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Younger Dryas Impact
© Charles Chandler
 
Was there an ET impact 12,900 years ago? If so, what were the implications?
 
The first two posts are the abstracts from the original papers, followed by our discussion.
 
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2007-09-27
 
Firestone, R. B.
West, A.
Kennett, J. P.
Becker, L.
E. Bunch, T.
Revay, Z. S.
Schultz, P. H.
Belgya, T.
Kennett, D. J.
Erlandson, J. M.
Dickenson, O. J.
Goodyear, A. C.
Harris, R. S.
Howard, G. A.
Kloosterman, J. B.
Lechler, P.
Mayewski, P. A.
Montgomery, J.
Poreda, R.
Darrah, T.
Hee, S. S. Que
Smith, A. R.
Stich, A.
Topping, W.
Wittke, J. H.
Wolbach, W. S.

A carbon-rich black layer, dating to ≈12.9 ka, has been previously identified at ≈50 Clovis-age sites across North America and appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it. Causes for the extinctions, YD cooling, and termination of Clovis culture have long been controversial. In this paper, we provide evidence for an extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at 12.9 ka, which we hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to YD cooling, major ecological reorganization, broad-scale extinctions, and rapid human behavioral shifts at the end of the Clovis Period. Clovis-age sites in North America are overlain by a thin, discrete layer with varying peak abundances of (i) magnetic grains with iridium, (ii) magnetic microspherules, (iii) charcoal, (iv) soot, (v) carbon spherules, (vi) glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds, and (vii) fullerenes with ET helium, all of which are evidence for an ET impact and associated biomass burning at ≈12.9 ka. This layer also extends throughout at least 15 Carolina Bays, which are unique, elliptical depressions, oriented to the northwest across the Atlantic Coastal Plain. We propose that one or more large, low-density ET objects exploded over northern North America, partially destabilizing the Laurentide Ice Sheet and triggering YD cooling. The shock wave, thermal pulse, and event-related environmental effects (e.g., extensive biomass burning and food limitations) contributed to end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions and adaptive shifts among PaleoAmericans in North America.
2009-10-27
 
Firestone, Richard B.

The onset of >1000 years of Younger Dryas cooling, broad-scale extinctions, and the disappearance of the Clovis culture in North America simultaneously occurred 12,900 years ago followed immediately by the appearance of a carbon-rich black layer at many locations. In situ bones of extinct megafauna and Clovis tools occur only beneath this black layer and not within or above it. At the base of the black mat at 9 Clovis-age sites in North America and a site in Belgium numerous extraterrestrial impact markers were found including magnetic grains highly enriched in iridium, magnetic microspherules, vesicular carbon spherules enriched in cubic, hexagonal, and n-type nanodiamonds, glass-like carbon containing Fullerenes and nanodiamonds, charcoal, soot, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The same impact markers were found mixed throughout the sediments of 15 Carolina Bays, elliptical depressions along the Atlantic coast, whose parallel major axes point towards either the Great Lakes or Hudson Bay. The magnetic grains and spherules have an unusual Fe/Ti composition similar to lunar Procellarum KREEP Terrane and the organic constituents are enriched in 14C leading to radiocarbon dates often well into the future. These characteristics are inconsistent with known meteorites and suggest that the impact was by a previous unobserved, possibly extrasolar body. The concentration of impact markers peaks near the Great Lakes and their unusually high water content suggests that a 4.6 km-wide comet fragmented and exploded over the Laurentide Ice Sheet creating numerous craters that now persist at the bottom of the Great Lakes. The coincidence of this impact, the onset of Younger Dryas cooling, extinction of the megafauna, and the appearance of a black mat strongly suggests that all these events are directly related. These results have unleashed an avalanche of controversy which I will address in this paper.
'13-02-24, 15:02
 
Charles Chandler
Baltimore, MD
 
 
While this hypothesis starts out strong, it seems that the whole thing has become quite contentious, and in fact, has turned into a mud-slinging battle. So what I want to know is this: what are all of the points of evidence, so that we can sort this out?
'13-03-26, 05:56
 
lamaj808407

I'll first say that, for me to even be typing this, you've probably got an idea what I've been through to get to this point, which also happened to be first-contact with QDL, and happened at the exact moment when I was literally ready to delete all evidence of internet browsers from any storage on my personal devices, any storage on any devices that might connect to my router, and final consideration of an EMP at the level of my neighborhood to provide temporary relief from realization that it was even in proximity to my place.

Anyway, I'm at the point as of now where as soon as I read a general summary of the hypothesis, a few things stand out:

1)  An "air burst" of anything can start fires.  The description said the whole of the North American continent caught fire.  If this is the case, there is a lot of carbon evidence somewhere, in a common layer at the associated depth in a core sample drilled from an affected area.  If somebody wanted to know, it's the usual procedure for gathering information.  It's also an extreme case (according to the hypothesis) where you have a better than average chance of finding it in the first place, and if you are correct in your hypothesis, have that same chance in a lot of North America

2)  Relevant to "a lot of North America", you're talking about a continent where a lot of people have had a lot of good reasons to take these samples, and have already done so.  They store the results, and sometimes they store the sample itself.  It has likely been done in quite a few places, and the things are probably available for access somewhere.

3)  It says it sparked a 1,200 year ice age.  Well, it's glaciers, and we know about all of that already.  It's all in geological evidence that should be observable, unless it's so far in the past that it hasn't yet been pursued.  I have to say that if it hasn't already been pursued, then it makes anything of detail about this hypothesis past claiming an "extinction event" pretty hard to justify, at first attempt.

I'll stop at "1,200 year".  I'll state why, before I look like I've just decided to stop, I'll say why. 

That number immediately becomes a flag:  It's the flag that is triggered by relevant info that tells you to stop what you are pursuing, and now begin on something that has fairly strong indication of being more plausible.
'13-03-26, 08:08
 
Charles Chandler
Baltimore, MD
 
lamaj808407 said:
and final consideration of an EMP at the level of my neighborhood to provide temporary relief from realization that it was even in proximity to my place.
As a software developer, I'm well aware that one never, ever hears from a customer until said customer is pressed to the breaking point by the frustrations of trying to use a computer to get some work done. But this is what we in the business refer to as a "close call". :))) Thank God for QDL! :))))
'13-07-22, 13:52
 
Charles Chandler
Baltimore, MD
 
 
From the thunderbolts forum:
 
CharlesChandler said:
I still believe that ancient symbols were inspired by celestial events. I just think that it was a swarm of asteroids that came through, lighting up the daytime sky, causing a few impacts, and generally doing a pretty good job of making a lasting impression on the humans who were running around at the time, before heading back out into the interstellar medium. And I believe that this was the Younger Dryas event(s). The one impact that we know about is the one that hit the Laurentide Ice Sheet, sending huge chunks of ice through the air, which caused the Carolina Bays when they bounced, before landing somewhere in the Atlantic. There could have also been a number of other near misses, and there could have been arc discharges powerful enough to catch everybody's attention. Just imagine what it would have been like to have been a hunter gatherer, 12900 BP, witnessing such events! And how would you explain such things to your children? I think that future generations then attempted to rationalize the stories, and mapped the events to objects that they could still find in the night sky, leaving us with lore associated with known planets from events that had nothing to do with the planets. The swarm that left its mark on our planet, and changed the evolutionary path of humans, while causing the extinction of many other species, is long gone. But it's interesting to consider the possibility that we could actually piece it all together someday, from the lore and from the scientific evidence. People don't just make up wild-n-crazy stories about things that don't relate directly to everyday life. So when such stories pop up all over the place, there has to be a reason.
I'm still mulling over this, but I really think that this deserves closer scrutiny. It seems to me that the archaeological community is highly critical of new ideas, unless of course there is already some sort of trend in that direction, in which case the ideas are instantly accepted. Either way, the criterion was not scientific, and we are no closer to the truth. So I'll be working on iterating through the evidence, to see where the arguments stand.
 
For a good overview of the debate, see the Wikipedia article:
 
 
BTW, for whatever reason, I was thinking that the YD extinction resulted in the human population being reduced to approximately 2,000 (or at least those are the ones from whom we are descended). Actually, that was a different extinction, perhaps due to the eruption of the Lake Toba supervolcano, which was 70,000 years ago.
 
'13-07-22, 16:24
 
Lloyd
St. Louis area

Why don't you ask us some questions about what you're trying to figure out etc, so we can help with this discussion?

The best evidence I know of so far on the Younger Dryas event are:

Jno Cook's SaturnianCosmology.org

Walter Brown's CreationScience.com/onlinebook

Mike's NewGeology.US Shock Dynamics

Dwardu Cardona's God Star etc

I think I already imported a number ot TB forum threads that are related to this topic.
'13-07-22, 20:00
 
Charles Chandler
Baltimore, MD
 
 
Well, I guess we could start with the assertions in the abstract of the original paper. Some of these have been challenged, but perhaps not convincingly.
  1. A carbon-rich black layer, dating to ≈12.9 ka, has been previously identified at ≈50 Clovis-age sites across North America.
  2. The black layer appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling.
  3. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it.
  4. In this paper, we provide evidence for an extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at 12.9 ka, which we hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to YD cooling, major ecological reorganization, broad-scale extinctions, and rapid human behavioral shifts at the end of the Clovis Period.
    1. Clovis-age sites in North American are overlain by a thin, discrete layer with varying peak abundances of
      1. magnetic grains with iridium,
      2. magnetic microspherules,
      3. charcoal,
      4. soot,
      5. carbon spherules,
      6. glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds, and
      7. fullerenes with ET helium,
      8. all of which are evidence for an ET impact and associated biomass burning at ≈12.9 ka.
    2. This layer also extends throughout at least 15 Carolina Bays, which are unique, elliptical depressions, oriented to the northwest across the Atlantic Coastal Plain.
  5. We propose that one or more large, low-density ET objects exploded over northern North America, partially destabilizing the Laurentide Ice Sheet and triggering YD cooling. The shock wave, thermal pulse, and event-related environmental effects (e.g., extensive biomass burning and food limitations) contributed to end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions and adaptive shifts among PaleoAmericans in North America.
'13-07-22, 20:22
 
Charles Chandler
Baltimore, MD
 
 
[Pt.#3] A study of Paleoindian demography found no evidence of a population decline among the Paleoindians at 12,900 ± 100 BP, which was inconsistent with predictions of an impact event.[26] They suggested that the hypothesis would probably need to be revised.[27][28]
 
CC: I "think" that this assumes that the Indians would have all died within 200 years, noticeably, or the hypothesis is wrong. Are the population estimates that accurate? Would the effects of an environmental catastrophe not last longer than that?
 
[Pt.#2] There is also no evidence of continent-wide wildfires at any time during terminal Pleistocene deglaciation,[29] along with evidence that most larger wildfires had a human origin,[29] which calls into question the origin of the "black mat."[30]
 
CC: What would be the "evidence that most of the larger wildfires had a human origin"? Did they leave a pack of matches behind? And would the wildfires necessarily have been everywhere, in order to do enough damage to cause species to go extinct?
 
[Pts.#4.A.1~6] Iridium, magnetic minerals, microspherules, carbon, and nanodiamonds are all subject to differing interpretations as to their nature and origin, and may be explained in many cases by purely terrestrial or non-catastrophic factors.[31]
 
CC: I find it very difficult to believe that wetlands are manufacturing iridium and nanodiamonds by natural processes.
 
[Pt.#4] If it is assumed that the hypothesis supposes that all effects of the putative impact on Earth's biota would have been brief, all extinctions caused by the impact should have occurred simultaneously. However, there is much evidence that the megafaunal extinctions that occurred across northern Eurasia, North America and South America at the end of the Pleistocene were not synchronous. The extinctions in South America appear to have occurred at least 400 years after the extinctions in North America.[19][32][33] The extinction of woolly mammoths in Siberia also appears to have occurred later than in North America.[19] A greater disparity in extinction timings is apparent in island megafaunal extinctions that lagged nearby continental extinctions by thousands of years; examples include the survival of woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island, Russia, until 3700 BP,[19][32][34] and the survival of ground sloths in the Antilles,[35] the Caribbean, until 4700 cal BP.[19] The Australian megafaunal extinctions occurred approximately 30,000 years earlier than the hypothetical Younger Dryas event.[36]
 
CC: It sounds like the critics are assuming that the extinctions should have been simultaneous, not the researchers.
 
[Pt.#4] The megafaunal extinction pattern observed in North America poses a problem for the bolide impact scenario, since it raises the question why large mammals should be preferentially exterminated over small mammals or other vertebrates.[37] Additionally, some extant megafaunal species such as bison and Brown bear seem to have been little affected by the extinction event, while the environmental devastation caused by a bolide impact would not be expected to discriminate.[19]
 
CC: Selective extinction under severe environmental stress is common, and to be expected. Similarly, cascading extinctions due to an eroding food chain could play out over long periods. Some species of dinosaurs outlived the KT extinction by a million years.
 
[Pt.#4] Also, it appears that there was collapse in North American megafaunal population from 14,800 to 13,700 BP, well before the date of the hypothetical extraterrestrial impact,[38] possibly from anthropogenic activities, including hunting.[20]
 
CC: That doesn't prove that an impact event didn't also cause extinctions. In fact, it demonstrates the vulnerability of species to relatively small changes.
 
[Pt.#4.A.5] Scientists have asserted that the carbon spherules originated as fungal structures and/or insect fecal pellets,[25]
 
[Pt.#4.A.6] and that the claimed nanodiamonds are actually misidentified graphene and graphene/graphane oxide aggregates.[24][39] An analysis of a similar Younger Dryas boundary layer in Belgium yielded carbon crystalline structures such as nanodiamonds, but the authors concluded that also did not show unique evidence for a bolide impact.[40]
 
CC: This in inconclusive.
 
[Pt.#4.A] Researchers have also have not found any extraterrestrial platinum group metals in the boundary layer which would be inconsistent with the hypothesized impact event.[41]
 
CC: This "could" be a legitimate point, but it does make the assumption that all bolides are created equal, which is not necessarily true. It also neglects that iridium was found.
 
[Pt.#4.A.2] Further independent analysis was unable to confirm prior claims of magnetic particles and microspherules, concluding that there was no evidence for a Younger Dryas impact event.[42]
 
[Pt.#4.A.6] Other research has shown no support for the impact hypothesis. One group examined carbon-14 dates for charcoal particles that showed wildfires occurred well after the proposed impact date, and the glass-like carbon was produced by wildfires and no lonsdaleite was found.[43]
 
CC: Wildfires before or after the event in question does not speak to whether or not the event occurred. It just demonstrates that carbon doesn't prove how the wildfires were started.
 
Research published in 2012 has shown that the so-called "black mats" are easily explained by typical earth processes in wetland environments.[5] The study of black mats, that are common in prehistorical wetland deposits which represent shallow marshlands, that were from 6000 to 40,000 years ago in the southwestern USA and Atacama Desert in Chile, showed elevated concentrations of iridium and magnetic sediments, magnetic spherules and titanomagnetite grains. It was suggested that because these markers are found within or at the base of black mats, irrespective of age or location, suggests that these markers arise from processes common to wetland systems, and probably not as a result of catastrophic bolide impacts.[5]
 
CC: The logic here is almost laughable. They find iridium in marshlands, and conclude that the marshlands must be manufacturing it? If they find tree leaves settling to the bottom of shallow marshlands, do they conclude that something about marshlands must be manufacturing tree leaves? Or do they consider that marshlands absorb whatever is in the environment, and wonder what produces distinct layers of sediment?
 
All-in-all, I find these criticisms to be specious and argumentative. Frankly, I'm more convinced of the original assertions, because criticisms like these prove that there aren't any legitimate criticisms.
 
'13-07-23, 01:42
 
Lloyd
St. Louis area

Here are quotes from 3 websites that I think are pretty good.

1. Y.D. Black Mat: Here are some general statements from http://saturniancosmology.org/dryas.php quoting Firestone.

In the text of the paper, Firestone, et alii, detail what they are adding to earlier data:

"Directly beneath the black mat, where present, we found a thin, sedimentary layer (usually less than 5 cm) [2 inches] containing high concentrations of magnetic microspherules and grains, nanodiamonds, iridium at above background levels, and fullerenes containing extra-terrestrial helium [Helium-3]. These indicators are associated with charcoal, soot, carbon spherules, and glass-like carbon, all of which suggest intense wildfires."

The magnetic microspherules and some other materials are associated with a ground impact, not with atmospheric explosions — à la Tunguska. They admit as much:

"Most of these markers are associated with previously recorded impacts, but a few are atypical of impact events."

"The evidence points to an extra-terrestrial event with continent-wide effects, especially biomass burning, but the size, density, and composition of the impactor are poorly understood. Even so, current data suggest that this impactor was very different from well studied iron, stony, or chondritic impactors."

2. Micrometeorites in Mammoths: Walter Brown's online book at http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FrozenMammoths3.html has a good piece on Frozen Mammoths, such as this.

mammoths-peppered_tusk.jpg

Figure 148: Peppered Mammoth Tusk. Scientists are finding, over wide geographical areas, mammoth tusks embedded on one side with millimeter-size particles rich in iron and nickel. This has led some to wonder if meteorites exploding high in the atmosphere punctured those tusks.32 The British Broadcasting Corporation stated, "Startling evidence has been found which shows mammoth and other great beasts from the last ice age were blasted with material that came from space."33 But is that the whole story?

3. Comet Impact Melt: This is from https://sites.google.com/site/dragonstormproject/, which I believe is Dennis Cox's material. He communicated on the TB forum maybe a couple of years ago. He's an expert on blast damage etc.

Geo-ablative melt

There is a third kind of frighteningly common fire cloud rock or ignimbrite. Formed, and emplaced in a third, and vastly different kind of process from anything described before. This material is the work of a fragmented comet which collided with the Earth as clusters, and streams, of high velocity particles, and fragments, that exploded very high in the atmosphere. They weren't point explosions either. The momentum was retained, even though all of the kinetic energy is translated into heat. And it continues plowing downwards through the atmosphere in moving explosions, as superheated, supersonic, down-blasts like Tunguska 1908. But the Tunguska object arrived alone. And, at an estimated destructive force equal to only about 15 megatons of TNT, it was such a puny little thing.

The Taurid Progenitor hit the Earth as a fairly constant stream of tens of thousands of fragments like that. Accompanied by clouds of particles down to the size of dust grains. It hit at a low angle of about thirty degrees coming from the southeast. And at a velocity of about 30 kilometers per second. Only the very first fragments fell into cold atmosphere. The rest fell into already superheated impact plasma, and just cranked up the heat and pressure. The down blasts were almost continuous until the last of the fragments fell, and the Earth finally moved out of the orbital path of the fragmented comet's debris.

The process probably lasted a little more than an hour. And the resulting heat, and pressure, of the intense impact showers ablated vast areas of the surface terrains of north [Mexico or America?]. And accumulations of that geo-ablative blast melt are described as non-volcanic ignimbrite, or geo-ablative blast melt.

The mountain you see here is 5 miles long.

It is surrounded by a radial, outwards flowing, splash curtain of ignimbrites like an ejecta curtain.

The mountain is clearly, and obviously, the source location for the radial outwards splash curtain of ignimbrites. But the mountain is not a volcano. It consists of uplifted meta-sedimentary rock. And there is no vent there. So it is not the source of heat, and pressure that melted, and moved them.

There are only two possible directions look to for enough heat, and pressure to melt a few cubic miles of the Earth's surface and to blow it away from its source. Since we can clearly see the ignimbrites didn't come out of the mountain. But were blown off of it, and away from it. We can rule out down.

So the heat, and pressure, to melt and move that radial ignimbrite curtain came from above.
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