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Don't blame a comet for Clovis culture demise, scientists say
nbc ^ | Nola Taylor Redd

Posted on 03/10/2013 3:10:46 PM PDT by BenLurkin

comet crashing into the Earth some 13,000 years ago was thought to have spelled doom to a group of early North American people, and possibly the extinction of ice age beasts in the region.

But the space rock was wrongly accused, according to a group of 16 scientists in fields ranging from archaeology to crystallography to physics, who have offered counterevidence to the existence of such a collision.

Almost 13,000 years ago, a prehistoric Paleo-Indian group known as the Clovis culture suffered its demise at the same time the region underwent significant climate cooling known as the Younger Dryas. Animals such as ground sloths, camels and mammoths were wiped out in North America around the same period.

In 2007, a team of scientists led by Richard Firestone of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California suggested these changes were the result of a collision or explosion of an enormous comet or asteroid, pointing to a carbon-rich black layer at a number of sites across North America. The theory has remained controversial, with no sign of a crater that would have resulted from such an impact.

"If a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) comet had broken up over North America only 12.9 thousand years ago, it is certain that it would have left an unambiguous impact crater or craters, as well as unambiguous shocked materials," Boslough said.

Boslough, who has spent decades studying the effects of comet and asteroid collisions, was part of a team that predicted the visibility of plumes from the impact of the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet with Jupiter.

"Comet impacts may be low enough in density not to leave craters,"

He also points to independent research ...... that indicates such explosions could have come from a debris trail created by Comet Encke, which also would not have left a crater.

(Excerpt) Read more at science.nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; clovis; cloviscultures; comet; godsgravesglyphs; precolumbian; tunguska; tunguskaevent; youngerdryas
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...

Thanks BenLurkin.


21 posted on 03/11/2013 4:50:27 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: BenLurkin

 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Thanks BenLurkin.
...16 scientists in fields ranging from archaeology to crystallography to physics, who have offered counterevidence to the existence of such a collision.
IOW, they have no answer for the extraterrestrial crud found embedded in mammoth tusks, or the black mat, or anything substantially related to the thesis.

Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


22 posted on 03/11/2013 4:50:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: Sherman Logan
A meteor (high density material, rock and/or metal) would do significant damage to an ice sheet, to be frozen over and plowed flat by the same ice sheet.

However, the impact of a comet (lower density material) on an ice sheet might be different, especially if it broke up before it hit.

23 posted on 03/11/2013 4:58:35 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: Dusty Road

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/point.wav


24 posted on 03/11/2013 8:30:35 AM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: BenLurkin

What astronomers stubbornly refuse to acknowledge is the static electrical charge differential between comets and meteors and planet Earth. They think that the Solar System is homgeneously electrically neutral while calling the Solar Electric Current the “Solar Wind” and the Van Allen plasma sheaths- “belts”. The Solar System is alive with electrical phenomena. 99% of all matter in the Universe is in the plasma state- ionized and electrically and, more importantly, magnetically, active. That’s what those pretty “nebulas” are made of and is what astronomers describe as “filaments” which stretch between galaxies as well as comprising their “arms”. These ubuquitous “filaments” are in reality plasma Birkland Currents.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that an approaching meteor can discharge violently at some point in the Earth’s atmosphere and shatter itself into much smaller components, as the evidence suggests at Tsunguska and as we witnessed at Chelayabinsk. Comets can also break apart (they are not “dirty snowballs”, but rocks just like meteors) and become a freight train such as Shoemaker-Levy 9, which can become a plasma torch creating a swath of plasma furnace temperatures burning everything and melting mountains like candle wax. http://sites.google.com/site/dragonstormproject/

Astronomers cringe at the possibility of one day having to admit that we live in a cosmic shooting gallery because our only defense, at present, is our Cold War nuclear ICBM arsenal, which would then take on the property of savant technology and the elevation of men such as Edward Teller to guardian angel status.

More on the Electric Universe theory at www.thunderbolts.info


25 posted on 03/11/2013 11:52:20 AM PDT by Yollopoliuhqui
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts
"If man could wipe out mega-fauna as soon as they arrived, then why are there any animals in Africa where man was present many many years before in the Americas."

I think Africa is a great counter-argument to the over-kill hypothesis; especially when you consider the survival of large animals in Africa, like the elephant (similar is size to the mammoth and mastodon), despite facing constant hunting pressure from humans for tens of thousands of years longer than the mega-fauna did in the New World.

I know that one of the theories is that animals in the New World didn't recognize humans as a threat and pretty much allowed themselves to be easily wiped out, but it seems to me that the devastation was too wide-spread and included too many species. The species that didn't go extinct figured out that humans were a threat quickly enough.

26 posted on 03/11/2013 2:58:21 PM PDT by Flag_This (Real presidents don't bow.)
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To: Fraxinus; SunkenCiv; All

In Firestone’s book, there is evidence that Lake Michigan was formed by two or three boloid strikes. Also, what about the directionality of the Carolina Bays?


27 posted on 03/11/2013 3:58:19 PM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: Flag_This
To believe man was responsible you would have to believe that small groups of hunter-gatherers in N. America were responsible for the destruction of mammoths, mastodons, giant bison, horses, camels, harrington's mt. goat, american cheetahs, american lions, american mt. deer, short-faced bears, smilodons, the giant cave bear, the woodland muskox, the giant ground sloths, dire wolves, the Stag-moose, the giant armadillo, and on and on and on... The extinction list is way too long and diverse (including birds and reptiles) to simply tack it onto the butcher's bill of humans.

If by small numbers you mean 100s of thousands to millions of the people than yeah they could have easily drove those animals extinct.

About 3 million years ago, Panama arose out the sea and connected previously separated North & South America. This allowed the Saber tooth tiger to enter South America where they immediately reeked havoc and drove pretty all of South America's Ungulates, marsupials and large predators like Terror Birds extinct.

Now if small numbers of saber tooth tigers acting individually can drive a large number of animals extinct then it's not much of a stretch to see groups of humans who compared to Saber tooths are much more efficient and diverse hunters doing the same.

Especially considering one of early man's hunting strategies was to cause stampedes and drive whole herds of animals right off the sides of cliffs.

28 posted on 03/11/2013 6:27:01 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts
Extend the argument to it logical absurd conclusion. If man could wipe out mega-fauna as soon as they arrived, then why are there any animals in Africa where man was present many many years before in the Americas.

Extend your argument out to its logical conclusion and the Brown Tree snake couldn't be responsible for driving all those birds extinct on Guam because why are there any birds on the mainline where it was present for many, many years before it arrived on Guam.

And guess what, many large animals were in fact driven extinct by man in Africa earlier. There were larger species of giraffe, hippopotamuses, Hyenas, warthogs and several other large pachyderms living in Africa for millions of years, then Homo Erectus learned to sharpen sticks and build fires.

There were also large saber tooth cats living in Africa, they also went extinct at the rise of Homo Erectus. Why did they vanished in Africa while doing fine in the rest of the then people free world for 900,000+ more years, until man started his migration out?

Let me guess, these African extinctions were caused by asteroids also?

Sorry I know Asteroids and Comets falling out of the sky and killing all these beast sounds weally, weally cool and Asteroids/Comets means that ancient "at one with nature" man didn't drive all these animals extinct which keeps your Avatar fantasies intact, but sorry there is no evidence for them.

29 posted on 03/11/2013 6:29:20 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: qam1
"If by small numbers you mean 100s of thousands to millions of the people than yeah they could have easily drove those animals extinct."

Except there is zero evidence that the human population density in N. America was anything like that high 12,000 years ago.

"This allowed the Saber tooth tiger to enter South America where they immediately reeked havoc and drove pretty all of South America's Ungulates, marsupials and large predators like Terror Birds extinct."

Well, that's one theory, anyway; but it's in direct contrast to another theory that holds that smilodon died out because they were too specialized in their prey and became extinct when that prey died out. They may have thrown off those feeding inhibitions once they went south...

"considering one of early man's hunting strategies was to cause stampedes and drive whole herds of animals right off the sides of cliffs."

They were still using that trick with buffalo when the Europeans arrived, and yet, the buffalo herds stretched from horizon to horizon and reportedly would take days to pass by, despite having been "over hunted" for thousands of years.

30 posted on 03/11/2013 9:58:28 PM PDT by Flag_This (Real presidents don't bow.)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts
The theory is that the American animals had no fear of man. The animals in Africa and Eurasia evolved alongside humans and developed a natural fear of the predators.
31 posted on 03/12/2013 5:58:00 PM PDT by Vietnam Vet From New Mexico (If you don't want to stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.)
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