A giant snowball? Ever since seeing the Carolina Bays less than a year ago on this forum(first time I'd heard of 'em), they appear to have been made by the breakup of a......snowball. Has this been completely poopooed?
FGS
Simply put, I believe that these near flat, shallow, structures were formed by terminal flare induced steam explosions of wet exposed ground. The wet spots could have been beaver ponds, springs, marshes, wet weather ponds, slow flowing creeks, and so on. The principal requirement here is that the water on the ground be exposed sufficiently to the sky so as to receive enough radiant energy from the incoming bolide to produce a violent phase change or steam explosion. A geologist might think of these features as "top induced maars" as the structures of Carolina Bays have similarities to conventional maars, which are produced by Earth mantle heat induced steam explosions. *I don't regard this as plausible. It's somewhat analogous to, "oh, the Chicxulub impact didn't kill off the dinosaurs, it's just a huge coincidence."
A Re-evaluation Of The Extraterrestrial Origin Of The Carolina BaysAbstract: 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.
by J. Ronald Eyton & Judith I. Parkhurst (April 1975)
Luis E. Ortiz & Susan Gross, editors