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SN: Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores

Post by bystander » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:42 pm

Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores
Science News - 2010 March 30
Copious ammonium may be evidence of a 50-billion-ton strike at the end of the ice age .

A new study cites spikes of ammonium in Greenland ice cores as evidence for a giant comet impact at the end of the last ice age, and suggests that the collision may have caused a brief, final cold snap before the climate warmed up for good.

In the April Geology, researchers describe finding chemical similarities in the cores between a layer corresponding to 1908, when a 50,000-metric-ton extraterrestrial object exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, and a deeper stratum dating to 12,900 years ago. They argue that the similarity is evidence that an object weighing as much as 50 billion metric tons triggered the Younger Dryas, a millennium-long cold spell that began just as the ice age was loosing its grip.
Cometary airbursts and atmospheric chemistry: Tunguska and a candidate Younger Dryas event

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Re: SN: Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores

Post by BMAONE23 » Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:09 pm

bystander wrote:Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores
Science News - 2010 March 30
Copious ammonium may be evidence of a 50-billion-ton strike at the end of the ice age .

A new study cites spikes of ammonium in Greenland ice cores as evidence for a giant comet impact at the end of the last ice age, and suggests that the collision may have caused a brief, final cold snap before the climate warmed up for good.

In the April Geology, researchers describe finding chemical similarities in the cores between a layer corresponding to 1908, when a 50,000-metric-ton extraterrestrial object exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, and a deeper stratum dating to 12,900 years ago. They argue that the similarity is evidence that an object weighing as much as 50 billion metric tons triggered the Younger Dryas, a millennium-long cold spell that began just as the ice age was loosing its grip.
Cometary airbursts and atmospheric chemistry: Tunguska and a candidate Younger Dryas event
One misstatement I see in the excerpt is where the article states "(snip) a brief, final cold snap before the climate warmed up for good." There is no definitive proof that the climate has "Warmed up for good". There appears to be too much argument and controversy over the science behind the "Human Caused" element of climate change to say that the past warming (which leveled off after the El Nino event of 1998 though CO2 has still risen) isn't due to a more natural element rather than induced by our activities. It would have been better stated "a brief cold snap before the climate warmed to it's current level."

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Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by dougettinger » Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:54 pm

Two authors with academic credentials wrote Catacylsm ! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.. Does anybody in the forum have any strong opinions about any of its validity? Or is this some more pseudo-science? I thought the authors, D.S Allan & J.B. Delair present a very good case. Of course, some of their geological evidence resulting from the last glaciation period differs quite dramatically with current thinking.

For those that are interested, there exist actual technical reasons for global flooding. When I initially learned of these reasons I was amazed that these understandings are never exhibited more in the mainstream - regardless of being either scientific or pseudo-scientific. The two main reasons are: the sliding of a major landed polar ice sheet into the existing ocean and the rise or fall of the Earth's crust due the changes in the axis tilt of the outer crust and the corresponding shifted oblateness of the Earth.

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Cataclysm: When the Earth Nearly Died Laughing

Post by bystander » Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:31 pm

When the Earth Nearly Died
Compelling Evidence of A Catastrophic World Change 9,500 BC

(c) 1995 by By DS Allan and JB Delair. 386pp. Republished in 1997 as
Cataclysm : Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B. C.
D.S. Allan, a Cambridge M.A., is a science historian specializing in paleogeography, particularly in the Arctic regions. A science teacher for many years, he is a skilled cartographer and has made a special study of evidence for climatic and landform change in recent geological times. He lives in Basildon, Essex, England.

J.B. Delair, B.Sc., is an Oxford-based geologist with wide international and commercial field experience. An anthropologist, he has a special interest in animal and plant distribution and in tribal traditions. He is the Museum Curator of Geology at University of Southampton, England.

The book got good reviews from Douglas Kenyon, editor and publisher of Atlantis Rising Magazine and from Rand Flem-Ath, co-author of Atlantis Blueprint : Unlocking the Ancient Mysteries of a Long-Lost Civilization and When the Sky Fell : In Search of Atlantis.

Rand Flem-Ath, a Canadian librarian, is one of the world's leading researchers in catastrophe myths. He lives on Vancouver Island with his wife, Rose, and their two dogs and two cats.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:55 pm

dougettinger wrote:Two authors with academic credentials wrote Catacylsm ! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.. Does anybody in the forum have any strong opinions about any of its validity?
The date is associated with the Younger Dryas. It is certain that some interesting climatic variations occurred at that time, for reasons that remain uncertain (although there are several theories that are under investigation).

It is certain that there was no "Great Deluge"; that is, there was no global flooding. It is certain this had nothing to do with axial tilt. It is likely that this was mainly a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere. The possibility of a meteor impact (not yet strongly supported) is the only theory that could reasonably be called "cosmic".
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Ann » Tue Jun 15, 2010 5:56 pm

I have heard that what is now the Mediterranean was once dry land where people lived and livestock grazed. Then, very suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Sound of Gibraltar, and the land inside was flooded extremely quickly. This event may have lived in memory and given rise to stories about a Great Flood.

Any comments?

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue Jun 15, 2010 6:18 pm

Ann wrote:I have heard that what is now the Mediterranean was once dry land where people lived and livestock grazed. Then, very suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Sound of Gibraltar, and the land inside was flooded extremely quickly. This event may have lived in memory and given rise to stories about a Great Flood.
The Mediterranean initially formed, then dried up, then refilled as you describe about 5 million years ago. So there were no people, nor anything evolutionarily close enough to people to have created stories or memories. Furthermore, the refilling of the modern Mediterranean would have not been a catastrophic event, since it took two or three years, meaning people could have walked away from the growing shoreline much faster than it expanded.

Many other theories have been advanced to explain great deluge myths in various cultures. These typically involve much more recent periods of flooding- from around 1500 BCE to perhaps 5500 BCE. Over such a period, unusually large regional floods must certainly have occurred nearly everywhere (although without any connection), so it is hardly surprising that these myths developed, or might have some connection to actual events.
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Ann » Wed Jun 16, 2010 2:37 am

Okay. Thanks, Chris.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by dougettinger » Wed Jun 16, 2010 3:47 pm

Ann wrote:I have heard that what is now the Mediterranean was once dry land where people lived and livestock grazed. Then, very suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Sound of Gibraltar, and the land inside was flooded extremely quickly. This event may have lived in memory and given rise to stories about a Great Flood.

Any comments?

Ann
The flooding Mediterranean does not address worldwide legends such as Hopi Indians watching a white line of the horizon approaching their safe haven at a higher elevation. The white line is believed to be a flood moving across the western plains of the USA. This particular flooding was perhaps due to the uplift of an inland sea basin. The Mediterranean story of course does not address the quick freeze of woolly mammoths of the Siberian plains. And if the Mediterranean did flood castrophically, the authors did not relate any such flooding to this particular era of 9500 BC.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by dougettinger » Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:11 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
dougettinger wrote:Two authors with academic credentials wrote Catacylsm ! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.. Does anybody in the forum have any strong opinions about any of its validity?
The date is associated with the Younger Dryas. It is certain that some interesting climatic variations occurred at that time, for reasons that remain uncertain (although there are several theories that are under investigation).

It is certain that there was no "Great Deluge"; that is, there was no global flooding. It is certain this had nothing to do with axial tilt. It is likely that this was mainly a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere. The possibility of a meteor impact (not yet strongly supported) is the only theory that could reasonably be called "cosmic".
The subject book does address other occurrences that happened during this time such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and a rain of small impactors from the sky.

According to some of the legends, a large planet crossed the sky and had a near miss with Earth. Supposely, the magnetic field and gravity field of this near-miss planet combined with the perhaps stronger magnetic field of Earth during these times to affect and shift the Earth's crust by several degrees and possibly relocate Earth's magnetic dipole axis with respect to its spin axis. These explanations are mostly conjecture by the authors which they based on not only on legends, but also inductive reasoning for explaining geological and biological anamolies that have been studied, compiled, and dated back to 9500 BC.

So per the the book's hypothesis, this was a cosmic event. And the discovery of more details about the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud do give some credence to a source for this mysterious near-miss planet. And if Earth's crust was disturbed with some vertical rise and fall, and if ice sheets slipped into the ocean from land masses, and if impactors and earthquakes causes tsunamis, then legends of global flooding could be real. The book is definitely not a VonDaniken spoof or just another book condenmed to the occult.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:48 pm

dougettinger wrote:According to some of the legends, a large planet crossed the sky and had a near miss with Earth. Supposely, the magnetic field and gravity field of this near-miss planet combined with the perhaps stronger magnetic field of Earth during these times to affect and shift the Earth's crust by several degrees and possibly relocate Earth's magnetic dipole axis with respect to its spin axis. These explanations are mostly conjecture by the authors which they based on not only on legends, but also inductive reasoning for explaining geological and biological anamolies that have been studied, compiled, and dated back to 9500 BC.
I'd consider that nothing more than Velikovskian nonsense, totally unsupported by any evidence and totally untenable on any scientific grounds, even purely speculative reasoning. The idea is crazy.

Even the impact hypothesis associated with the Younger Dryas doesn't do more than assume an impact initiated a chain of events that was already primed by the existing environmental conditions. Here's a useful tool: if any theory mentions magnetic fields or the Earth's magnetic axis in terms of climatic events- especially cataclysmic ones- you are almost certainly looking at baloney.
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by dougettinger » Fri Jun 18, 2010 6:24 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
dougettinger wrote:According to some of the legends, a large planet crossed the sky and had a near miss with Earth. Supposely, the magnetic field and gravity field of this near-miss planet combined with the perhaps stronger magnetic field of Earth during these times to affect and shift the Earth's crust by several degrees and possibly relocate Earth's magnetic dipole axis with respect to its spin axis. These explanations are mostly conjecture by the authors which they based on not only on legends, but also inductive reasoning for explaining geological and biological anamolies that have been studied, compiled, and dated back to 9500 BC.
I'd consider that nothing more than Velikovskian nonsense, totally unsupported by any evidence and totally untenable on any scientific grounds, even purely speculative reasoning. The idea is crazy.

Even the impact hypothesis associated with the Younger Dryas doesn't do more than assume an impact initiated a chain of events that was already primed by the existing environmental conditions. Here's a useful tool: if any theory mentions magnetic fields or the Earth's magnetic axis in terms of climatic events- especially cataclysmic ones- you are almost certainly looking at baloney.
The subject book mentions that the affects of a near-miss body caused affects on Earth known as the Younger Dryas and also the legendary castatrophic global flooding. This near-body passing would have caused a combination of tidal forces, direct gravity forces, and have been the harbringer of small impactors. Also mentioned, was the affect of their magnetic dipole fields interconnecting, but this magnetic affect need not be a necessary or only requirement for dramatic changes in climate and geological phenomena.

The subject book did mention some important geomagnetic excursions that were definitely dated about 11,500 ya. The authors were misleading in calling these globally measurements reversed polarity events. The excursions that were discussed were short-lived decreases in field intensity with variation of pole orientation of up to 45 degrees from the previous position. These excursions could possibly have been caused by global crustal disturbances where molten magna flowed through fissures and/or volcanoes unto shattered plates that were displaced both vertically, horizontally, and partially rotated. The rapid field intensity changes were postulated to be caused by a combination of impactors and disruption of the Earth's external dipole magnetic field causing some minor Earth wobble that in turn changed core dynamo processes intermittently.

Magnetic field changes were more the result of this proposed event than being the cause of the climatic changes that actually happened - as postulated by this book Cataclysm: Compelling Evidence _ _ _ _.

For me personally, it is very intriguing that the Earth's magnetic pole axis (almost) are displaced from the spin axis; and currently these poles are slowly converging. And the little I know about electricity and magnetism, they both have symmetrical distributions with their motions. It just seems to me that the Earth's dynamo field was recently disturbed and is trying to return to equilibrium. These are just some of my own thoughts.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by bystander » Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:21 pm

Fossil Evidence Casts Doubt on Younger Dryas Impact Theory
American Geophysical Union (PR 10–13) | 16 June 2010
New findings challenge a theory that a meteor explosion or impact thousands of years ago caused catastrophic fires over much of North America and Europe and triggered an abrupt global cooling period, called the Younger Dryas. Whereas proponents of the theory have offered "carbonaceous spherules" and nanodiamonds -- both of which they claimed were formed by intense heat -- as evidence of the impact, a new study concludes that those supposed clues are nothing more than fossilized balls of fungus, charcoal, and fecal pellets. Moreover, these naturally-occurring organic materials, some of which had likely been subjected to normal cycles of wildfires, date from a period of thousands of years both before and after the time that the Younger Dryas period began -- further suggesting that there was no sudden impact event.
...
The Younger Dryas impact event theory holds that a very large meteor struck Earth or exploded in the atmosphere about 12,900 years ago, causing a vast fire over most of North America, which contributed to extinctions of most of large animals on the continent and triggered a thousand-year-long cold period. While there is much previous evidence for the abrupt onset of a cooling period at that time, other researchers have theorized that the climatic change resulted from increased freshwater in the ocean, changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, or other causes unrelated to impacts.

The impact-theory proponents point to a charred layer of sediment filled with organic material that they say is unique to that period as evidence of such an event. These researchers described carbon spheres, carbon cylinders, and charcoal pieces that they conclude are melted and charred organic matter created in the intense heat of a widespread fire.

Scott and his fellow researchers analyzed sediment samples to determine the origins of the carbonaceous particles. After comparing the fossil particles with modern fungal ones exposed to low to moderate heat (less than 500 degrees Celsius, or 932 degrees Fahrenheit), Scott's group concludes that the particles are actually balls of fungal material and other ordinary organic particles, such as fecal pellets from insects, plant or fungal galls, and wood, some of which may have been exposed to regularly-occurring low-intensity wildfires.

Fungus, not comet or catastrophe, accounts for carbonaceous spherules in the Younger Dryas "impact layer"
  • Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 10.1029/2010GL043345, in press (accepted 01 June 2010)
Comet cause for climate change theory dealt blow by fungus
PhysOrg | Earth Sciences | 17 June 2010
A team of scientists - led by Professor Andrew C Scott of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London - have revealed that neither comet nor catastrophe were the cause for abrupt climate change some 12,900 years ago.

Theories of impacts and their influence on animal extinctions and climate change are receiving increasing attention both in the scientific and popular literature. Despite increasing evidence to dispute the theory, the idea that onset of the Younger Dryas (‘Big Freeze’) climate interval, mega-faunal extinctions, including mammoths, the demise of the North American Clovis culture, and a range of other effects, is due to a comet airburst and/or impact event has remained alive both through written and television media despite growing negative scientific evidence.

One key aspect of this claim centers on the origin of ‘carbonaceous spherules’ that purportedly formed during intense, impact-ignited wildfires. Theorists have used these ‘carbonaceous spherules’ as evidence for their comet impact-theories, but this new study concludes that those supposed clues are nothing more than fossilized balls of fungus, charcoal, and fecal pellets. These naturally-occurring organic materials also date from a period thousands of years both before and after the Younger Dryas period began, further suggesting that there was no sudden impact event.
'Mammoth-Killer' Nothing More Than Fungus and Bug Poop
Science NOW | 17 June 2010
Proponents of the idea that an exploding comet wiped out mammoths, giant sloths, and other megafauna 12,900 years ago have pointed to unusual organic debris in the soil from this period—debris, they say, that could have formed only in extreme wildfires raging across North America. But in a new study, a team argues that this debris is just fungal remains and bug poop.

In a paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, Andrew Scott of Royal Holloway, University of London in Egham, United Kingdom, and colleagues used four kinds of microscopy to take a closer look at the odd debris, known as carbonaceous spherules. The spherules have a honeycombed appearance and are a few hundred micrometers across. Scott spent 30 years studying charcoal from modern and ancient fires, but the spherules were too cryptic to bother with, at least until the mammoth-killer impact started showing up in TV documentaries.

Scott's team says it found a good match between carbonaceous spherules from 12,900 years ago and so-called fungal sclerotia (see figure). These are balls that fungi form during times of environmental stress and that can germinate if more favorable conditions return. When charred at relatively low temperatures, the resemblance increases. Some of the more elongate particles are "certainly fecal pellets, probably from termites," says Scott. And using a reflected-light technique to gauge the temperature at which charring occurred, the researchers conclude that the 12,900-year-old spherules were heated in low-intensity natural wildfires, if that. "There's certainly no evidence they're related to intense fire from a comet impact," says Scott. Part of the problem, he says, is that "there was nobody [among impact proponents] who ever worked on charcoal deposits, modern or ancient. If you're not familiar with the material, you can make mistakes."

Scott says the work should shift interest back to the idea that early Americans, climate change, or disease wiped out mammoths and their ilk.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by dougettinger » Fri Jun 18, 2010 8:12 pm

Thank you for these current findings of insect poop and fungus among us. The book that I cited compiles much more evidence for unusual occurrences in 9500 BC than just carbonaceous sediments supposely caused by huge fires. Some of this other evidence are the dispositions of "drift" and silt, land and mountain elevation and subsidence changes, changed water levels, destruction of flora and fauna, unusual refrigeration of large animals, geoidal deformation, marine displacements, massive lava flows, coastal warping, sudden onset of glacial conditions in northern hemisphere, uni-directional movement of huge "erratics", and worldwide vulcanism to name a few.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Jun 18, 2010 8:30 pm

dougettinger wrote:The subject book mentions that the affects of a near-miss body caused affects on Earth known as the Younger Dryas and also the legendary castatrophic global flooding...
If the book mentioned that as a serious theory, the book is baloney. Period.
For me personally, it is very intriguing that the Earth's magnetic pole axis (almost) are displaced from the spin axis; and currently these poles are slowly converging.
The magnetic axis is behaving just as expected. It isn't correct to say it is converging on the rotational axis- at times it moves towards it, at times away. The convection driven dynamo that creates the magnetic field will not normally produce a field aligned to the rotational axis, but rather a field that wanders just as we observe.
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Swainy » Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:04 pm

No, I got to take this on. A full stomach of food indicates plenty of food for the mammoth. which tells me what happened, happened in days. The question is, what was it? something did happen!. What?

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:52 am

Swainy wrote:No, I got to take this on. A full stomach of food indicates plenty of food for the mammoth. which tells me what happened, happened in days. The question is, what was it? something did happen!. What?
What mammoth? These animals died all the time, and nobody says they all starved to death. The climate change associated with the Younger Dryas was fast, but it wasn't something that happened in a few days. It could have been associated with an impact, it could have been associated with a flood into the North Atlantic, or maybe something else. It sure wasn't a near miss with a planet!
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by swainy » Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:29 am

Chris Peterson wrote:
Swainy wrote:No, I got to take this on. A full stomach of food indicates plenty of food for the mammoth. which tells me what happened, happened in days. The question is, what was it? something did happen!. What?
What mammoth? These animals died all the time, and nobody says they all starved to death. The climate change associated with the Younger Dryas was fast, but it wasn't something that happened in a few days. It could have been associated with an impact, it could have been associated with a flood into the North Atlantic, or maybe something else. It sure wasn't a near miss with a planet!

It was not me who stated a near miss with a planet, It was me however, that said something is going to turn the heat down by way of sun light. because, an impact, a volcano, and a earth quake do not quick freeze millions of animals instantly. absolute zero would?.



Quote:
"Mammoth remains have puzzled scientists and laymen for hundreds of years. Many explanations have been offered. One of the most popular hypotheses is that one eventful day, the hairy elephants were peacefully grazing on grass and buttercups when suddenly, tragedy struck, and millions of them froze instantly".



http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/mammoth.asp

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by Chris Peterson » Sat Jun 19, 2010 2:10 pm

swainy wrote:It was not me who stated a near miss with a planet, It was me however, that said something is going to turn the heat down by way of sun light. because, an impact, a volcano, and a earth quake do not quick freeze millions of animals instantly. absolute zero would?.
There is no evidence of millions of animals being instantly frozen. This is an urban myth.
"Mammoth remains have puzzled scientists and laymen for hundreds of years. Many explanations have been offered. One of the most popular hypotheses is that one eventful day, the hairy elephants were peacefully grazing on grass and buttercups when suddenly, tragedy struck, and millions of them froze instantly". http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/mammoth.asp
A quote from a pseudoscience site with no credibility itself has no credibility. Find a real reference to this happening on any sort of wide scale, and then we'll talk.
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by neufer » Sat Jun 19, 2010 4:19 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
swainy wrote:It was not me who stated a near miss with a planet, It was me however, that said something is going to turn the heat down by way of sun light. because, an impact, a volcano, and a earth quake do not quick freeze millions of animals instantly. absolute zero would?.
There is no evidence of millions of animals being instantly frozen. This is an urban myth.
Instantaneously would not be nearly long enough to curse.

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 65#p124671
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by The Code » Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:03 pm

There are a lot of theories, here's another:

http://www.physorg.com/news150097682.html

But the ice ages are well understood. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 133707.htm

In that, they are regular. and they blame a difference in our orbit, and precession.

But the mammoths
They had food in there mouth, stomach and some were standing. There carcasses did not rot. How do you feed on grass in the snow? A change in orbit is gradual over a long time.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/baby-mammoth/

And yet more.

http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j17_ ... _74-79.pdf

But the fact they were grazing, indicates to me that it was summer, when they died. The amount of food they need does not grow in the winter. So what the cause of ice ages must be, is still an open book for me. And the sun will remain constant. Huh. You Hope.
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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by bystander » Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:38 pm

Indeed, there are many theories. Your first two sources are reputable and point to credible theories. Your second two sources, however, come from sites dedicated to cryptozoology and cryptids (cryptomundo.com) and creationism (creation.com) and, as such, are as highly questionable as the subject of this topic.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by The Code » Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:58 pm

The links I posted are by the by. The important stuff is what I wrote, And hopefully some body will look into it, in greater detail.

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by bystander » Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:19 pm

Here's some more theories to think about.

Research Suggests Large Mammals Influenced Global Climate
University of New Mexico | 2010 May 24
More than 13,000 years ago, millions of large mammals such as mammoths, mastodon, shrub-ox, bison, ground sloths and camels roamed the Americas and may have had profound influences on the environment according to research in a paper titled, “Methane Emissions from Extinct Megafauna” released in the publication Nature Geosciences Sunday.

The extinction of these large herbivores, which also include horses, llamas and stag moose in addition to the giant wooly mammoth, probably led to an abrupt decrease in methane emissions and atmospheric concentrations of the gas with potential implications for climate change says Dr. Felisa Smith, Associate Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico.
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Approximately 13,400 years ago, the Americas supported a mammal fauna that was richer than that of Africa today explained Smith. “Around 11,500 years ago and within 1,000 years of the arrival of humans in the New World, 80 percent of these large-bodied mammals were extinct,” said Smith in the paper.

“This is arguably the first detectable influence of humans on the environment going back 13,400 years to when humans first got to the continent,” said Smith. “I think that it’s intriguing because there are a lot of ramifications. Potentially, if the decrease in methane, which is synchronous with this ice spell, was actually the cause, then humans contributed to the Younger Dryas cold episode.”
Methane emissions from extinct megafauna Mass Animal Extinctions, Not Climate Change, Killed Plants
Live Science | Environment | Behind the Scenes | 14 May 2010
Jack Williams is a plant ecologist at heart. He likes to figure out how — and why — plant communities change over time.
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Recently, these interests took on a new dimension for him. In November, Williams and his colleagues, including graduate student Jacquelyn Gill, released research on how the extinction of ancient large plant-eating animals, such as mammoths and mastodons, affected ecosystems when the enormous mammals began their decline in North America about 15,000 years ago.

However, in doing so, the researchers also raised intriguing new questions about how those animals might have died in the first place.
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They found that the death of these creatures apparently prompted a proliferation of broadleaved trees, and ultimately, the accumulation of woody debris that contributed to a dramatic increase in wildfires. They also determined that the animals' decline probably was gradual, meaning they didn't die from some sudden event.

Taken together, the evidence appeared to eliminate some popular theories about what caused their mass extinction, including the impact of a meteor or comet, a "blitzkrieg" of human hunting, or a loss of habitat due to climate changes.
Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America Where Did The Mammoths Really Go?
University of Washington | Northwest Science & Technology | Spring 2010
Fifteen thousand years ago, North America was home to roughly 35 different types of large mammals which no longer exist today, such as saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths, and mammoths. Many species weighed over two thousand pounds; a full-grown adult male mammoth could weigh up to 20,000 pounds, the weight of a city bus. Why did so many large animals die off by the end of the last ice age? It's rare to find a mystery as enigmatic or hotly debated as the cause for the disappearance of North America's largest known mammals. Scientists have worked to elucidate the cause of this extinction for over fifty years. Investigation of fungus that lived in megafaunal dung has led to a new timeline for the extinction, and the results were published in the November 2009 issue of Science.

Several major events occurred in North America during megafaunal population decline which have fueled speculation about the causes of extinction. Climate changes, over hunting by humans, and a purported cosmic impact are all posited as causing megafaunal extinction. While there is some support to link these events to extinction, there is not overwhelming evidence for any one hypothesis. Furthermore, parsing correlation from causation for events ten thousand years in the past is difficult, to say the least.

Traditionally, tracking the decline of these giant animal populations has relied on radiocarbon dating of fossils. Based on such evidence, most extinctions are dated somewhere between 13.3 to 12.9 thousand years ago. ... Gill's data indicate that megafauna populations began to decline earlier than previously expected: beginning at 14.8 thousand years ago. ...

Although Gill's paper refutes the Clovis blitzkrieg hypothesis, it leaves a window open for a gradual human over-hunting hypothesis, perhaps by pre-Clovis people. Haynes points out that as soon as modern humans arrive in locations all over the world, there is very quick collapse of megafauna populations. ...

A small cadre of scientists have recently proposed a cosmic impact 12.9 thousand years ago as the cause for megafaunal extinction. The impact hypothesis is inconsistent with Gill's research establishing an earlier date for population collapse beginning at 14.8 thousand years ago that declined over a longer period of time. ...

Most scientists studying the mystery of megafauna decline do not accept the newer cosmic impact hypothesis. Critics point to the absence of an appropriately aged impact crater. In addition, Donald Grayson, archeologist at the University of Washington, points out that not all of the big mammals died off at the same time. ...

Climate change is another potential culprit for megafaunal demise. At the end of the last ice age, in the Pleistocene, there was a series of warming and cooling cycles. The Bølling-Alerød warming period occurs at about the same time the megafaunal population began to decline according to Gill's work. The Younger Dryas, a colder era, lasted from 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago, close to the date of final megafaunal extinction. ...

Hybrid models that combine climate change and human hunting also have support in the scientific community. Megafauna may have been stressed by the various consequences of climate change, but human hunting, even mild hunting, may have pushed the massive mammals over the edge ...

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Re: Hypothesis for the Great Deluge in 9500 BC

Post by bystander » Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:28 pm

The Code wrote:The links I posted are by the by. The important stuff is what I wrote, And hopefully some body will look into it, in greater detail.
Sorry, Mark. When you use pseudo-scientific sources as the basis of your musings, very few people are going to give it serious consideration.

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