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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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To: stefanbatory

Heh... they don’t actually *grow* muck in them... the soil is a really dark black rich looking soil, and is great for various low crops (beets, sugar beets, carrots, etc, but also shrub farming, lots of stuff) and the fields tend to be dead flat level. :’)

Welcome to the GGG list. :’) I’ll send the official message in FReepmail.


41 posted on 07/24/2009 5:56:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: mysterio

Yeah, the way the impact location was figured out helps make the case compelling.


42 posted on 07/24/2009 6:00:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Snickering Hound

They’ve hung around some extinct ones, namely mammoths, and evidence was right in the bones and tusks.


43 posted on 07/24/2009 6:01:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: djf

I highly recommend the book (above) and believe you will enjoy it.


44 posted on 07/24/2009 6:04:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: noiseman; kaboom; aShepard; Mr. Jazzy; kempster; the invisib1e hand; max americana; cripplecreek; ..

:’D


45 posted on 07/24/2009 6:05:07 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

Which one?


46 posted on 07/24/2009 6:08:03 PM PDT by djf (The "racism" spiel is a crutch, and those who drone on about it are cripples...)
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To: SunkenCiv

Oh, ok, I got ya!


47 posted on 07/24/2009 6:08:55 PM PDT by djf (The "racism" spiel is a crutch, and those who drone on about it are cripples...)
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To: SunkenCiv
Good point.

Sure glad I wasn't around when that thing hit.

48 posted on 07/24/2009 6:14:13 PM PDT by colorado tanker ("Ah guess I talked stupidly when I said the officer acted stupidly.")
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To: wolfcreek; Fred Nerks

Thanks!


49 posted on 07/24/2009 6:21:04 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
You know, this will happen again. There is no way of knowing when but it will happen again. What bothers me is liberals have the arrogance to believe mankind will be the villain in ending life as we know it. They are to stupid too understand we are all living on borrowed time. An asteroid could and will end it at anytime. We live in a very violent universe.
50 posted on 07/24/2009 6:22:00 PM PDT by kempo
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To: djf

Scared me for a second. ;’)


51 posted on 07/24/2009 6:22:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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52 posted on 07/24/2009 6:23:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: kempo

Best part is, it’s random events that do it.


53 posted on 07/24/2009 7:35:32 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

Civ, thanks for all you do!


54 posted on 07/24/2009 9:37:37 PM PDT by spyone (ridiculum)
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To: neverdem

:’) Thanks neverdem.

http://www.dose.ca/news/story.html?id=1812566

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/17/0906374106.abstract


55 posted on 07/25/2009 4:45:49 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: spyone

My pleasure!


56 posted on 07/25/2009 5:00:53 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

You’re welcome!


57 posted on 07/25/2009 5:15:24 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Moonman62
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.

You've got waaaaay too much common sense.

58 posted on 07/25/2009 5:55:34 PM PDT by GOPJ (Conservatives: the "niche market," consisting of about half the population" - David Warren)
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