Reference Links

A friend asked me if I could provide a good Reading list of ‘Must Read’ literature. I have to confess to being little bit lazy on that account. But Michael Davias, at Perigee Zero has compiled an excellent list of pertinent references. As a Matter of fact, while his  hypothesis, may differ a bit from my own, his observations are sound. And I keep going back to his site, because he’s doing some great work! And it’s clear that we’re on the trail of the same catastrophe.

He’s also compiled a very good book list, with good summaries, and reviews, that you can find Here.

I’ve used his reference list. And added a few others of of my own.

Paleolithic extinctions, And the Taurid Complex. Abstract: Intersection with the debris of a large (50-100 km) short-period comet during the Upper Palaeolithic provides a satisfactory explanation for the catastrophe of celestial origin which has been postulated to have occurred around 12900 BP, and which presaged a return to ice age conditions of duration ~1300 years. The Taurid Complex appears to be the debris of this erstwhile comet; it includes at least 19 of the brightest near-Earth objects. Sub-kilometer bodies in meteor streams may present the greatest regional impact hazard on timescales of human concern.

The Structure and evolution of the Taurid Complex Summary: The structure of the Taurid meteoroid complex is investigated using orbital element measurements from the IAU Meteor Data Center. The Complex is found to have been formed during the last ~10 kyr, this time-scale corresponding to a probable late stage in the evolution of the parent object, a giant comet which was apparently captured into a small-perihelion, short-period orbit ~20 kyr ago. And which, in an initial highly active phase, gave rise to the material that now broadly constitutes the zodiacal cloud. Models of the evolution of the complex under gravitational perturbations suggest that meteoroids must have originally left the parent object near perihelion, but also allow the possibility that fragmentations have occurred when large disintegration products collided with objects in the asteroid belt, more or less a described by Whipple & Hamid 1952. Such a model may be entertained, for example, if the core of the evolved giant comet has previously undergone devolatilization, producing a high degree of fragility in the constituent debris.

IMPACT MELT FORMATION BY LOW-ALTITUDE AIRBURST PROCESSES, EVIDENCE FROM SMALL TERRESTRIAL CRATERS AND NUMERICAL MODELING.  Introduction: Airbursts in the lower atmosphere from hypervelocity impacts have been called upon to explain the nature of the Tunguska event and the existence of unusual impact-related silicate melts such as
the Muong-Nong tektites and Libyan Desert Glass of western Egypt [1]. Impact melts associated with impact craters, however, have been traditionally attributed to shock melting of the target material that experiences strong shock compression and heating. The characteristics of impact melts from small terrestrial craters (< 4 km diameter) leads to the possibility that the airburst phenomena may have been responsible for these melts. This conclusion is supported by numerical modeling of the airburst phenomena using super computer class facilities at Sandia National Laboratories.

Layered Melts and Melt-Covered Rocks From Small Impact Crater – Evidence For Melting By An Airburst H.E. Horton et al Abstract: Melts at impact craters are usually attributed to shock melting of the target material. However, projectiles that explode in the atmosphere can produce an “airburst” consisting of a high temperature jet of expanding gas and vaporized projectile that impinges on the surface.  The descending “fireball” makes contact with the Earth’s surface, where it expands radially and can also deliver an impactor component to the surface. The fireball can maintain temperatures well above the melting temperature of silicate minerals, and its radial velocity can exceed the sound speed in air. We are studying samples of melts from small craters using a portable XRF to rapidly (3 min. per analysis) and nondestructively analyze the melts for siderophile elements. Small craters with impact melt fragments include: Wabar, Henbury, and Lonar. The impact melt fragments from these craters sometimes exhibit the presence of thin layers of melt. These melts are sometimes stacked into layered samples (Lonar) up to 10 cm thick, and sometimes form coatings around unmelted material or layered melt bodies (Henbury). Surprisingly, our analysis of over 100 samples of impact melts from the 1.8 km diameter Lonar Crater show no evidence for an impactor component, while shocked rocks of all levels are common. Evidence for a chondritic impactor has only been found in tiny spherules in the uppermost ejecta at Lonar by Misra et al., (MaPS, 2009). Samples from the 0.12 km diameter Wabar crater consist of white material coated by dark impact melt. We found the presence of enriched Ni in all the melt coatings of the 9 samples studied. The 18 samples from the Henbury crater field (0.2 – 0.4 km, for example) are the most interesting, with layered melt bombs and a unique melt covered rock. The melts exhibit large correlated Ni and Fe abundances consistent with an impactor component. The existence of a small 4 cm wide tabular rock from Henbury, covered in siderophile-element-bearing melt about 2 mm thick, provide the most convincing data supporting an airburst origin for the melts. The airburst process also explains the lack of intermediately-shocked rocks at the two smaller impact sites, whereas glasses/melts are abundant.

An Impact Event in 3114BC? Besides the most evident cosmic catastrophes ca. 2200 BC and 2345 BC there are other events during the Holocene that are so widely global and difficult to explain by only the Earth’s own mechanisms that a cosmic explanation must evidently be taken into account. Posted on 01/03/2003 by ckilmer

A CATASTROPHICAL SCENARIO FOR DISCONTINUITIES IN HUMAN HISTORY Recent findings about interactions of the Earth with extraterrestrial bodies, particularly comets and Apollo-like objects, are reviewed, with special attention to climatological effects. We discuss the hypothesis that the last glaciation was started by a collision over a continent and was terminated by a collision over an ocean. Posted on 04/19/2002 by vannrox

Mysterious mounds Walk around weird, wildflower-covered hillocks in southwest Washington, by Beth Geiger

Mima Mounds of Thurston County, A Study of Evapotranspiration,Geologic History & Myths Mima Mounds Prairie is a geologically unique area consisting of large unexplained mounds that are either round or elliptical in shape, standing from one-half meter to about two meters in height, and having a diameter from two and one-half meters to three meters.

SMALL BODY DENSITY AND POROSITY: NEW DATA, NEW INSIGHTS. paper at Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVII (2006)

The riddle of the sands Discussion on Amorphous Silica glass found in the Egyptian Desert, New Scientist

Climate change and civilisation collapse Dr Benny Peiser discusses: There is no shortage of physical factors that can produce natural disasters and social deterioration. These could include catastrophes due to asteroid and comet impact, the failure of global agriculture due to volcanic super-eruptions, the reappearance of a new ice age, epidemic diseases, etc.

Clube and Napier: Coherent Catastrophism Clube and Napier suggested that the outer planets occasionally divert giant comets (more than 50 kilometers in diameter) into the inner solar system into short-period orbits.

Catastrophism by Philip R. "Pib" Burns At present scientists have identified nearly two hundred terrestrial impact craters. Three to four more craters are located each year. Most of these have only been discovered since 1950. Fewer visible craters appears on the Earth’s surface as compared with most other solar system bodies because the Earth is so active geologically.

Chamula Rituals and the Great Star Disaster Underlying memories of an event that may have occurred many years ago

Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales Space.Com article discussing possible role of cometary impacts in Human civilization

Asteroids & Tsunamis Big asteroids can be extra deadly when they strike the ocean, carving aquatic craters and sending huge waves in all directions.

REASSESSING THE MYSTERY CLOUD OF AD 536 In the most wide-ranging scenarios, the year 536 is seen as a watershed moment between the ancient and modern worlds, bringing about economic decline, population movements, political unrest, and ultimately the collapse of civilizations.

THE AD 536-540 MYSTERY: GLOBAL CATASTROPHE, REGIONAL EVENT OR MODERN MYTH? Compendium of correspondence, CCNet Editor: Benny Peiser

Holocene Impact Working Group These scientists have been researching on-shore geological structures which may have been created by large cometary impact-driven tsunamis. The interesting article linked here describes their work is available at the New York Times.

Younger Dryas Impact Group In these videos, scientists answer questions and discuss their analysis of a buried layer at sites from California to Belgium which reveals materials including metallic microspherules, carbon spherules, nanodiamonds, fullerenes, charcoal, and soot. The layer’s composition may indicate that a massive body, possibly a comet, exploded in the atmosphere over the Laurentide Ice Sheet 12,900 years ago.

The Carolina bays: Explaining a cosmic mystery 3-Part Article By Diane Tennant in The Virginian-Pilot, September 7, 2008

A RE-EVALUATION OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN OF THE CAROLINA BAYS Controversy as to the origin of the Carolina Bays has centered on terrestrial versus extraterrestrial theories. Meteoritic impact has been considered the primary causal mechanism in extraterrestrial models, but alternatives such as comets and asteroids have not been adequately considered. Comets may explode during fall and produce depressions which would conform to the morphology of the Bays. Only a comet appears to satisfy the constraints imposed both by extraterrestrial requirements and observed terrestrial characteristics.

COASTAL PLAIN REGION / CAROLINA BAYS – University of SC Description of Landforms, Drainage Patterns, and Geologic Processes

The cometary theory of the origin of the Bays The cometary theory of the origin of the Bays, on the other hand, popular among earth scientists of the 1930s and 40’s, is that the Bays are the result of an encounter between North America and a low density comet exploding above or impacting with the Laurentide Ice Sheet ~12,900 years ago [4]. Supporting evidence includes the failure of "wind and wave" theories to satisfactorily account for a number of the peculiar features of Carolina Bays, including the recent identification of markers suggestive of an extraterrestrial connection, the alignment of bays with points over the Great Lakes, and their tendency to overlap one another from east to west. Extraterrestrial markers include microspherules, magnetic grains with extraterrestrial chemistry, carbon spherules suffused with nanodiamonds, and levels of iridium sixty times background levels.

Messier Craters on the Moon Oblique impact resolves the mystery of one of the most bizarre crater pairs on the Moon. South of Mare Crisium in Mare Fecunditatis are two small craters with unique parallel rays streaming from one of them.

Did A Comet Cause The Carolina Bays? Metro Magazine interview with George Howard, by Liza Roberts, January 2009

ADVANCES IN THE LUMINESCENCE DATING During the recent years great progress has been made in the study of the processes of energy accumulation and transformation in the minerals used as palaeodosimeters, in clarification of the characteristics of especially deep “dosimetric” traps and in deciphering the mechanism of their photoionization, as well as in measuring techniques and development of new apparatus used for dating. In spite of that further basic studies, justification and specification of concrete dating protocols are needed. New measuring methods (including new dose-sensitive characteristics) are to be searched for. Sensitive methods for dating very “young” samples, but also extending the time range of datings to the region of great ages (t > 105 years) are especially necessary.

COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CAROLINA BAYS LITERATURE More than 350 bibliographic entries have been identified here, most of which pertain directly to Carolina Bays.

Comets, Catastrophes, and Earth’s History, William Napier, Ph.D There is now compelling evidence that an exceptionally large (50-100 km) comet entered a short-period, Earth-crossing orbit some time in the Upper Palaeolithic, and underwent a series of fragmentations. During this disintegration the Earth was probably subjected to occasional episodes of intense bombardment. Such an episode might constitute a sensible astronomical framework for understanding the postulated catastrophe at 12,900 BP.

Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 KYA, FIrestone, et al A carbon-rich black layer, dating to 12.9 ka, has been previously identified at 50 Clovis-age sites across North America and appears contemporaneous with the abrupt onset of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling. The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it. Causes for the extinctions, YD cooling, and termination of Clovis culture have long been controversial. In this paper, we provide evidence for an extraterrestrial (ET) impact event at 12.9 ka, which we hypothesize caused abrupt environmental changes that contributed to YD cooling, major ecological reorganization, broad-scale extinctions, and rapid human behavioral shifts at the end of the Clovis Period

Rings around the Earth: A clue to climate change? While most of us know about rings around Saturn and Jupiter, some scientists believe there once were rings of rock debris around our own planet. Two scientists — Peter J. Fawcett, of the University of New Mexico, and Mark B.E. Boslough, of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories — have suggested that a geologically “recent” collision (about 35 million years ago) may have caused such a temporary debris ring.

Tunnel Channels of the Saginaw Lobe, Michigan, Kehew, A. E. & Kozlowski, A. L. 2007. USA. Applied Quaternary research in the central part of glaciated terrain. Geological Survey of Fin- land, Special Paper 46, 69–78, 10 figures.