we are seeing rising acceptance of this idea. Also, the archeologists are now digging deeper than the Clovis record and are actually finding the necessary evidence.

Let us discuss the idea of archeological evidence. One of the poorly understood aspects of such evidence is the input distribution curve. Modest reflection tells us that the input curve is not very likely to match the output curve. What does this mean? It means that a culture can occupy a river valley for 10,000 years and that all evidence of their passing will be recycled by the meandering river bed for the duration leaving only a scattered location or two to interpret. A sampling of this remaining evidence cannot be expected to tell us very much at all about the real history of this occupation and most critically, the fall off in evidence as we retreat in time is naturally precipitous.

We have the example of Monte Verde which is telling us that humanity was in all the Americas for most of 50,000 years. And why not? Our problem is that we have only one or two such sites, while we have many more recent sites. But this is to be expected. What is important is to confirm the antiquity of mankind in the Americas or ignore every piece of cracked stone that may be a human artifact in the Americas while accepting such in the rest of the world.

We now have the important Topper site in North Carolina receiving the same treatment. It is already a very important Clovis site that confirms the meteoric extinction event of 12900 BCE. It also revealed much deeper strata that gave up radiocarbon readings of 50,000 years for charcoal associated with apparent human occupation.

I have had my eyes open for evidence of this nature for many years and it is nice to see it been slowly dug up. And let us not blame the archeologists for a lack of insight. They were far too few and had far too much reputation vested in bad ideas for this to be easily changed. And everyone wants that scant piece of evidence interpreted.

When I reconstructed Bronze Age mathematics, I understood that the measuring stick used by builders of the pyramids needed to have specific marks on the back. When one of these sticks became available for me to inspect, I was electrified to find those marks exactly were they should be.

The same was true when it was revealed that the Paleolithic coastal natives of Eastern Siberia had the best developed upper bodies ever seen for their kayaks.

These alternative historical interpretations continue to accrete new and compelling evidence. They are clearly not bad ideas.

Returning to the Holocene, we have a world utterly changed by the 12900 BCE crustal shift. Prior to this event, the temperate zone was locked in a climate regime that was dominated by the polar ice caps and produced temperature ranges much broader than to day and inimical to any form of stable crop production. It could only support a hunter gatherer society.

The regions of the world that could have evolved an antique civilization were constrained to SE Asia, India, Africa and the Amazon. So far though, our evidence is strictly Paleolithic from typically highland regions. Since modern humanity arose around 70,000 years ago and had sixty thousand years to establish antique civilizations not unlike those of the Maya and Mesopotamia in any convenient river bottom, it is a good surmise that these were all obliterated in 12900 BCE and their littorals flooded out as the sea levels rose from melting ice.

There is no evidence whatsoever to suppose that such a hypothetical population achieved a culture any more sophisticated than that of an advanced stone and wood based society. This is assured by the pervasiveness of surrounding Paleolithic culture.

After the event known as the Pleistocene nonconformity, the temperate zone became hospitable with the removal of the Northern ice Cap with the concomitant 300 foot sea rise and has continued hospitable to this day. The only anomalies of mention are the drop in global heat content caused by mankind’s denuding of the Sahara and the occasional nasty 1159 BCE blip produced by the likes of Hekla.

Such blips are typically volcanic in origin and Hekla’s lasted a full twenty years. The unrecognized consequence of such an event is the establishment of a huge amount of multi year ice in the high Arctic. This sea ice is only removed very slowly in the years that follow. There is good reason to suggest that the consequence of the little ice age was a slow recovery that has lasted two hundred years and only now is showing signs of fully abating.

Thus revegetating the Sahara and the Middle East is a priority to finish the job that nature is trying to complete and protect. The added global heat will allow us to recover far more quickly from the next Hekla style event. And the crust will never move again unless plate tectonics shifts Antarctica fifteen degrees or lifts the Arctic sea bed starting a new ice cap. By then we should have terraformed Venus and not care too much.

I have roughly sketched a history that included ample Bronze Age trading ending abruptly with Hekla and most certainly saw the rise and fall of many organized cultures. Many of those cultures left no stonework to mark their passing. In the Amazon we have a unique man made soil to indicate a population of millions. Without that there is nothing. We will find it necessary to err on the side of the large populations wherever possible.