Paleolithic Channel settlements?

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:03 pm

Digit wrote:That's correct Min I remember querying the idea of liquid water north of the 32 degree thermocline.
As I said earlier, there are the remains of a number of moraines here, but not a mountain in sight. Pass!

Several points -
1) Moraines exist but no mountains - which makes my point perfectly that perhaps an ice-dam was NOT the cause of the channel carving. A moraine is simply evidence of a glaciers path - the debris path if you will.

2) Glaciers exist quite nicely in regions where the average ambient temperature is above zero celcius. In addition, flowing water is less likely to freeze than still water.

3) The relative softness of the chalk around Dover may lead to the conclusion that water could have easily eroded the channel but the sea breaking against the cliff walls is not a good analogy of the process which takes place during a moving flood.

The event would have been either enormous and violent or drawout over 1000s of years. I would tend to believe the latter, but it seems they are now finding evidence of the former.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:12 pm

A local, smaller example of what we're discussing:

"Scoring marks are apparent at both sites, on the limestone creek bed, immediately underlying the gravel". (5/18 e-mail to Charles Frederick)

Whoops. Suggests some type of massive flood of more than local extent with power enough to erode the local limestone. You'll need to demonstrate/ photo document that the scour marks actually underlie the gravel sequence at your sites. I assume the other researchers have done so at Wilson-Leonard. That would make the event that produced them the oldest recorded thing that happened in the sequence. Otherwise others can claim that the scour has been caused by recent flood episodes.

What I'm thinking about, of course, is Firestone et al.'s supernova debris and radiation blasts (Firestone, R., A. West, and Simon Warwick-Smith, 2006, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization, Bear and Company, Rochester, Vermont, 392 pp, ISBN-13:978-1-59143-061-2, ISBN-10-59143-061-5). About 16,000 years ago one of the blast waves passed over the Great Lakes area and to the north of them. Caused catastrophic flooding as the northern ice sheets rapidly melted. The Channel Scablands of the Pacific Northwest were formed then. Could this unusual runoff at Brushy Creek be part of that nightmare? And it was followed at around 13,000 years ago by another blast wave that did in the Pleistocene megafauna in the northern hemisphere and wiped out Clovis and Cro-Magnon cultures. I sure hope there are no more blast waves coming!

Virginia

http://www.phpbb88.com/nohandaxesinus/v ... ndaxesinus

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:14 pm

True Monk, I mentioned the wave/frost bit to demonstrate the softnessof the chalk, but with the storm surges the water flows south through the Channel like a 21 mile wide river. It is, after all, flowing down hill and as I said, tears everything apart.
Fortunately it doesn't happen too often.

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:20 pm

Just thinking aloud Charlie, but my first reaction to your post is that rapid melting, from super nova, for example, is that a dam might not form.
Rapid melting isn't necessary to cause such a flood as produced the Channel, in fact the water could have taken many thousands of years to rise to the level required. All that is necesary is sufficient water and a large breach.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:20 pm

Charlie Hatchett wrote:
The latest attempts to tame the North Sea are based on doing nothing and allowing the sea to reclaim the land.
Sounds like what we need to do with New Orleans.

I was under the strong impression that that was exactly what they were doing with New Orleans: nothing!

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:28 pm

Digit wrote:
[...] rapid melting, from super nova, for example, [...]

A super nova is an exploding star, zillions of lightyears from earth. A super nova is visible at night as a very bright star ('of Bethlehem'?). But a super nova does not have a measurable effect on the temperatures on earth! None at all. Zilch! Let alone that it would start, or accelerate, an ice meltdown.

Of course if you're into astrology you would see that differently . . .

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:43 pm

Rokcet Scientist wrote:A super nova is an exploding star, zillions of lightyears from earth. A super nova is visible at night as a very bright star ('of Bethlehem'?). But a super nova does not have a measurable effect on the temperatures on earth! None at all. Zilch! Let alone that it would start, or accelerate, an ice meltdown.

Of course if you're into astrology you would see that differently . . .

I tend to agree you with here, RS.

Also, I am not aware of any rush of water eroding limestone except in the course of many years. Cetainly not the relatively short duration of a flood event.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:05 pm

Rokcet Scientist wrote:
Digit wrote:
[...] rapid melting, from super nova, for example, [...]

A super nova is an exploding star, zillions of lightyears from earth. A super nova is visible at night as a very bright star ('of Bethlehem'?). But a super nova does not have a measurable effect on the temperatures on earth! None at all. Zilch! Let alone that it would start, or accelerate, an ice meltdown.
Of course if you're into astrology you would see that differently . . .

It's the remnants entering the Earth's atmosphere that would cause the fire, flooding and direct damage. The super nova in question was 240 light years away.

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:11 pm

Also, I am not aware of any rush of water eroding limestone except in the course of many years. Cetainly not the relatively short duration of a flood event.

That might depend on what underlays the chalk perhaps. The original article in the press here stated that the channel was cut rapidly. But I THINK you'll find that the area wasn't chalk, rather a low lying plain with chalk escarpments on both sides, so once the low land was gone the chalk cliffs would be undercut, as they are today, thereby widening the breach.
I just Googled Doggerland and there's lots of info if anyone's interested.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:21 pm

Rapid melting isn't necessary to cause such a flood as produced the Channel, in fact the water could have taken many thousands of years to rise to the level required. All that is necesary is sufficient water and a large breach.

Agreed. Rapid melting isn't necessary, but a possible scenario.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:24 pm

Forum Monk wrote:
Rokcet Scientist wrote:A super nova is an exploding star, zillions of lightyears from earth. A super nova is visible at night as a very bright star ('of Bethlehem'?). But a super nova does not have a measurable effect on the temperatures on earth! None at all. Zilch! Let alone that it would start, or accelerate, an ice meltdown.

Of course if you're into astrology you would see that differently . . .
I tend to agree you with here, RS.

Also, I am not aware of any rush of water eroding limestone except in the course of many years. Cetainly not the relatively short duration of a flood event.

Any event that we've witnessed or that's recorded historically. Sounds like an intriguing experiment.

Where the hell's Min.

Mayonaze · Post by **Mayonaze** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:29 pm

How about this scenario:

Sea levels are lower. Land on both sides of what is now the Straits of Dover are high relative to what would have then been a glacier-carved or depressed channel. The glacier is butt up against the this narrow point, or it's terminal moraine is blocking it. Water from north or west-flowing european rivers (Elbe, etc.) impounds behind it until it breaches ....

Post by **Minimalist** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:37 pm

I'm here...I guess.

Reasonable, Mayo. The water has to come from somewhere and all that ice means that the sea level must be lower.

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:38 pm

That area was depressed by the ice Mayo, which reached as far south as the northern edge of the R. Thames, which was part of the melt water run off channel from the west. The basin that is now the southern part of the North Sea was also fed by the Rhine, so that area would have been a large lake fed by melt water from a large part of Europe.
That which didn't flow westwards into that basin went east in what is now the R. Danube.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:07 pm

Charlie Hatchett wrote:
[...] It's the remnants entering the Earth's atmosphere that would cause the fire, flooding and direct damage. The super nova in question was 240 light years away.

Charlie, a supernova at 240 lightyears distance (which is extremely close in astronomical terms) would still be 240 x 9,5 billion = 2.280 billion miles away! If it took the light 240 years to get here – at the speed of light: 195,000 miles per second – how long do you think it would take for actual matter to get here? In fact, matter would probably still be underway for another couple million years before it got even near our solar system. And the odds that it would hit earth is smaller than the odds that a piece of an exploding melon in Europe would hit you – in Texas – in the face!
Forget the supernova theory. It is so unlikely it isn't even funny.

Now, all that is not to say there couldn't have been astronomical debris hitting earth, tilting the climate. That's happened throughout earth's history of course. It's almost common.
But it's got nothing to do with supernovas.