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

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:48 am

All those hours of research!

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:07 pm

Beagle wrote:... 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.

Did you post a link somewhere?

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:13 pm

I wasn't going to ask, I have senior moments as well!

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:15 pm

Forum Monk wrote:
Beagle wrote:... 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.
Did you post a link somewhere?

Only in my mind evidently. Sorry.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbayint.html

Post by **Minimalist** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 12:26 pm

daybrown · Post by **daybrown** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:15 pm

A single cause for the megafauna extinctions would be nice, but as in so many other events, a multiplicity of factos is commonly seen.

IIRC, the Mexican mammoth were found near Mexico city. ie. no tsunami. no great river, and even if a flood, then why were the bodies not carried away and mixed with other species?

Post by **Minimalist** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:39 pm

How do you the bodies were not carried away and dumped at that spot? Somewhere in Western Canada is a fossil bed with hundreds of dinosaurs of the same species. The speculation is that the herd was hit by a flash flood while trying to cross a river.

daybrown · Post by **daybrown** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:15 am

The flash flood fossil finds that I've read about were not *all* the same species. Just as in flash floods today, the entire range of species present in the river valleys were all swept up together.

Hopefully, more mammoth remains will be found as the permafrost melts. It'd be nice to see the bloodwork and DNA markers related to the immune system. We've seen how rats can bring in disease to decimate the hominid populations, and there's no reason to think that as hominids moved into new eosystems they didnt bring in pathogens.

gunny · Post by **gunny** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:58 pm

Thanks a lot for bringing up this subject. My children are hungry, and without shoes, but just spent $100.00 at Barnes & Noble to research these subjects.

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 1:25 pm

Western Canada is a fossil bed with hundreds of dinosaurs of the same species.

Just how large were the herds? Or would repeat floods dump the corpses at the same bend or shallow?

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:28 pm

Okay....now I had to go looking for it.

It's in Alberta, Canada.

http://www.amwest-travel.com/awt_dinosaur1.html

What makes the story interesting is that all of the bones here belong to Centrosaurus, and that most of the bones are in fragments. Also, it was determined that an ancient river bed ran through this site. The palaeonologists studied the site for ten years and theorized the following story: The Centrosaurus, traveling in a large herd, attempted to cross the river while it was in flood. (Scientists can observe this herd behavior today in Africa.) Many of the animals drowned and washed up on an adjacent sandbar, now the site of the bone bed. Predators then had a field day, ripping the carcasses apart. The remains were eventually covered over by sand and preserved, resulting in today's fossil bone bed.

The study of this site contributed to the now generally accepted idea that many dinosaurs traveled in great herds. An outstanding detective story.

daybrown · Post by **daybrown** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:21 pm

But there isnt any great river near Mexico city that could
do that to Mammoth. The whole area is flat, and would've
been marshy in the paleolithic.

The photo I saw showed articulated intact skeletons, so
they were not butchered for meat, but just died where they
stood. Besides a pathogen, the only other option i see is a
gasification from a volcanic vent. But, because the land is so
flat, it'd take an enormous eruption at a time when there is
no wind.

But during the stagnant air of summer, woolly mammoth
would have migrated back north.

Post by **Minimalist** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:26 pm

But there isnt any great river near Mexico city that could
do that to Mammoth.

You don't need a "great river" you just need a heavy t-storm and a creek they were trying to cross. It doesn't take a lot of time to drown.

Besides a pathogen, the only other option i see is a
gasification from a volcanic vent.

Brush fire, smoke inhalation. Brush fires are common in the West.

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:31 am

daybrown wrote:But there isnt any great river near Mexico city that could
do that to Mammoth. The whole area is flat, and would've
been marshy in the paleolithic.

I dunno. After years of draining, there was still enough of a lake there for Velasco to paint in the 19th century (he was looking south from Tenayuca, by the way):

and it was pretty damn big in the 15th century.

Post by **Minimalist** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:48 am

Here in Arizona we have dry "washes." Essentially they are storm water channels which are dry most of the time. But every year during a t-storm, some idiot drives into one and gets his car swept away.

The sheer power of moving water is something to behold....but two hours later you wouldn't know that it rained.