Devastating comet hit North America 13,000 years ago?
According to the theory -- which has its critics -- as the comet broke apart, it rained fire over the entire continent, igniting the plains and the forests and creating choking clouds of smoke.(PDF article about the Clovis Comet)Heat from the explosions and the massive fires melted substantial portions of the Laurentide glacier in Canada, sending waves of water down the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico. That triggered changes in Atlantic Ocean currents, which ushered in a 1,300-year ice age known as the Younger Dryas.
Battered by fire and ice, as many as 35 species of mammals, including American camels, the short-faced bear, the giant beaver, the dire wolf and the American lion, either immediately vanished or were so depleted in number that humans hunted them to extinction.
The humans, a Paleo-Indian grouping known as the Clovis culture for the distinctive spear points they employed, suffered a major population drop, disappearing in many areas for hundreds of years.
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Here's my theory: at the beginning the Earth was actually flat. Bear with me. Then it got hit by so many catastrophes that is became eroded into a ball.
Wait, we used to have camels? Now I feel ripped.
We still have the toes.
AFAIK, the evidence cited (nano-diamonds in particular) have not yet been demonstrated to be formed by impact events, including airbursts. This claim is interesting, but by no means is it "case closed".
The main problem with this theory is that it has gotten mixed in with a lot of other notions. I have heard of at least 4 other theories allied to the meteor/comet strike one, including one that claims this is the reason we find frozen mammoths in the Arctic complete with undigested temperate flora in their stomachs, and a magnetic pole flip. I'm with IMIPAK; fascinating but by no means confirmed. There needs to be a lot more weeding and shuffling.
Heinlein explained this all in his book Starship Troopers. It's an attack! I for one salute our new alien overlords and humbly request that the next meteor target Texas.
So the nanodiamonds definitely mean it was an impact event and not, for example, a supervolcano the size of Yellowstone Park, right?
I'm sorry...my awesome meter went off at the mention of 'dire wolf' and I don't really remember the rest of the article.
"We still have the toes."
...You owe me a keyboard for that one, sir :-P
"So the nanodiamonds definitely mean it was an impact event and not, for example, a supervolcano the size of Yellowstone Park, right? "
...Nope. Nanodiamonds require heat and pressure. The Jellystone Supervolcano wouldn't have produced enough shock pressure except maybe within the first hundred yards of the blast.
...On a side note, anyone else remember a story from a couple of years ago theorizing that a similar, smaller comet exploded ~5000 years ago over the Great Plains, and was recent enough in the history of North American habitation that the story was actual passed down through certain Amerind tribes?
It was actually the first Americans, already hugely fat and sloppy, rolling across the plains in great, heavy herds, eating basically everything they came across. Short-faced bears, lions, slow-moving camels, dire wolves - they either weren't prepared for the multi-ton blobs of grease and teeth or they couldn't outrun them.
Naturally, these first Americans were so heavy that they disrupted the earth's rotational velocity, sending it into an elliptical tumble that gave rise to the Ice Age. The wobble and associated seasons we know today are but a remnant of our world's distant past. Oh, and the diamonds? Gas. That's why so many of the other primitive animals in the world died at the same time.
@ #5
Yep.
Science + Media attention + Discovery Channel/history channel = Confused Public
Confused Public [is inversely proportional to] Science + Media_Spin + Psudo-scientific-Crackpot ponderings
This event is also linked to the aboriginal people's legend of the Thunderbird.
Ok.
Astromorde seem to be in vogue these days...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081231-new-york-tsunami.html
But there are a few questions regarding this one"
There should be a continent wide destruction layer, equivalent to the KT layer from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. composed of charcoal, and or decayed wood, mixed in with bones, pollen and other detritus.
This layer should be pretty obvious (you can go down to Rancho La brea and look for it) where ever there is good sequence from that period exposed (thousands of locales in the US and Canada).
It should be even more obvious in deep sea cores, especially from the east coast, and gulf of mexico.
Another things is that the megafauna in South America went extinct at the same time, so you need two comets I suppose.
Three if you want to count Beringia (Alaska-Yukon)
Finally the only published section is in Arizona, which has been active volcanically until quite recently. Now you have to close to a volcano but how close to catch the nano diamonds?
The current issue of New Scientist also has a brief mention of a comet impact that may have cloaked the world in dust for 18 months in 536 AD
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126882.900-comet-smashes-triggered-ancient-dry-fog-famine.html
My theory is that the Clovis people went to Vegas and gambled everything on red 7 and lost.
This is similar to another theory of mine which postulates that the inhabitants of Easter Island spent all of their nation's wealth on lottery tickets and KFC.
I have found evidence that shows that I may have walked on Mars. My theory is that Mars was struck by a comet in its northern hemisphere sending large portions of the intact south pole hurtling into Earth's path, along with liquid remnants of that comet. One part, known as Ayers Rock, struck in what is now Australia and another struck the Yucatan carving the Gulf of Mexico and creating the mountains and hot springs of Arkansas. I believe the spin of the Earth caused great upheaval of the lands west of the event creating the Baja Peninsula from the tectonic plate shearing and being forced westward.
There is an interesting rock formation at Cossatot River State Park in Arkansas. The bed of the river has strata aligned east to west that I believe layers of Mars' interior. I also believe that life survived the impact on that chunk of Mars. I believe that the armadillo and opossum descended from that life.
I would like my claims verified, or in the least, debated on to determine the possibility that I am right.
I read the initial article and didn't see any explanation as to why it would be a very rare comet as opposed to a much more common asteroid. I know most meteors are metallic and not carbon-based, but I'm not an astrophysicist.
It would have been nice if the LAT had explained the distinction, because the "hit by a comet" headline seems pretty odd to me (especially since comets are basically dirty snowballs).
I'm pretty sure I saw the giant beaver on the internet somewhere.
>> I would like my claims verified, or in the least, debated on to determine the possibility that I am right.
No need.
You're right.
Sir Fred Hoyle was all for the overwhelming influence of comets on Earthlife:
'The Origin of the Universe and the Origin of Religion' by Fred Hoyle (1993)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9652517/The-Origin-of-the-Universe-and-the-Origin-of-Religion
In all seriousness, this was all explored in great detail by Immanuel Velikovsky over 50 years ago. His "Earth In Upheaval" and "Ages in Chaos"
give a much more comprehensive and plausible explanation on geologic disturbances in the past 3,500 years! Yes. I welcome well read and smart correspondents.
Goodoldphil aspiring not boasting
in Florida
clues: changes in ancient calendars
I was watching the show about this on the History Channel last night, until they said an incredibly stupid thing: "Fullerenes, which were discovered by the scientist Buckminster Fuller..."
This was so stupid it made my head hurt and I had to go to bed.
Interesting story but I need more information to be sold
Strumpet Windsock @17 writes:
I haven't seen an official explanation of why "comet" either, but there's an obvious glaring omission so far - no known crater to explain this impact, and a need to explain how we could have had an impact without the crater.
There's been discussion elsewhere about possible impacts on the thick ice sheet (should still have cratered underneath), or somewhere that was glacially altered afterwards, or possibly a water impact somewhere. But a comet that broke up in midair and had little or no solid ground level impact is the best easiest explanation.
I theought everyone knew that the microdiamonds are used as currency by the mole-people. ;^>