The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine

[Minimalist]

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070602/fob1.asp

Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?
Sid Perkins

Evidence unearthed at more than two dozen sites across North America suggests that an extraterrestrial object exploded in Earth's atmosphere above Canada about 12,900 years ago, just as the climate was warming at the end of the last ice age.

[Cognito]

Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?

In looking at the Greenland Ice Core GISP2 chart the situation before the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) was already moving towards cold again before the world turned to crap, according to most geologists, within a decade:


Source:http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/all ... y2000.html

There are two causes of high nitrate (NO3) in the Earth's atmosphere, forest fires and extraterrestrial impacts. Forest fires also generate carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4). Volcanoes generate sulfide (SO2) and sulfate (SO3). Here is the GISP2 sulfate data:

GISP2 Sulfate for the last 70K years:


GISP 2 Methane for the last 40K years:


I only have reference to nitrate data in Firestone's book, but atmospheric nitrate goes through the roof briefly at 12,900bp (page 184) while methane (above) drops during the YD. Atmospheric sulfate levels appear to increase with the onset of the YD. In conclusion, the main suspects would include either an impact event or volcanism. I cannot derive forest fires from the data.

I would sure like to see European tree ring analyses during the same timeframe (this is right on the cusp, but as I recall there are some databases that now go back that far). Min, please provide me with the data and while you're at it, bring me 72 virgins!

[Charlie Hatchett]

Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?

In looking at the Greenland Ice Core GISP2 chart the situation before the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) was already moving towards cold again before the world turned to crap, according to most geologists, within a decade:


Source:http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/all ... y2000.html

There are two causes of high nitrate (NO3) in the Earth's atmosphere, forest fires and extraterrestrial impacts. Forest fires also generate carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4). Volcanoes generate sulfide (SO2) and sulfate (SO3). Here is the GISP2 sulfate data:

GISP2 Sulfate for the last 70K years:


GISP 2 Methane for the last 40K years:


I only have reference to nitrate data in Firestone's book, but atmospheric nitrate goes through the roof briefly at 12,900bp (page 184) while methane (above) drops during the YD. Atmospheric sulfate levels appear to increase with the onset of the YD. In conclusion, the main suspects would include either an impact event or volcanism. I cannot derive forest fires from the data.

I would sure like to see European tree ring analyses during the same timeframe (this is right on the cusp, but as I recall there are some databases that now go back that far). Min, please provide me with the data and while you're at it, bring me 72 virgins!

Cool stuff, Cog. Thanks for taking the time to upload the charts.

I too would like to see tree ring data for this time period. You da' man, Min.

[Minimalist]

Okay....71 more virgins due for Cogs.....

[Cognito]

Min, thank you for that visual. I rescind my request!

[Minimalist]

De nada.

[Forum Monk]

How can I poke out my mind's eye?

[Beagle]

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070602/fob1.asp

At sites stretching from California to the Carolinas and as far north as Alberta and Saskatchewan—many of which were home to prehistoric people of the Clovis culture—researchers have long noted an enigmatic layer of carbon-rich sediment that was laid down nearly 13 millennia ago. "Clovis artifacts are never found above this black mat," says Allen West, a geophysicist with Geoscience Consulting in Dewey, Ariz. The layer, typically a few millimeters thick, lies between older, underlying strata that are chock-full of mammoth bones and younger, fossilfree sediments immediately above, he notes.

Yet another article on the subject. This one posted today in the Daily Grail.

[Beagle]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 123444.htm

Science Daily — The extinction of many large mammals at the end of the Ice Age may have packed an even bigger punch than scientists have realized. To the list of victims such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, a Smithsonian-led team of scientists has added one more: a highly carnivorous form of wolf that lived in Alaska, north of the ice sheets.

Every one of these critters were killed in the extinction. After reading this, I wonder if any of the First Americans survived. Even though there is an Indian tribe in South Carolina that is called "the people of the falling star".
They are the Waccamaw tribe.

[Beagle]

http://uscnews.sc.edu/ARCH190.html

The notion that a comet collided with Earth and caused these events was farfetched until recently, when the group of scientists began looking for evidence of a comet impact, which they call the Younger - Dryas Event. They turned to Goodyear and the pristine Clovis site of Topper.

In 2005, Arizona geophysicist Dr. Allen West and his team traveled to Topper in hopes of finding concentrations of iridium, an extra-terrestrial element found in comets, in the layer of Clovis-era sediment.

Good article about the Topper site and how it supports Firestones Supernova Theory. These pics are from this last May, when I was there.
I may double post this, putting one in the Topper thread, since I'm a little bit of a neat freak.

Thanks for finding this Michelle!

[Minimalist]

Goodyear's finding not only captured international media attention, but it has put the archaeology field in flux, opening scientific minds to the possibility of an even earlier pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas.

Good for Al!

[daybrown]

A group of 7 Mammoths who all died together was found in Mexico. This looks like a disease outbreak. The same sort of thing could have created a bottleneck in hominids.

If something like HIV broke out in early times, that didnt kill too fast, It could wipe out entire populations before they realize there's a problem.

The object that hit Siberia 100 years ago, was devastating, but came in at such a low angle that no deep crater was left. It'd be interesting to see what happens when something comes in at such a low angle... does it skip across the water?

[Digit]

does it skip across the water?

Good question DB, it's one I researched sometime ago for a story I was writing.
There appears to be no straight answers unless you define the material of the impacting body, its mass, speed of approach, and its path relative to the Earth's spin.
In THEORY a sufficiently hard body, travelling sufficiently fast relative to the Earth's surface, and at a sufficiently low angle, COULD carve a groove and pass on.
The shock wave should remove any water ahead of it.
There is no evidence of such a shallow angle strike currently available, unless you read my book.

[Minimalist]

A group of 7 Mammoths who all died together was found in Mexico. This looks like a disease outbreak.

Or a fire...or a flash flood...

[Beagle]

does it skip across the water?

Good question DB, it's one I researched sometime ago for a story I was writing.
There appears to be no straight answers unless you define the material of the impacting body, its mass, speed of approach, and its path relative to the Earth's spin.
In THEORY a sufficiently hard body, travelling sufficiently fast relative to the Earth's surface, and at a sufficiently low angle, COULD carve a groove and pass on.
The shock wave should remove any water ahead of it.
There is no evidence of such a shallow angle strike currently available, unless you read my book.

Don't be too hasty Dig. Here's an article about the comet or asteroid that may have formed the Carolina Bays and then impacted in lower Mighigan. That was a low angle object that destroyed the life on the eastern seaboard.

There is every kind of math and geometry here that an engineer could hope for.