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Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago?
Scientific American ^ | July 20, 2009 | Brendan Borrell

Posted on 07/23/2009 7:00:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

Researchers have found shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds on one of California's Channel Islands, which they say is the strongest evidence yet that a comet exploded in the atmosphere above North America, causing widespread extinctions there around 12,900 years ago... In 2007 researchers theorized that a comet set off continental fires that led to the mysterious disappearance of the Clovis people and the extermination of 35 mammal genera, including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths and camels. The team documented a "black mat" of charcoal throughout North America that contains high levels of iridium, magnetic spheres, and nano-diamonds, which are consistent with such an airburst. The controversial theory also gibes with the 1908 Tunguska atmospheric detonation (also thought to be from a comet or meteorite) that leveled trees in Siberia, and it echoes the extraterrestrial impact widely believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Today, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the same team reports on shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds, known only from meteorite and other impact events, in a soot layer from Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in California. The canyon is famous for containing the earliest human remains in North America, dating back to 13,000 years, and the soot layer coincides with the disappearance of the pygmy mammoth from the island. In a documentary shown earlier this year on the Public Broadcasting Service's NOVA science show, the team also claimed that they discovered similar diamonds from the Greenland Ice Sheet dating to the same period.

What does the research team have to say about their doubters? "I'm so skeptical about the skeptics," says marine geologist James Kennett of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "We work in a different paradigm where different materials result from different kinds of impacts."

(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; clovis; clovisculture; comet; creation; diamonds; evolution; godsgravesglyphs; hexagonalnanodiamond; lonsdaleite; nanodiamonds; pygmymammoth
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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization

by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith


1 posted on 07/23/2009 7:00:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; BBell; ...
It's been a while since we had dozens of topics about this, seems like two in one week is appropriate.
 
Catastrophism
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

2 posted on 07/23/2009 7:02:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
It's been a while since we had dozens of topics about this, seems like two in one week is appropriate.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google ·
· The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


3 posted on 07/23/2009 7:02:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: SunkenCiv

No, George Bush did. Ask Odumbo, he inherited it.


4 posted on 07/23/2009 7:03:16 PM PDT by Mr. Jazzy ("I AM JIM THOMPSON!!!")
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To: SunkenCiv

No, actually I believe it was due to an early Cro-Magnon man named Al-a-Goric.


5 posted on 07/23/2009 7:03:21 PM PDT by kempster
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To: SunkenCiv

It would make more sense for us to develop the technology to detect and deflect comets and asteroids than to go back to the Moon or Mars.


6 posted on 07/23/2009 7:06:10 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago?

How would I know?

7 posted on 07/23/2009 7:08:38 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (The revolution IS being televised.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ruminant grazers survived the extinction, non-ruminants were wiped out.

You need a theory to accomodate this.


8 posted on 07/23/2009 7:09:40 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: SunkenCiv

One little problem..... The end of the American megafauna also involved whatever created the gigantic muck deposits in the North and it’s not even obvious to me that a worldwide flood could do that, much less any sort of interaction with a comet.


9 posted on 07/23/2009 7:12:33 PM PDT by wendy1946
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To: SunkenCiv

10 posted on 07/23/2009 7:13:32 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: SunkenCiv

No it was a GREAT BIG FLOOD about 6,000 years ago.


11 posted on 07/23/2009 7:13:54 PM PDT by US Navy Vet
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To: kempster

Silly comet theory. It’s CAVEMAN’S FAULT. Those damn SUV’S they drove caused global warming.


12 posted on 07/23/2009 7:21:18 PM PDT by max americana
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To: Snickering Hound

Why do *I* need one?


13 posted on 07/23/2009 7:24:44 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: wendy1946

Gigantic muck deposits? I live maybe twenty miles from the muck farms, which are flat, former lakebeds, which have of course long been empty of the lake waters.


14 posted on 07/23/2009 7:26:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Moonman62

I wholeheartedly agree.


15 posted on 07/23/2009 7:26:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: max americana
Global Warming - so simple a caveman can do it!

Geico insurance AlgoreCo offset credits

16 posted on 07/23/2009 7:33:18 PM PDT by 1ofmanyfree ((No jobs, licenses,mortgages,bank accounts or amnesty for any illegal alien criminals ! ))
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To: SunkenCiv
Why do *I* need one?

I meant it as a plural "you" for apocalyptic scientists.

Physicists that come up with this stuff really need to hang around animals more.

17 posted on 07/23/2009 7:36:19 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: SunkenCiv

First things first.

Where was Ted Kennedy when this happened and can he prove his wherabouts?


18 posted on 07/23/2009 7:41:53 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Seniors, the new shovel ready project under socialized medicine.)
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To: KevinDavis

Space PING


19 posted on 07/23/2009 7:42:58 PM PDT by Thunder90
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To: SunkenCiv

It seems pretty likely that’s what happened. And during an ice age, so that explains the lack of crater. There’s a whole layer of nanodiamonds right around that time period.


20 posted on 07/23/2009 7:43:52 PM PDT by mysterio
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