Impact Origin of Carolina Bays Argued For at 2007AGU Meeting

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Sun Mar 11 11:04:01 EDT 2007

Sterling K. Webb wrote on Sun March 11, 2007

>Hi, List,

>

>Thanks, Paul, for those links.

You and the list might be interested to know that
there is a competing session Carolina Bays. A more
mainstream point of view on their formation will be
given at the Geological Society of America Southeastern
Section-56th Annual Meeting (29-30 March 2007) in a
session titled "S6. Geology and Ecology of Carolina
Bays" at:

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007SE/finalprogram/session_18800.htm

The paper in this session include 1. "The Sedimentology
and Ages of Carolina Bays Sand Rims" by Dr. Ivestor at:

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007SE/finalprogram/abstract_119179.htm

This abstract states in part:

"Water-lain pebbles intercalated with eolian sands indicate
that these are typical shoreline deposits resulting from
fluctuations in water level."

"At individual bays where concentric rims occur, dating has
established that rims are progressively younger toward the center
of the bay, reflecting a regressive sequence and confirming that
the bays are not single-event features but evolve as a result of
processes active episodically over a long period of time. Active
shorelines and associated eolian deposition occurred during
marine isotope stage (MIS) 2 to late MIS 3 (~12 to 50 ka), MIS 4
to very late MIS 5 (60-80 ka), and late MIS 6 (120 to 140 ka)
based on a cumulative total of 45 OSL dates. These age ranges
also correspond with the ages of other eolian landforms in the
Coastal Plain, including sand sheets and dunefields, and suggest
a climatic threshold was crossed during the transition toward
glacial stadials, initiating both bay and dune activity."

Another abstract is "Geomorphic History of the Carolina Bays"
by Ray Kaczorowski at:

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007SE/finalprogram/abstract_118906.htm

Needless to say, this activity will be quite fun to watch as
all of these ideas are sorted out.

Best Regards,

Paul H.

Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory

The Carolina Bays and the Llandudno flamingo on one leg, or rather Alice trying to play croquet with a flamingo??? Ask the hedgehogs.
Original illustration (1865) by John Tenniel (28 February 1820 - 25 February 1914), of the novel by Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 31 11:55:27 EST 2005

t is true that there is a lot of interesting stuff on the
Internet. However, if a person goes back to the primary
literature, they often find that some of this material, as
interesting as it might be, is based a odd collection of
misinformation, urban legends, and outright fiction.
Where documented facts are cited, too often they have
been very badly garbled by the author of the web page
citing them or they have been edited as to specifically
omit the evidence that conflicts with whatever pet theory
is being discussed. Thus, a person has to carefully to
evaluate what is being said on any one particular web
page.

In one example, Sterling K. Webb wrote:

"However, radiocarbon dates from frozen
mammoth carcasses cluster in two groups: one
around 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and another
about 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. Fairly
coincidental. The more recent ones are New
World mammoths; the older group are
Siberian mammoths."

One problem with this is that there exists a substantial amount
of evidence, which refutes any connection between these mammoth
mummies and a single catastrophic event. Unfortunately, various
web authors automatically presume that these mummified mammoths
are clear evidence of a catastrophe without understanding that
their formation is perfectly explainable by conventional processes.

Another problem is that the clustering of mummified mammoths
about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and 11,000 to 13,000 years
ago is non-existent as can be seen in the dates listed "Woolly
Mammoths Remains: Catastrophic Origins?" By Sue Bishop at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html

Looking at it, it is quite clear that the dates on mummified
mammoths are spread over a range of radiocarbon dates starting
from greater than 50,000 BP to 32,000 - 34,000 BP. Of these
dates, the only mammoth, which lies in this so-called 30,000 to
35,000 BP "cluster", is a clump of mammoth hair from Alaska.
The other mummified mammoths in the older group predate
this older "cluster". There is also a mummified bison that
dates to 31,000 BP. However, two data points fail to constitute
a "cluster".

There is a group of dates consisting of mummified
mammoths, which fall in the 11,000 to 13,000 BP range.
If a person includes a mummified mammoth from Fairbanks
and one from Yuribe, Siberia, a person can argue that the
cluster actually ranges from 9,700 to 15,400 BP. If dates from
a mummified musk ox is included the range can be extended to
17,000 BP. Such a range would it make it impossible for the
mummified mammoths and other mammals to have been
associated with Firestone's catastrophe since there is a
mammoth mummy,which fromed 2,400 years before this
event is alleged to have happened and they continued to form
long after it was over. In fact, an 8,000 year-old mummified
reindeer is known from the permafrost of the Fairbanks region.
This extends the period during which mummified mammals
were formed into the Holocene Stage and well past the time of
Firestone's proposed catastrophe.

Two recently found Siberian mammoth mummies, the Jarkov
Mammoth and the Fishhook Mammoth both fall well outside
of either the 30,000 to 35,000 BP cluster and the 11,000 to
13,000 BP cluster. They are the Fishhook Mammoth, which
dated at 20,620 BP and the Jarkov Mammoth, which dated at
20,380 BP. Neither of these dates lend any support to the
existence of either cluster. They do show that the formation
of mammoth mummies occurred at times outside of either
alleged "cluster" and there is a lack of any relationship of the
mammoth mummies to any known radiocarbon anomalies.

Sterling K. Webb also wrote:

"The extinction at 11,000 to 13,000 years
ago is not called a mass extinction, but it
involved the loss of more than 200 species,
mostly megafauna (large mammals -- 75%
were heavier than 44 kilos). Because of that,
it is widely suspected that Man The Hunter
was the extincting agent!"

This claim is an old misstatement of the facts, which has been
endlessly recycled on various catastrophist web sites despite
having been long known to be quite false. It is true that more
than many genera of mostly megafauna have become extinct
during the Pleistocene. However, it is quiet false to say that
all of them became extinct between 11,000 to 13,000 BP.
It is now well established that the extinction of these genera
occurred at very different times during different extinction
events on different continents as documented in a number of
published papers including:

Anthony D. Barnosky, Paul L. Koch, Robert S. Feranec,
Scott L. Wing, and Alan B. Shabel, 2004, Science.. vol. 306,
no. 5693, pp. 70-75 , 1 October 2004.

By carefully analyzing available radiocarbon and other dates,
they found that four genera of megafauna became extinct in
Europe between 20,000 to 50,000 years and four more became
extinct between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago. It was after 10,000
years ago that mammoth and Irish Elk became extinct in Siberia.
Also, mammoths became extinct on St. Paul Island in the Bering
Sea after 10,000 BP (Guthrie 2004). In Australia, six of these
genera became extinct more than 80,000 years ago, six genera
became extinct between 40,000 to 51,000 years ago, and one
genera became extinct between 28,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Roberts et al (2001) showed that the last extinction event in
Australia occurred around 46,000 BP, which fits none of the
C14 calibration anomalies. It is clear form the available data
that megafauna extinctions were occurring at very different
places at very different times, which argues against a single,
or even two, global cosmic catastrophes having produced
the extinction events, which occurred at various times during
the Pleistocene.

The most striking of these extinction events is North America
between 10,000 and 12,000 BP when 15 genera of megafauna
became. However, detailed research lead by Dr. Thomas Stafford
has demonstrated that this terminal Pleistocene extinction event
actually consisted that were **two**, not **one**, distinct
periods of megafauna extinction. Stafford et al. (2005) stated

"Direct radiocarbon dates on extinct New
World megafauna are evidence that the
extinction occurred as two distinct events.
Non-proboscidean megafauna species went
extinct ca. 11,400-11,300 RC yr. BP,
whereas Mammuthus and Mammut
survived until ca. 10,900 RC yr. BP."

(Note: Another similar discussion of the complexities of
Pleistocene extinctions can be found in Elias (1999).

Looking at both Stafford et al. (2005) and Elias (1999), a
person has to wonder how a supernova can first wipe out the
non-proboscidean megafauna species and then 400 years later,
wipe out the the last of the mammoths and mastodons and
leave remnant populations of mammoths on Wrangle Island
in Siberia and St. Paul Island in Alaska.

In case of American horses, Guthrie (2003) showed that there
was a rapid decline in body size prior to becoming extinct about
12,500 BP in Alaska. Thus, not only did horses become extinct
in Alaska long before Firestone's proposed catastrophe but were
also being subject to some sort of environmental stress, which
Guthrie (2003) rejected as being human hunting, thousands of
years before it. Given the multiple and diachronous nature of
Pleistocene extinctions, cosmic catastrophes simply do not fit
the facts despite being wonderful and poetic Deus ex Machina
that many people use to explain them.

Reference:

Guthrie, R. D., 2003. Rapid body size decline in Alaskan
Pleistocene horses before extinction. Nature. vol 426, pp
169-171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02098.

Guthrie, R. d., 2004). Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene
mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island. Nature.
vol.429,pp. 746-749.

Elias, S. A., 1999, Quaternary Paleobiology Update Debate
continues over the cause of Pleistocene megafauna extinction"
in the The Quaternary Time: Newsletter of the American
Quaternary Association. vol. 29 no. 1, (May 1999) at:
http://www4.nau.edu/amqua/v29n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htm

Roberts, R. G., Flannery, T. F., Ayliffe, L. K., Yoshida, H.,
Olley, J. M., Prideaux, G. P., Laslett, G. M., Baynes, A.,
Smith, M. A., Jones, R., and Smith, B.L., 2001, New Ages for
the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction
About 46,000 Years Ago. Science. vol. 292, no. 5523,
pp. 1888-1892.

Stafford, T. W., Jr., Graham, R., Lundelius, E., Semken, H.,
McDonald, G., and Southon, J., 2004, 14C-Chronostratigraphy
of Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinctions in Relation to Human
Presence in the New World. Clovis in the Southwest: Technology
Time and Space October 26-29, 2005, Columbia Metropolitan
Convention Center, Columbia, South Carolina.
http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/stafford.html

Also, the claim that conventional scientists, as a rule, regard
humans as the sole cause of these Pleistocene extinctions is
simply not true. In fact, there now exists a wide divergence of
opinion and a lack of any real consensus as to what, if any role,
humans played in any the several extinction events, which
occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch. Good examples of this
are Gutherie (2003), Stafford et al. (2005), and Barnosky et
al. (2004) cited above.

As far as Firestone's claim that the Carolina Bays were produced
by his hypothesized terminal Pleistocene catastrophe, a person
should read through "An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence
Presented By ''Gateway to Atlantis'' for Terminal Pleistocene
Catastrophe" at;

http://thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=86

Best Regards,

Paul

Could A Meteorite or Comet Cause All The Fires of 1871?

Paul H bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 24 12:26:49 EDT 2004

In Could A Meteorite or Comet Cause All The Fires of
1871?
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2004-August/143245.html
Sterling K. Webb wrote:

"These strange fires were not restricted
to the IL-WI-MI triangle centered around
the southern end of Lake Michigan. Because
of the slowness of communication in 1871,
it was not immediately recognized that the
fires of October 8, 1871 were scattered
over parts of seven states and Canada and
may have caused as many as 10,000 deaths."

I would be interested to know where the claim that the

fire actually started in seven states and Canada
simultaneously. From what I seen written in well-
researched books on the 1871 fire, i.e. "Michigan On
Fire" by Betty Sodders in 1997, the fact of the matter
is that fires outside IL-WI-MI area were occurring and

started well before October 8 and had been occurring
all Fall because of the hot and dry weather that had
created a drought that was devastating in its own
right.
If a person looks at the historical record, he or she
would find that it is an absolute misrepresentation of

it in stating that these fires all started
simultaneously
with the October 8 fire. The so-called "instantaneous"
/
"simultaneous" nature of the fire, from what I have
seen, is pure fiction created by shoddy research and
wishful thinking on the part of advocates of the comet

impact theory, who seem to be rather ill-informed of
the actual chronology of forest fires in 1871.

For example, a person can read "The Fire that
Destroyed
Holland, Michigan" at:

http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/holland%20fire/hollandfire1.html

In terms of the so-called "simultaneous" nature of the
1871 fire, the web page noted:

"There had already been a threat of danger
earlier in the week. Fires kept smoldering
and burned barns and houses, but the danger
seemed to be far from the city. Then on
Sunday, October 9, there were reports that
a threatening forest fire was coming."

and

"The community at the time was populated with
2400 residents and for many days previous,
these residents had battled and beaten many
small fires that had erupted throughout the
town."

It is quite clear that fires were starting within the
area of the 1871 fire days, even weeks, before October
8.
The fire of 1871 simply didn't magically appear on
October
8, 1871 out of nowhere but was preceded by numerous
smaller fires days, even weeks, before it occurred.

Even more interesting comments about the 1871 fire
can be found in "History & Ecology of Fire in Michigan

Wildland Fire In Michigan". at:

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10367_11851-24038--,00.html

This web page stated:

"It was not a single fire but a combination
of hundreds of fires, small and large, that
had been burning unattended for weeks, only
to flare up and unite when conditions became
acute."

This statement totally demolishes the case for a
meteorite or comet, as the 1871 didn't start on Oct.
8,
1871. Rather the "1871 fire" on October 8 occurred
when
it exploded into a firestorm when fires only after
burning
for days, even weeks, before that date. Oct 8 was
simply
the point that these fires, as they coalesced,
exceeded
the critical mass needed to explode into massive
firestorm.

The historical record also clearly demonstrates the
source of these fires. For example, the "History &
Ecology of Fire in Michigan Wildland Fire In Michigan"

web page stated:

"Set carelessly or by settlers in clearing
land, fires burned everywhere, and ran
uncontrolled into the woods and swamps
where they continued to smolder."

Also, the "The Fire that Destroyed Holland, Michigan"
web page stated:

"In the fall of 1871, the ground was very
dry after the long summer. The summer had
been very hot and dry and some areas hadn't
had rain since June. In Holland, fires
began in the piles of sawdust, waste wood,
and finished lumber in the yards of the
city's several sawmills, and the winds
quickly spread the flames throughout the
town. The small spark ignited the piles
of wood and spread to become one of
Michigan's most widespread forest fire."

These quotes point out the fact that that Michigan was
having problems with outbreaks of smaller fires, weeks

before October 8. The fire simply didn't magically,
simultaneously start on that date, but rather
innumerable
small fires, which had been burning for weeks before
October 8, came together on that date. The fact that
smaller fires were burning many days prior to October
8
refutes the claim that everything simultaneously burst

into flame on that date and the so-called anomalous
nature of the fire. It is quite obvious that long
before
October 8, this region was having major problems with
outbreaks of multiple, ongoing fires.

The "History & Ecology of Fire in Michigan Wildland
Fire In Michigan" stated:

"Michigan was extensively logged toward the
end of the 19th century. The White Pine that
had once covered Michigan was cut, followed
by the hardwood forests, and large expanses
of slash (the branches and other debris left
after logging) were left behind. Many areas
were cleared for farming, and the vegetation
was burned to dispose of it. Several catastrophic
fires resulted from the indiscriminate burning
of slash following logging and land clearing
for agriculture."

and

"In the summer of 1871, a drought occurred over
much of the Great Lakes region. Slash and debris
from logging and land clearing became tinder-dry
during the months without rain. From early
August no rain fell, pastures and gardens dried
up, wells went dry, streams shrank to a mere
trickle, and crops failed."

These conditions, i.e. the abundance of fuel, created
by
careless logging techniques and forest land
management;
the hot and dry weather and massive drought; and the
careless use of fire to clear land made for an ideal
situation for the development of a catastrophic fire.

In fact, a fire similar in magnitude to the 1871 fire
occurred tens years later in September of 1881 in the
Thumb area of Michigan. It was more serve, caused more

damage, and made more people to be homeless than the
1871 fire.

About the 1881 fire, the "History & Ecology of Fire in

Michigan Wildland Fire In Michigan" stated:

"Like the 1871 fire, the fire of 1881 came
at the end of an extremely severe drought
and was the result of hundreds of land-clearing
fires whipped into a seething cauldron of flame
by high winds."

This discussion reminds me of a "mysterious" sinking
of the Sandra that allegedly sank in a calm sea
without
any distress signal as described by Charles Berlitz in

his book "The Bermuda Triangle". When Larry Kusche
looked into this disappearance, he found that the ship

was half as long as the book stated and it disappeared

in the middle of a hurricane. In this case, as in the
1871 fires, the mystery disappears when the
misinformation and folklore is replaced by documented
facts.

Yours,

Paul
Baton Rouge, LA