Re; Carolina Bays


Duplicate placemarks removed.

Here is more about Jon Pelletier's model concerning thaw slumping in Arctic lakes. There is also some reference to aeolean influences in the development of other Arctic lakes.

But the evidence for extraterrestrial origin of the Carolina Bays is strong and gets more convincing all the time. It is very difficult to make an argument for aeolean forces being the cause of the Carolina Bays.

Thanks for the additional locations, John. Most of those are now indiscernible from the air due to all of the building and farming in the area. One difficulty with unravelling the mystery of the bays is their rapid disappearance due to human activities.

Indeed, humans are distroying the Bays rapidly. There are some conservation measures afoot to protect the unique flora and funa, but nature is losing ground. I'm hoping that some of the work we're doing will help in this regard.

My next post - 5/25/08 - updates the Carolina Bays file to include the Bays that show in the NC streams map.



I have begun posting .kmz files, county by county, where I have digitized all the Carolina Bays. They are by county name, ie. Cumberland County Bays, Bladen County Bays, Robeson County Bays.
My source files are the NC DOT LIDAR elevation maps. What are digitized are only the Bays that have enough rim to show up with an elevation difference with an elliptical shape in LIDAR.
The largest one is 16.75606 square miles, and the smallest one is just under one acre. All the marked Bays together total 567.1777 square miles (all the numbers were generated by GM). Many more "ghost" Bay forms can be seen in Google Earth.
The vast majority of the digitized Bays show signs of some drainage. Large flat areas with little drainage have lost their Bays, some to wind-blown sand and dust fill, some to vegetation and peat fill. Water flow seems important both for the initial flushing out of dust and sand and, in the areas where the Bays penetrated to the water level, slowing the infill by vegetation.
The Bays were formed and most of the wind erosion happened before the rivers floods washed out the wide river valleys. This suggests a long period of desert-like conditions after the Bays were formed.
In the flatter areas, Bay rims and rim breaches were important for the location of small streams which, in turn, tended to orient larger flows in alignment with the Bays.
As has been the case with most of this research, there are more questions raised than answered.

The attached file shows all the Bays I've digitized, so far.

Attachment moved to this post

The attached file includes all the Bays I've digitized from LIDAR and the NC streams maps. This is the best picture of the Caolina Bays in NC that's ever been produced.

I hope this information will foster further research into the source of the Carolina Bays.

Here's the latest bit of accumulating evidence for cometary impact that probably formed the Carolina Bays and it appears had much farther ranging impact.

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Six North American sites hold 12,900 year-old nanodiamond-rich soil

Discoveries consistent with theory of Clovis-age disruption by cosmic event, say nine-member team led by the UO's Doug Kennett

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 2, 2009) -- Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth�s impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.

These nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts and have been found in meteorites, are concentrated in similarly aged sediments at Murray Springs, Ariz., Bull Creek, Okla., Gainey, Mich., and Topper, S.C., as well as Lake Hind, Manitoba, and Chobot, Alberta, in Canada. Nanodiamonds can be produced on Earth, but only through high-explosive detonations or chemical vaporization.

Last year a 26-member team from 16 institutions proposed that a cosmic impact event, possibly by multiple airbursts of comets, set off a 1,300-year-long cold spell known as the Younger Dryas, fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and led to the extinction of a large range of animals, including mammoths, across North America. The team's paper was published in the Oct. 9, 2007, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (2007 news release | 2007 PNAS paper)

Murray Springs close-up
Nanometer-sized diamonds occur at the base a layer of sediment directly above the remains of extinct animals (mammoths, dire wolves, etc.) and artifacts from Clovis culture at the research site in Murray Springs, Arizona.

Now, reporting in the Jan. 2 issue of the journal Science, a team led by the University of Oregon's Douglas J. Kennett, a member of the original research team, report finding billions of nanometer-sized diamonds concentrated in sediments -- weighing from about 10 to 2,700 parts per billion -- in the six locations during digs funded by the National Science Foundation.

"The nanodiamonds that we found at all six locations exist only in sediments associated with the Younger Dryas Boundary layers, not above it or below it," said Kennett, a UO archaeologist. "These discoveries provide strong evidence for a cosmic impact event at approximately 12,900 years ago that would have had enormous environmental consequences for plants, animals and humans across North America."

The Clovis culture of hunters and gatherers was named after hunting tools referred to as Clovis points, first discovered in a mammoth's skeleton in 1926 near Clovis, N.M. Clovis sites later were identified across the United States, Mexico and Central America. Clovis people possibly entered North America across a land bridge from Siberia. The peak of the Clovis era is generally considered to have run from 13,200 to 12,900 years ago. One of the diamond-rich sediment layers reported sits directly on top of Clovis materials at the Murray Springs site.

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Quote:

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Map shows currently known distribution of nanodiamonds in Younger Dryas Boundary sediments across North America: (1) Murray Springs, Arizona: 200 parts per billion; (2) Bull Creek, Okla.: 100 ppb; (3) Lake Hind, Manitoba, Canada: 70 ppb; (4) Chobot, Alberta, Canada: 10 ppb; (5) Gainey, Mich.: 3,700 ppb; (6) Topper, SC: 108 ppb. In transmission electron microscopy photomicrographs, diamonds are paired with associated selected area diffraction patterns of carbon spherules from the Chobot (A and B) and Topper sites (C and D). Arrows on photomicrographs highlight examples of diamonds within the amorphous carbon matrices of spherules. Arrows on SADPs are indexed d-spacings (in angstroms). (Image courtesy of AAAS; map by Jake Bartruff)

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Source

More details from a New York Times article:

Quote:

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University of Oregon
Scientists found microscopic diamonds in the black layer of rock at Murray Springs in Arizona.


Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling � which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age � may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.

That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday�s issue of the journal Science.

The hypothesis has been regarded skeptically, but its advocates now report perhaps more convincing residue of impact: a thin layer of microscopic diamonds found in rocks across America and in Europe.

�We�re up over 30 sites, as far west as offshore California, as far east as Germany,� said Allen West, a retired geology consultant who is one of the scientists working on the research.

The meteors would have been smaller than the six-mile-wide meteor that struck the Yucat�n peninsula 65 million years ago and led to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs. The killing effects of the hypothesized bombardment 12,900 years ago would have been more subtle.

Climatologists believe that the direct cause of the 1,300-year cold spell, known as the Younger Dryas, was a sudden rush of fresh water from a giant lake in central Canada to the North Atlantic.

Usually a surface current of warm water flows northward in the Atlantic toward Greenland and Europe, then cools and sinks, returning south in the deep ocean. But the fresh water, which is less dense, blocked the sinking of the cold, salty water in the North Atlantic, disrupting the currents.

That sudden change in plumbing has long been known, but what caused it has never been satisfactorily explained.

The authors of the paper in Science say it was meteors.

At each site the scientists looked at, the diamond layer in the rocks correlates to the date of the hypothesized impact. Within the layer, the scientists report finding a multitude of diamond particles, all encased within carbon spheres. �We�ve yet to find a single diamond above it,� Dr. West said. �We�ve yet to find a single diamond below it.�

Perhaps more telling, the scientists reported last month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, the carbon atoms inside some of the diamonds are lined up in a hexagonal crystal pattern instead of the usual cubic structure. The hexagonal diamonds, formed by extraordinary heat and pressure, have been found only at impact craters and within meteorites and cannot be formed in forest fires or volcanic eruptions, Dr. West said.

Last year the scientists presented other evidence of an impact, including elevated levels of the element iridium.

At least some skeptics are not convinced. �The whole thing still does not make sense, and there are lots of contradictions,� said Christian Koeberl, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Vienna in Austria.

His chief reservation is that there is no crater. �A body of this size does not just blow up without a trace in the atmosphere,� Dr. Koeberl said. �Physics won�t have it.�

Proponents have suggested that the meteor hit an ice sheet a couple of miles thick or that there was a series of smaller objects that exploded in the air. But Dr. Koeberl said something hitting an ice sheet would still generate a hole in the ground underneath, and he questioned whether smaller impacts or air explosions would produce the shock waves needed to make diamonds.

An impact should also have left remnants of melted rocks and shocked minerals, Dr. Koeberl said.

But if true, the hypothesis could explain the disappearance of ice age mammals like mammoths and argue against the alternative idea that the animals were hunted to extinction by humans.

It might also help explain the disappearance of the Clovis people, a culture named after a distinctive arrow point discovered in a mammoth skeleton in Clovis, N.M., who are believed to have arrived in the Americas more than 13,000 years ago.

Douglas J. Kennett, a University of Oregon archaeologist who is the lead author of the Science paper, said no Clovis points or bones of the extinct animals had been found above the diamond layer. �It seems those two things synchronously end,� he said.

Dr. Kennett said there also appeared to be a gap of several centuries between the disappearance of the Clovis and the resettlement by other people.

Gary Huss, a scientist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who was one of the early reviewers of the paper in Science, said though the scientists had not proved their case, they had offered enough evidence that the idea warranted a closer look by others.

�They have a hypothesis that explains several things that hard to explain any other way,� Dr. Huss said. �Diamonds are less convincing by themselves, but they strengthen their case considerably.�

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Source

Here is an aerial photo of a large muck farm near East Lansing, Michigan which shows the outlines of two elliptical soil patterns oriented NNE-SSW that appear very similar to the Carolina Bays. They are filled with Houghton Muck soil, but the outlines are of a light soil, possibly weathered clay or sand. I have also located two other smaller areas of the same shape and orientation nearby, one filled with a nearly filled bog and the other farmed. http://sites.google.com/site/jayssharingsite/Home/Bathsw92.JPG?attredirects=0

These features are located about 70 miles SW from the Gainey Clovis Site, which had the highest concentration of carbon and magnetic spherules as well as nanodiamonds of the ones reported in the January 2009 Science issue. I have for several years tried to come up with an explanation for these shapes, but they seemed to be too shallow to be the result of a meteorite strike, unless it was of a large, slow object that disappeared (melted?). Also, there seems to be no obvious areas of ejecta.

Here is a link to a kmz file showing aerials of four different years and polygons outlining what I have reported. http://sites.google.com/site/jayssharingsite/Home/BathSWChandlerSwamp.kmz?attredirects=0

This is a link other images related to the location, including a soils map: http://sites.google.com/site/jayssharingsite/Home

This is interesting Jay. And it also brings up a difficulty I had in locating Gainey, Michigan. I see that someone has already asked about it and received a bit more information. I was surprised to find the question and answer, but I guess that means at least a few individuals were curious too. There is no Gainey, MI. My placemark is approximate for this reason.

I notice your quote says:



I see that "Gainey" is the type locality for a particular kind of paleoindian spear point.


Source


so that gets me a bit closer to it, but...


...so I wouldn't want to reveal the exact site anyway.

I grew up in the area near the Gainey site, but do not know exactly where it is. It is located somewhere along the glacial Lake Algonquin beach ridge in the Saginaw Valley. These ridges can be seen easily in GE, but obviously the location of digs would not be distinguishable from the many areas where gravel and sand have been extracted over the years. In any case, apparently the land owners are not amenable to having strangers on their land.

I don't know if there is any connection between the features I posted and the "Clovis Comet" proposed by the recent paper, but it does provide a possible explanation for how such a feature might not have large amounts of ejecta around it. If this was an impact, it must have occurred in a large shallow glacial lake or wetland and the material ejected probably would be much like the surrounding glacial drift.

I would like to know if anyone has thought to look at the composition of the light soils forming the elliptical outline of the features or if anyone has done cores in the shallower areas deep enough that agricultural disturbances havent smeared out the record. It would be interesting to see if there is a carbon rich layer with spherules or nanodiamonds as have been seen in many of the Clovis sites.