Kennett Talk and NOVA special on Younger Dryas Impacts

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 25 09:50:45 EDT 2009


E.P. Grondine mentioned the below NOVA Special in his post,
“[meteorite-list] NOVA special on Holocene Start Impacts and AD”.

PBS Program to Feature Two UMaine Scientists, March 23, 2009
http://www.umaine.edu/news/view_release.php?x=1237809989

Dr. Kennett gave a talk, which included a lot of research that is either
being prepared for publication, been submitted for publication, and in
press. Dr. Kennett made a very convincing case that something unique,
extraordinary, and instantaneous occurred at the beginning of the
Younger Dryas about 12,900 B. calender years ago and could be an
event that was extraterrestrial in nature. His idea that it involved
multiple, simultaneous Tunguska-like events occurring across the
North American continent.

He also, discussed and showed pictures of the research on the
Greenland ice sheet, carried out by Paul Mayewski, and Andrei
Kurbatov. Outcropping along the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet
is a well defined Younger Dryas bed, which consists of dark grey
dusty ice with clean, white Holocene ice above it and clean, white
terminal Pleistocene ice below it. They found the nannodiamonds
and other alleged impact indicators right at and only at the basal
contact of the Younger Dryas ice layer. They found exactly what
would be expected for an layer of meteoritic debris from Tunguska-
like events.

This is a show that you do not want to miss.

It is in the realm of possibility, that decade or so from now, Dr.
West, Dr. Kennett, and other members the YDB Group will likely
be known as the "Walter Alvarezes of the Quaternary.

I am now getting together with a couple of archaeologists to do
some “prospecting” for nannodiamonds and microspherules.

Some relevant publications:

Haynes, V. C., Jr., 2008, Younger Dryas “black mats” and the
Rancholabrean termination in North America. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. vol. 105 no. 18 6520-6525
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/18/6520.abstract

Did a Significant Cool Spell Mark the Demise of Megafauna?
http://uanews.org/node/19409

Kennett, J.D., J.P. Kennett, G.J. West, J.M. Erlandson, J.R.
Johnson, I.L. Hendy, A. West, B.J. Culleton, T.L. Jones and
Thomas W. Stafford Jr., 2008, Quaternary Science Reviews.
vol. 27, no. 27-28, pp. 2530-2545.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.09.006

Kennett, D.J., J. P. Kennett, A. West, C. Mercer, S. S. Que
Hee, and L. Bement, 2009, Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas
Boundary Sediment Layer. Science. vol. 323, no. 5910, p. 94.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5910/94

Best Regards,

Paul H

URLs for "Comet hits North America 13, 000 years ago" Science paper

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Thu Jan 1 23:31:48 EST 2009

In "LATimes- Comet hits North America 13, 000 years ago" at:
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2009-January/048575.html ,
Howard Wu wrote:

"E.P. Grondine is going to love this one

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-extinction2-2009jan02,0,896970.story


>From the Los Angeles Times


Diamonds show comet struck North America, scientists
say The impact caused an ice age that killed some mammal
species and many humans 12,900 years ago, researchers
report. They say the discovery of tiny heat-formed
diamonds is proof of the catastrophe. By Thomas H. Maugh,
January 1, 2009"

Another article is "Six North American Sites Hold
12,900-year-old Nanodiamond-rich Soil", ScienceDaily
Jan. 1, 2009.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090101172136.htm

The above articles refer to:

Kennett, D. J., J. P. Kennett, A. West, C. Mercer,
S. S. Que Hee, L. Bement, T. E. Bunch, M. Sellers,
and W. S. Wolbach, 2009, Nanodiamonds in the
Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer. Science.
vol. 323. no. 5910, p. 94. DOI: 10.1126/science.1162819

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5910/94

Commentary on this article can be found in:

Kerr, R. A., 2009, PLANETARY IMPACTS: Did the Mammoth
Slayer Leave a Diamond Calling Card? Science., vol. 323.
no. 5910, p. 26. DOI: 10.1126/science.323.5910.26

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/323/5910/26

Tomorrow, while at work I will download the PDF files
for the paper and article and have a look at them.

Best Regards,

Paul H

Question About Nanodiamonds was "Discovery.com Ancient N.Y. Tsunami?"

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Nov 23 22:25:08 EST 2008

On November 22, 2008,

Paul Harris forwarded:

"Did Asteroid Cause Ancient N.Y. Tsunami?
From: Anne Black impactika at aol.com

Hi, Anne Black
A friend of yours, Kevin Decker just asked us to pass
this along to you. Here's the link at Discovery.com
that they thought you'd be interested in seeing.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/11/20/asteroid-tsunami.html "

In this story and in the AGU abstracts, we are reading
much about nanodiamonds. Does anyone know of any papers
about how a person goes about looking for nanodiamonds
in sediment samples?

Where does a person find a description of the procedures
used to extract and concentrate the carbon spherules and
nanodiamonds for analysis?

By the way, an article, for what it is or is not worth, about
nanodiamonds is "Lucy in the Sky with Nanodiamonds" at

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20080107/perrin-c.shtml

Yours,

Paul H.