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Part 2 in a series of 3
CHOWAN COUNTY, N.C.
The colorful elevation images of County Line Road were excitingly replete with Carolina bays - big ones, small ones, overlapping ones. The road even helpfully cut right through a few bays.
"It's a dramatic bay area," George Howard said. "In fact, I'd say it's one of the most dramatic."
Malcolm LeCompte, being more familiar with the area, cautioned, "That one that looks so prominent, it's just a flat field."
"Bay hunting is an exercise in the subtle," Howard agreed.
Howard, a Carolina bay enthusiast from Raleigh, and LeCompte, a remote imaging specialist from Elizabeth City State University, needed a bay. And they needed a bay they could dig in to look for minerals from outer space.
Howard turned the car left onto Folly Road.
The Delaware Indians told Thomas Jefferson that long before his time the mastodon rebelled against the people it was created to serve, and a great battle was fought west of the Alleghenies. The other animals fought against the mastodon, and the Great Spirit came down from the sky and sat on a mountain to watch. Nearly all the animals were killed before the mastodon escaped, and swamps formed where their blood fell. Their bones, the Indians said, could be found there still.
So when Jefferson dispatched the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the West in 1804, he asked them to also, please, keep an eye out for living woolly mammoths and mastodons.
Dwarf mammoths did, in fact, survive on an island off California for about 7,000 years after their enormous mainland cousins went extinct, but Jefferson received only bones from Lewis and Clark. Something had killed the giant animals of the last Ice Age, basically all at once.
In 2007, geophysicist Allen West and his colleagues suggested that the mammoth killer, in a maelstrom of fire and wind, may also have created the Carolina bays.
West is a calm man, so completely calm - philosophical, one might say, knowing his background - that the pursuit of catastrophe seems an ill fit. Yet the mystery of mass extinctions has drawn him since his childhood in Florida, where he learned that the arrowheads he picked up from the ground were used by prehistoric hunters to kill mammoths and mastodons.
"It struck me as a kid," he says, "that it seemed awfully odd, why would they go extinct after they'd been around for so long?"
He didn't pursue it. Instead, finding that a doctorate in philosophy didn't open many business opportunities, he went into geophysics, eventually forming a corporation that drilled for oil and gas. Now he is a consultant in Arizona, helping find oil, gas, groundwater and precious metals. He even located a lost Spanish mining tunnel for a client, or he thinks he did - it was very secret.
After retirement, he decided to write a book about mass extinctions. His research led him, ultimately, to the Carolina bays.
Ice ages come and go in regular cycles, each lasting about 100,000 years, and separated by shorter warm spells about 10,000 years long. But last go-around, as the Pleistocene ice age was starting to warm up, the Earth plunged back into cold conditions. Temperatures dropped about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, glaciers rebuilt, and 35 kinds of animals - not 35 species, but 35 groups of similar species - went extinct, just like that.
Never before had so many different animals disappeared in so short a time. The cold lasted for about 1,000 years, and then the planet abruptly warmed again.
This sudden cold spell is called the Younger Dryas. It marks the end of the Clovis culture, a people who had developed the repeating rifle of their day - a distinctive stone spear point on a reloadable shaft - for hunting mammoths and other huge creatures: giant ground sloths (similar to anteaters) that stood 10 feet tall, primitive horses, mastodons, short-faced cave bears larger than grizzlies, sab er-toothed cats and American camels.
Three theories have been proposed to explain the Younger Dryas extinction, known by their shorthand names of chill, ill and overkill. Proponents of the climate change theory say the drop in temperature, with its associated changes in habitat and food supply, snuffed the animals. Critics say the animals had survived previous ice ages just fine.
Pandemic illness has also been suggested, but there is little evidence of that.
The third theory is that Clovis humans, with their new and improved weapons, slaughtered the large animals to extinction, but critics say mice, hyenas, wolves, vultures and other small creatures also disappeared, and it is unlikely that they were overhunted.
In 2007, 26 scientists from three nations, including West and Howard, proposed a fourth theory to explain not only the mass extinction but the Younger Dryas itself: A comet exploding over or on the Laurentide ice sheet that covered most of Canada and the Great Lakes.
"If you see white sand, we're passing a bay," LeCompte said from the back seat of the SUV. "I think that's a bay right there."
"Is it?" Howard asked doubtfully and kept going.
"Sure looks like we're coming over a rim here," West said.
Howard took a wrong turn, backtracked, turned again and stopped in the middle of a deserted road. The three exchanged maps and printouts.
"That was a cluster of bays we crossed," West said.
Everybody looked. Nobody saw anything. That is the big problem with Carolina bays. From the air, bays stand out like dimples on a golf ball, their white sand rims highlighting each oval. But from ground level, they are nearly impossible to see.
West has tried to find Carolina bays using GPS, and even then he has driven right past them. The three discussed downloading GPS coordinates on top of the Google Earth images where craters had been marked, and Howard tried to do that on his laptop while driving.
He finally pulled over by a sign that read "Sand Hill Farm" and let West take the wheel.
"Let's go to Rockyhock," West said.
The lead authors on the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are West and physicist Rick Firestone of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California. The paper presents evidence that a comet may have wreaked havoc on Earth 12,900 years ago, at the start of the Younger Dryas. It is a refinement of West's book, published in 2006, when he, Firestone and a third author, in "The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes," proposed that a supernova could have set off a series of events culminating in a fragmented comet landing on the ice sheet or exploding over it.
"We believe what happened is that a large comet impacted the Earth near the Great Lakes, and that impact was sufficient to kill many of the mammoths outright," Firestone said in a phone interview. "The shock wave, a mega-hurricane of winds across the breadth of North America, actually caused much of the extinction. We believe the winds also formed the Carolina bays."
The theory covers a lot of ground: The blast melted the ice sheet, which sent floods of fresh water into the sea, which altered ocean currents, which caused the temperature to drop, which caused the Younger Dryas. In more detail, this is what the theory says happened:
Comets are loose conglomerates of ice and dust and bits of cosmic leftovers, sort of like poorly packed meatballs. Meteorites and asteroids, on the other hand, are made of iron and rock. A comet would not necessarily leave a crater, especially not if it landed on an ice sheet several miles thick. But it would, like a meatball dropped into sauce, create quite a splatter.
The splat threw icy slush, dirt and radiation for hundreds of miles. Wildfires sparked by the extreme heat burned forest and grassland alike. Dust darkened sunlight and created rain clouds, which could have drizzled or poured for months, until the air cleared.
The impact or airburst would have melted ice, flooding the glacial lakes that already lay at the toe of the ice sheets. They would have burst their ice dams and roared away in all directions, ultimately pouring so much fresh water into the North Atlantic that the warm Gulf Stream was shorted out, a scenario portrayed in the 2004 movie "The Day After Tomorrow."
The authors say ancient stories from around the world tell of catastrophe. They share themes of something falling from the sky, of the world drowning in rain, of fires and floods and destruction. In many of them, the animals die and only a few humans - those who heeded warnings and obeyed heavenly commands - are spared.
LeCompte says scientists don't give much heed to Native American teaching stories, which he calls "white man's chauvinism." He's used to skepticism, having declared at the age of 4 or 5 that he wanted to be an astronaut, in the days before the job even existed. He ended up as a naval flight officer with a Ph.D. in planetary astrophysics.
He still remembers the sci-fi heroes who fueled his dreams - Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Commander Corey and the Space Patrol; Rocky Jones, Space Ranger; and Captain Video - and he believes that the Indian legends are based on something just as amazing, but true. The Mattamuskeet of North Carolina call themselves "children of the falling star" for a reason, he says.
In "Cycle," the authors tell a Lakota story, about humans and giant animals becoming so evil that the Creator sent his Thunderbirds to fight them. They threw down thunderbolts from the sky that shook the world, setting forests and prairies on fire with flames that leaped to the sky. Lakes boiled and dried up, rocks glowed and the giant animals burned up.
Then the Creator sent rain to flood the Earth and cleanse it. After the floods subsided, the few people who survived found the bones of the giant animals buried in rock and mud.
Some researchers say the bays are 100,000 years old; others say 10,000 to 13,000. Still others say different bays formed at different times over millions of years; however, they cannot explain why Carolina bays are not still forming today.
In 1975, Rockyhock Bay was reported by D.R. Whitehead to be 35,000 years old, based on core samples, which are long tubes of rock and soil with the youngest layers at the top and oldest at the bottom. Another scientist, working on another bay, had reported finding ancient river channels and other old sediments underneath his bay. West thought it was possible that Whitehead had cored too deeply and had analyzed samples that actually came from underneath Rockyhock Bay, not from the bay itself.
If he could show that the 35,000-year-old layer reported by Whitehead extended beyond the edges of the bay, it would support the idea that the bays are younger, perhaps only 12,900 years old.
Especially if he could find diamonds.
Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com
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Posting guidelines
As many of our users are aware, we limit comments to 750 characters and we prohibit multiple, consecutive posts.
In the instance below, however, the comments are coming from one of the scientists mentioned in the story, and it seemed worthwhile to suspend the rules for this purpose.
Fred Schecker
Senior Producer
younger dryas impact hypothesis (continued)
Confusing the use of 'theory' and 'hypothesis' is that almost everyone, lay people, journalists and scientists use the word 'theory' to describe both, whether proven or unproven. So, making any distinction between 'hypothesis' and 'theory' is a bit arbitrary. Any 'proven' theory can be overturned by new evidence. The development of technology may allow more accurate measurements and reveal hitherto unrecognized problems with the original. In that event, a good theory, seldom disappears. It simply becomes a special case of the new, more general theory. The old theory still works but in more restricted circumstances. In this view, any 'theory' undergoes an evolution through the process of its being tested. Evolving from untested 'hypothesis' to accepted 'scientific fact' which may itself be subject to future challenges. That's what makes science so interesting and unsettling.
Younger dryas impact hypothesis (continued)
Meantime, my ECSU students are using their super-magnets and coffee filters to test soil samples from stratigraphic exposures in the Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound area and finding evidence of extensive biomass burning at depths (about 2 feet) corresponding to the onset of the Younger Dryas. This is in accord with evidence from the Greenland ice sheet indicating unusually large biomass burning from this period. What caused this? This and other questions remain. Have we discovered magnetic spherules of extraterrestrial origin in this layer. Only time and tests will tell. I very much appreciate your collective interest in the topic and can only encourage you to stay tuned and read. Diane has done a fine job of revealing one aspect of this very wide ranging investigation that is continuing in your back yards.
Younger dryas impact hypothesis (continued)
As to the difference in dates, one must be careful to distinguish between actual years in the past and years deduced from carbon dating which may be measured in calibrated years used by some researchers or uncalibrated years which seem to be preferred to by archeologists. The calibration has to do with the differences in the amount of atomic carbon in the atmosphere over time and may amount to a two thousand year or greater difference in the measure. Such concerns help to explain why science can be so inaccessible to the public.
Younger dryas impact hypothesis (continued)
The Chesapeake Bay impact is hypothesized to have occurred some 35 million years ago. The bays are much, much younger features and so are very unlikely to be related. I remain skeptical of the Carolina Bays connection to an impact. But they are interesting features whose genesis remains something of a mystery that no theory yet fully explains. For that reason alone it is worth considering many possibilities including an impact.
The comet impact is not hypothesized to have totally exterminated the Clovis culture or even the megafauna. However, there is solid evidence of a very significant population decline among humans and the many species that ultimately did become extinct after the onset of the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change 12,900 years ago. (Check or google papers by Vance Haynes and Al Goodyear in this matter). It is well known that impacts kill lots of animals and precipitate sudden climate change. Both phenomena appear have occurred starting 12,900 years ago. Were they triggered by a comet impact or just terrestrial processes? Only time and testing will tell.
Younger dryas impact hypothesis
Although I may not be the best person to respond here, allow me to intrude into this conversation. Some points need clarification with respect to the comet impact hypothesis, scientific theories and the ongoing discussion of creation vs evolution.
The possibility of a comet impact some 12,900 years in the past is a hypothesis not a theory. Yes, in scientific discussions, evolution is regarded as a theory which means it has been thoroughly tested, probably more than any other scientific (means testable) theory known to humans. It has never been found wanting. In other words, every test of the evolutionary theory has shown it to be valid. The reason creationism does not belong in a science classroom is that it is not testable. It is a matter of faith. Science is a process not a collection of beliefs. The collection of beliefs usually regarded as scientific facts are simply beliefs that have met the criteria of being valid after repeated tests. I know of no test that meets the rigor of scientific inquiry that will prove a tenant of creationism or even intelligent design. Ultimately both of the latter come down to a matter of individual faith. In contrast, science is, o
Of course the age of the
Of course the age of the earth would be relevant in this discussion as over and over in the article it states that different eras lasted 100,000 yrs. This article assumes that everyone believes the same way, which isn't the case. For those that believe that the earth only being 6000 yrs old is drivel and insane, I could point you to much information that supports it. If you do care to step out of your "box", google Ken Ham and entertain the idea that there just might be another explanation.
Age of the Earth
Any educated religious leader will acknowledge that the Bible was not meant to be a science book. It was written at a time when embellished stories were told to answer questions of the common people in a way that they could understand it and based on the very limited amount of scientific knowledge available at the time. As civilized people, we must understand that we are to be inspired by the overall meaning of the Bible - not the science of it. As someone who believes in evolution and God, I do find it interesting that the story in Genesis does somewhat parallel evolutionary theory - first a void, then earth and heavens, then sea creatures, then land creatures, and then man. I simply put God in front of it all. God cares about what is in your heart, how you treat others, how you live, how you pray, etc; not about your belief on how it all came to be. Kudos to the Christian geologist! Maybe we can meet after mass and you can see my fossil collection and Native American artifacts. Thank God for archaeology and evolution - and that is not meant to be sarcasm. Honest to God.
Bays Theory
Without thinking about when it happen but only what might have happen. I can again see the theory of a comet breaking up as it passes through the atmosphere and striking the surface in the same orientation, bouncing to another location. Finding the proof in the bays after this amount of time may be impossible but following the path in both directions to a possible landing may lead to the proof and the answers. I still look forward to reading the remainder of this article.
6000 years old
Ok being a christian and believing in everything it stands for I have to say that the bible never gives exact dates for any of the creation. How are we to say that a day or year in God's terms is anything close to time as we now know it. Maybe the earth is 4.6 billion years old or maybe 6000 years old, but I do know that we were given the ability to think for our selfs and the ability to figure things out and it is kind of hard to argue with some facts of age for the planet. Its posible that the earth is 4.6 billion years old but human life as we know from history might just be 6000 years old. No one will ever know for sure as long as we are on the earth.
6,000 years?
I'm sorry folks, but I have to laugh every time I hear the preposterous notion that the earth is only 6,000 years old. For any poor soul that has bought into this "theory", I must inform you that science has proven it absolutely false. How? Research the following for your self:
1. Eastern culture has dated writing that is older than 6,000 years.
2. The Jewish calendar is almost 5,800 years old by itself and came into existence long, long after the Garden of Eden.
Need the nail in the coffin? Try this:
3. Dendrochronology of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest
http://sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html
Physical proof that the earth MUST be at least 7,000 years old, and possibly as much as 9,000 years old. But wait, there's more: Dendrochronology was used to recalibrate the carbon 14 dating process due to known errors. Oops, we're back up to 4.5 billion years again.
Orion
I'm not obligated to do anything, it's my choice. I pray for many things, and many people, many of those I don't even know personally.
Have a great day, and God Bless!
No jumping here...
No jumping to any conclusions, or rudeness intended.
Of course you can believe in God and evolution, just as you can believe in God and Creation. Then there are those that don't believe in any higher being at all. We all have our own opinions, beliefs and theories. I'm just a little taken back by the multiple comments from certain individuals who repeatedly use the references that I mentioned in my previous post.
sammons
I'll respect your view on creation, but unless I misunderstand you said "those of us who believe in God and Creation."
If you're jumping to the conclusion that one can only believe in evolution OR God, not both, then that is just as rude.
I'm a geologist, I believe the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. I believe in evolution. I am also a Christian. It is possible to embrace both schools of thought!
sammonsfamily
I believe in the scientific method which uses empirical evidence to form a hypothesis and eventually a conclusion. I do not believe in a book written by man (unsophisticated man socially and scientifically) over 2000 years ago.
My comment was neither a rant or rude, simply truth according to science. If you have some evidence that I am incorrect, I'm willing to listen. However, I would like to know how 6.8 billion people could have come from two individuals? Explain how your religious dogma explains the animal remains of the past.
I find it offensive that you feel obligated to "pray for my soul" because I don't follow your dogmatic approach to life in our current or distant past. It is beliefs such as yours that have caused the death and destruction of many people over the centuries whereas science has cured, fed and saved many.
Orion
Not being one to assume, but based on your posts regarding the subject, I gather that you are an evolutionist. Rude remarks aside, you simply share a much different view than those of us who believe in God and Creation. I'm not saying that you're wrong and that I'm right, but please understand that there are scientific theories for both views that have valid points. The constant reference of "wives tales", "drivel" and "myths" regarding anything remotely religious is offending.
Freedom of Speech will allow you to continue on with your ranting, but I will still pray for your soul.
I was wondering much the same thing JChester
Isn't it thought that one of the world's largest impact craters might be the Chesapeake Bay crater? It seems possible to me that the Carolina Bays could be some vast earth and/or water "splatter" from that impact. Very interesting story! I never had any idea they existed, and I look forward to the rest of the installments.
abj
You're only off by about 4.6 billion years - give or take a million years or so.
Great Series, a little addendum
I am enjoying this series of articles about a phenomenon that I've been aware of for sometime having conducted archaeological surveys in eastern North Carolina for a decade or so out of a longer career in the field. I'm glad to see popular reporting on subjects that end up in journals with a tiny audience or grey literature that never makes it even that far. A splatter of ice from a comet on the continental ice sheet works well in a lot of ways.
A couple of small facts: The previous article states the Clovis culture disappeared around 12,900 years ago. Clovis doesn't appear until 11,500 years ago, and it appears just as suddenly as much of the Pleistocene megafauna disappears. Archaeologist Paul Martin came up with the "Post-Pleistocene overkill" theory in the 1970's, but few archaeologists or paleontologists would now view it as a sole cause of the extinctions. The Clovis culture doesn't disappear, but goes through a gradual transformation in various areas into Fulsom, Plano, Dalton and other culture phases in a "Paleo-Indian to Early Archaic" transitional period. This is well established and not controversial, unlike evidence of "Pre-Clovis" dating thousands of years bef
Published science
MostlyConfused,
Here’s the peer-reviewed article behind this theory:
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/41/16016.abstract
It's a "who’s-who" of about a dozen different scientific disciplines; archaeology, asteroid impact specialists, climate scientists, nuclear physicists, anthropologists, etc. The bays play a role, make sure to check the “Supporting Information” for photos, etc.
Real Reason for Extinction of Mammoths and Dinosaurs
The world-wide flood of Genesis?
re: All of this is ridiculous
Considering the myth that the Earth is 6000 years old doesn't have any place in a scientific discussion (assuming you weren't being sarcastic). I cannot believe people still believe this drivel.
As far as secondary impacts, the ejecta from a comet-sized impact would spread out farther than a few hundred miles. Most would be plumed into the upper atmosphere and drifted all over the globe. The make-up of comets have a unique signature that can be picked-up if one digs deep enough. Asteroids contain metals which would be fused withthe impact area.
Should have known there was a book involved
So, how many parts to this book advertisement? Real science goes into peer reviewed journals.
All of this is ridiculous
All of this is ridiculous since the earth is only a little over 6000 years old. I guess the pilot only entertains the evolution THEORY instead of presenting the creationist view which shows the earth to be 6000 yrs old.
Secondary Impacts???
How might this phenomenon dovetail with the Chesapeake Bay 'Crater Theory"?
Seems to me, that if a comet or meteor had hit & formed Hampton Roads harbor & the Chesapeake Bay, as has been theorized & is still being investigated, that a lot of large chunks of terrestrial material would have impacted the East Coast, possibly forming such features as the Carolina Bays, without leaving meteor fragment evidence in any of them.