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8.12.2,4 METALS Sept 25, 2020 14:30:15 GMT

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Post by Admin on Sept 25, 2020 14:30:15 GMT

Sep 3, 2020 at 11:39am

IRIDIUM

iron spherules,
melted glass spherules,
high-temperature chunks of melted glass,
nanodiamonds,
carbon spherules (some containing nanodiamonds),
iridium,
osmium,
platinum,
charcoal,
and aciniform carbon, a form of soot

1. Uniformitarian Or Catastrophist? Ice Age Theory [Journals] [Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 3 No 2&3 (1997) Home | Issue Contents Uniformitarian Or Catastrophist? Ice Age Theory Charles Ginenthal
_The cause of the Ice Age is yet another unexplained dilemma that has not been resolved over the past century. As Schultz expresses it, ". .. with a wealth of scientific tools and the ability to explore anywhere on Earth..., still we have not been able to explain why the Ice Age occurred. There must be a hundred theories but they all have holes' or lack substantiation, and none can be proved. Not one commands anything like general acceptance."1 In fact, Louis Agassiz, the
... is just what Velikovsky's theory requires and what the evidence suggests. They then add that "samples of ice from Camp Century ice core ... [contain] high iridium levels ... in all samples examined."47 The "deposition rates [were] 10 to 60 times greater than those of the present day."48 Iridium is a rare element in the Earth and somewhat less rare in meteorites. Therefore, it is important that the source of this material be analyzed. Now, where would 10 to 60 times the amount of iridium normally expected to be found in the ice come from? La Violette ruled out a terrestrial source via volcanism because volcanism will not produce this large amount of iridium over a 6,000 year stretch of time. He also dismissed the view that the iridium could have been derived from asteroids, and cometary tails. Dust from such sources could only remain in the atmosphere for a year, but not for 6,000 years, as the evidence from the ice cores indicates. In essence, the scientific community has an enigma on its hands. In terms of gradualism, iridium was falling on the Greenland ice cap regularly for about 6,000 years and settled in ice layers which contain 10 to 60 times the present influx of this material. The view of Velikovsky that the ice cap built up suddenly in a dust-filled environment mixed with cosmic dust is in complete agreement with this finding. The uniformitarian interpretation of this much iridium, even falling intermittently in such large amounts over so long a period, is simply implausible. Iridium could not remain in the atmosphere over so long a time. Yet that is what La Violette found, "high iridium levels... in all samples examined." Furthermore, C. Koeberl also found high iridium levels in dust bands in antarctic ice cores. The extraordinary aspect of these findings was surprising in that there were four to eight parts per billion of iridium which is similar to that found at some K/T boundary sections.49 On the other hand, eruptions of ash from volcanos in Kamchatka contain iridium at levels between one to four parts per billion.50 Thus, there are extremely high amounts of iridium in both the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. If there never was a sudden global catastrophe and sudden buildup of the ice caps, why is this material there? Iridium from comets is highly questionable, as are other metals. Clube and Napier go on to show that ... "La Violette found also that the dust had a very unusual chemical composition; and at particular levels in the ice, the overabundance of several elements jumped by large amounts. At one level the concentration of tin jumped by over 27,000 times and silver by over 200 times. It is very unlikely that this is ordinary meteoritic material since there appeared to be particles hundreds of times richer in tin, antimony, silver, and gold than ordinary meteorites. It is very unlikely, too, that this material came from Earth: for example, the tin is over 100,000 times more concentrated than the ordinary material of the Earth's crust. La Violette pointed out that If this material is of extraterrestrial origin, its source must be different from that of the majority of meteoritic material'."51 Why would this dust be so different from ordinary meteorites or Earth based mineral sources if this material came from asteroids, meteorites, comets, the Earth, etc.? The measurements are not in any way indicative of these origins. But, of course, this material could well have come from a giant, super-hot planet such as Venus, as Velikovsky suggests, as it neared the Earth with its immense tail laden with plasma, gases, and particles. At such extraordinarily high temperatures that Venus experienced, as would be expected from a body derived from the silicate-iron core of Jupiter, hotter than nine times the surface of the sun, its atmosphere and molten-gaseous core would expand tremendously to permit it to form an immense tail of gas, plasma, and particulate matter. Furthermore, if, as Velikovsky claims, much of the large particulate matter came from volcanic activity on Venus and Earth, the deeper ice, which contains 100 to 1,000 times more of this material, should also contain these large particles. According to Lamb, "The large particles [in the ice cores] must be overwhelmingly attributable to volcanic eruption products in the atmosphere owing to other extensive sources of dust."52 Although extremely small particles can be lifted high into the atmosphere and then transported to the poles, larger particles cannot unless a powerful, extraordinary mechanism places them high above the Earth. There are a few mechanisms that could accomplish this. Volcanism, of course, as stated by Lamb, can do this; hurricanes of immense force may also accomplish this, and sources from space can produce much of this material. It must be remembered that Venus, as delineated by Velikovsky, was a planet on a cometary orbit; it never was an ordinary comet. Therefore, most of the materials it left in the Earth's atmosphere would be of a planetary nature, and it would be difficult for large particles to fall on the ice caps in large numbers rather than the fewer expected from Earthly sources. The evidence of this dust, and that of cosmic dust in the deep ice, is in complete rapport with Velikovsky's model. I have previously shown that the ice cores lacked validity in terms of climate data.53 For those interested in a thorough debunking of the climate interpretations of the ice cores, I cannot recommend too highly the work of Zbigniew Jaworowski. In a paper in 21st Century for Spring 1997, pages 42-52, he completely discredits the validity of the ice cores as reliable measurements of anything. He states (page 42) that the forms of evidence derived from "glacial ice samples, are based on fudged data and ignorance of the physical processes of glacial ice formation." With respect to dendrochronology dating and that of the Greenland ice cores, he states (page 43) "Dating of such important climatic events as the termination of the Younger Dryas period based on dendrochronology ... and lake sediments, differs from recent ice-core data from Greenland by up to about 900 years." (See W. Dansgaard, 1954. Geochim Cosmochim Acta, Vol. 6, p. 436 - 1977. IAHS Publication No. 118, p. 401) On Page 45 he shows that U. S. warplanes in Greenland that had been buried in 1942 and were expected to have been buried not very deeply beneath the ice, based on the concept of ice layers, were recovered 47 years later actually buried "at a depth of 78 m[eters], and not the 12 m[

2. Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth [Journals] [SIS Review]
... 1980, by Luis and Walter Alvarez (Fig. 8) of the University of California, Berkeley, that the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary throughout the world was marked by the high iridium levels, was important because this was the first serious indication that mass extinctions could have a catastrophist explanation. Since iridium is normally only found in significant amounts in extra-terrestrial
... . A period of significant warming began about 14,000 years ago, but then temperatures dropped sharply again around 13,000 years ago at the start of the Younger Dryas, the final stage of the Pleistocene [36]. Towards the end of the Younger Dryas came the great terminal thaw of the Pleistocene, leading to the start

1. Nemesis for Evolutionary Gradualism? [Books]
_From: Catastrophism, Neocatastrophism and Evolution by Trevor Palmer CD Home | Contents CD-Rom Home Preface
_Chapter 1 The Context of Evolution: the Earth and its Surroundings
_Chapter 2 The Establishment of Gradualism
_Chapter 3 Challenges to Evolutionary Gradualism
_Chapter 4 Nemesis for Evolutionary Gradualism?
_Chapter 5 The Erratic Descent of Man
_Chapter 6 Towards a New Evolutionary Synthesis
_Chapter 4 Nemesis for Evolutionary Gradualism? Trevor Palmer
_Iridium, tektites and the death of the dinosaurs
_During the Late Cretaceous Period, large areas of the continental land masses were covered by shallow seas, so rocks dating from that time are often chalk, a type of limestone composed of the fossilised remains and secretions of marine organisms, particularly planktonic coccolithophores

... K/T boundary', Nature 357 (1992), pp. 119-120. (But see also I. Gilmour, S. S. Russell, J. W. Arden, M. R. Lee, I. A. Franchi and C. T. Pillinger: `Terrestrial carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary nanodiamonds', Science 258 [1992], pp. 1624-1626.) 366. A. R. Hildebrand and W. V. Boynton: `Proximal Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary impact deposits in the Caribbean', Science 248 (1990), pp. 843-846. 367. B. F. Bohor and R. Seitz: `Cuban K ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 4 - 26 Mar 2007 - URL: /online/pubs/books/palmer/4nemesis.htm

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8.12.2,4 METALS Sept 25, 2020 15:04:33 GMT

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Post by Admin on Sept 25, 2020 15:04:33 GMT

F: 1.5 M5.Cat.Geology2
.8/21/19) 7:26PM)
1. The Time Detectives
2. Worzel's Deep-Sea Ash is Volcanic
3. Punching A Hole In The Asteroid Hypothesis
4. More Doubts About Asteroids
5. Chemical Surprises At The K-T Boundary
6. The Cretaceous Incineration
7. Looking For The Smoking Gun
8. Tektites, Wildfires and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs
9. Microorganisms Complicate The K-t Boundary
10. Asteroid Impact Or Volcanos?
11. Iridium And Mass Extinctions
12. Iceland And The Iridium Layer
13. Global Fire At The K-t Boundary
14. The Rehabilitation Of Cuvier
15. Did an asteroid impact trigger the ice ages?
16. A QUESTIONABLE 200-MILLION-YEAR HIATUS
17. "HIGH"-TECH FARMING AT TIAHUANACO
18. Flotsam On The Great Sand Sea
19. Two Tsumani Tales
20. Iridium-rich Layers And Catastrophism
21. Everglades Astrobleme?
22. Of Dust Clouds And Ice Ages
23. Do large meteors/comets come in cycles?
24. Terrestrial Maria?
25. Looking For The Smoking Gun
26. An Antarctic Bone Bed
27. An Arkansas Tsunami Deposit?
28. The changing magnetic climate: does it affect civilizations?
29. Mud Springs Regurgitate Ancient Fossils
30. The Burgess Shale Puzzle
31. A Permian Polar Forest
32. An Antarctic Bone Bed
33. The Karoo: The Greatest Vertebrate Graveyard
34. Bone Bed Discovered In Florida
35. The Whale-on-its-tail Fossil
36. Biology Heavy
37. The Continuing Ica Mystery
38A. Common Sense About Ancient Maps
38B. Old World Maps - - A Response to Charles Ginenthal
38C. Analysis Of Old World Maps
39. Is Space A Superconducting Medium?
40. Ice Core Evidence
41. New Scenarios for Solar System Evolution
42. The Solar System and Electro-Gravitic Theory
43. Society News
44. Sea Level Changes

See re staining etc of drift, loess etc www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&p=128545#p128545

K/T

[DRYAS: EROSION]
1. The Time Detectives by Brian Fagan (Reviewed) [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Chronology& Catastrophism Review 2001:2 (Jan 2002) Home¦ Issue Contents The Time Detectives by Brian Fagan (Simon& Schuster, 1995) Reviewed by Phillip Clapham
_For anyone interested in the history of humans beyond the narrow confines of written documentation this is a 'must have'. The author is well known and the archaeological sleuth work he writes about is scintillating. If you like television's Time Team programmes, you will like this book. It is also relevant to SIS members. For instance, at an SIS discussion group meeting a couple of summers back someone asked when had the Sahara actually become a desert and how this affected ancient Egyptian civilisation. On p. 100, Fagan catalogues climate changes in the region and explains why, for a few thousand years, the ____Sahara became an agreeable place to live. Rainfall became plentiful, leading to the creation of shallow lakes and wide swathes of open grassland. Wadis, now bone dry, tumbled with water and there is evidence of human settlement, on a seasonal but regular basis. People lived and thrived in regions that are now almost devoid of life. The climate changed around 4000BC; it seems the rainfall altered. Fagan claims the monsoon track, became narrower, or possibly moved southwards. The Sahara, thenceforth, became gradually more inhospitable and arid. Note that this happed during the pre-Dynastic era and was actually instrumental in the development of irrigation farming in the Nile Valley; the Sahara was already in the process of drying out during the Old Kingdom. This of course brings up an interesting controversy: the real age of the Sphinx. It seems to display evidence of erosion due to heavy and persistent rainfall. When can this have happened? Hancock and others, such as Bauval, claim it must have happened before the Old Kingdom, clearly plugging into the same climatology as Fagan. Archaeology has revealed that at the end of the Old Kingdom, especially during the First Intermediate Period, low Nile flood levels associated with famine and hardship paralysed Egypt. The same sort of thing happened, much later, at the end of the New Kingdom, in the immediate post-Late Bronze Age. Here, however, we have textual evidence (e.g. from the Harris papyrus) that Egypt experienced a phase of luxurious vegetation and verdant growth in the early years of Ramesses III. However, later in his reign a phase of low Nile flood levels associated with famine and hardship set in - and this prevailed for most of Dynasty 20. Hence, we might wonder if a similar situation happened at the end of the Old Kingdom period, brought about by a similar set of circumstances - e.g. an exploding bolide in the atmosphere, or an unusually large volcanic eruption. The recipe might have included an interjection of great heat - or blast, which in turn ____may have evaporated great amounts of oceanic water - and what goes up also comes down, possibly in the form of a downpour that went on for weeks, or even months. Just a thought. See p. 103 for up to date refined C 14 dating methodology. See p. 108 for the Younger Dryas Episode (essential reading for catastrophists) - a significant climatic event triggered by an extremely cold blip far more serious than anything recognised by dendrochronologists in the historical period. The cold blip was followed, as always, by a very dry period in the Near East, so humans sought out oasis locations - e.g. Jericho. In places such as this agriculture is thought to have begun. More importantly, ____at the end of the Younger Dryas, when climate returned to normality, the fledgling farmers spread rapidly through the Near East, Iran and Asia Minor - and the rest is history. Hence, we have a very early catastrophic event, similar in outline but apparently more severe in nature than the events that brought the Old and New Kingdoms to an end. This seems to support the late Fred Hoyle's idea that the even earlier end of the Ice Age was brought about by a comet interacting with Earth (and the Ice Ages themselves may also have been inaugurated by a cosmic body). Time Detectives investigates a variety of peoples and locations, such as the Anasazi people of the Pueblos and the Chumash of California. The latter developed a society adapted to fishing and Fagan describes how archaeology has catalogued their gradual transition from hunter-gatherers into a progressively more technical boat-builders. As the population grew, the annual catch had to keep pace. During phases of climatic anomaly, the fish shoals changed their habitat and the Chumash had to hurriedly adapt, building boats to go further out to sea. Fagan also claims there is evidence of syphilis endemic among the Chumash hundreds of years before contact with Europeans, contrary to recent claims that seek to trace spread of the disease in the opposite direction. There is another chapter devoted to 'early farmers' and the theories of Marxist historian, Vere Gordon Childe. He saw civilisation developing in a logical sequence and claimed agriculture and metallurgy had origins in either Egypt or Mesopotamia. His theory was influential not long ago and indeed, it became the status quo. Aspects of it are still persuasive and Fagan's views are an example of this. Childe committed suicide due to depression, apparently laid low by the fact his reputation and his life's work were under attack by a new and younger generation with different ideas. Childe may have given up the ghost but catastrophism provides a twist to his theory, the repetitive climatic blips that accelerated and encouraged people to adopt methods of controlling their food resources. Fire may also have played a role. On p. 153 and chapter 7, with the intriguing title, 'Searching for Eden', ____the ancient land of Sumer and its geology and geography is discussed. It was clearly once a bountiful land and reed boats were adopted as a general means of transportation. A chequered landscape of hundreds of irrigation canals and green fields has vanished, the soil fertility has disappeared and the coastline of the Gulf itself has changed dramatically. Oil exploration and field research has led to extensive geological mapping of the region. It seems the Gulf is a surprisingly shallow sea. ____It was not until around 6500BC that the sea actually flooded what had been essentially a fault line, a canyon through which the river ran to the Indian Ocean. This is [ ... ] now a submerged marine feature but ____it reminded me of the formation of the North Sea. This too began as a fault line along which the Rhine and its tributaries emptied. Like the Gulf, the North Sea is supposed to have formed gradually as sea levels rose after the Ice Age. Is it a coincidence that at ____around 6500BC England was split from France, chalk cliffs of both sides of the channel opening up in what seems to have an abrupt and catastrophic event? At the head of the newly-formed Gulf ____a large marine estuary formed where the marshes and delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers now lie. In 5000BC the estuary reached its most northerly point of expansion, near ancient Ur. After 4000BC lower precipitation levels came into play, leading to the development of irrigation agriculture, which was labour intensive and required an expanding population. However, irrigation increased crop yields, so the region could sustain a rapid rise in population and cities came into being. Sumerians also colonised nearby lands such as the Zagros foothills and Euphrates and Tigris river valleys, almost as far as Syria etc. All in all, a lot of useful information for an understanding of human development in the last 10,000 years. Phillip Clapham

[: SEDIMENT, CLAY]
2. Worzel's Deep-Sea Ash is Volcanic [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 2 No. 1 (June 1977) Home¦ Issue Contents ____Worzel's Deep-Sea Ash is Volcanic Johan B. Kloosterman RIO DE JANEIRO
_In the December '76 issue of this journal I asked for additional information regarding a layer of white ash discovered in 1959 in the equatorial eastern Pacific (1). This discovery (2) received then some comments (3,4), but soon afterward sunk into oblivion. I have received the requested information through letters from J.L. Worzel, E. Anders and D. Ninkovich. In addition to the work mentioned above, Dr. Edward Anders conducted some supplemental work in the period immediately following the discovery (see his letter reproduced hereunder). Further research concerning this white ash layer has only recently been published (5,6), the time-lag probably being due to the fact that only a few years ago more samples, taken during cruises of the Vema, Conrad and De Steiguer, have become available from the area. During the cruises which Worzel's discovery instigated, more than 20 reflectors were found to be present in the top 100 meters of sediment. The upper layers were sampled to depths of 18m below the ocean bottom. Bowles et al.(1973), making a comparative study of the ash layers, examined all deepsea cores available from the study area in terms of their trace - and minor elements composition, refraction index and mineral content, and were able to identify 13 different ash layers. They singled out 3 principal areas of deposition: northern, central and southern. Contrary to original assumptions, the layers are limited to the equatorial eastern Pacific, and no single ash layer blankets the entire region. One layer ("D") is usually uppermost in the central area, while the same is true of another ash layer ("L") in most of the southern area; together they constitute what had been designated the "Worzel Ash". Layer "L" has been studied in some detail by Ninkovich and Shackleton (1975). This layer is present in cores taken off the coasts of Colombia and Peru, but it is absent near the Galapagos Islands (while there are other ash layers present to the west of these islands). Thus, distribution alone points clearly to one of the volcanoes of southern Colombia and Ecuador as the source of this layer. A K-Ar age determination of this layer had previously given about 900,000 years (7) but Ninkovich and Shackleton (6), relying on 39-Ar/40-Ar measurements and on biostratigraphic and oxygen-isotopic considerations, give a tentative age of 230,000 [+/-]10,000 years. In July of 1959 I made some preliminary measurements of the ?-? coincidence spectrum on a sample of Worzel ash that Professor Worzel had sent me. These indicated a substantial content of uranium and thorium, so high as to preclude direct measurement of cosmic-ray-induced aluminum-26. It was therefore necessary to separate the aluminum chemically before counting. The net counting time of sample and background was about fifteen days. The result was negative; there was no evidence for cosmic-ray-induced Al-26 radioactivity. The counting rate was (-0.48 1.09) x 10^-3 c/min, which corresponds to an Al-26 disintegration rate of <= 7.5 dpm/kg (two sigma upper limit). The expected activity, for cosmic-ray exposure similar to that of meteorites, is 131 dpm/kg, allowing for some decay of Al-26 in the ~10^5 years since the ash was laid down. This result can be interpreted in either of two ways. ____If the ash had ever existed in outer space in sufficiently dispersed form to become strongly irradiated by cosmic rays, its "exposure" or "flight" time is ____<= 63,000 years. Such an exposure time is too short for an extraterrestrial origin, except from the Moon. But the Moon has been well explored since 1969, and contains no rocks resembling the Worzel ash. On the other hand, ____if it existed in space as part of a solid body and if my ash sample represents a true average, the radius of this body must have-been >= 15 meters. This is not an interesting limit, however, because ____the extent of the ash deposit alone implies a radius of at least 5 km. Thus ____an origin from a terrestrial volcano is virtually certain, as previously favored by Worzel on various grounds. It is still true of course, that the vast extent of the ash deposit calls for a huge eruption, but I do not think that poses any difficulties. I also add several analytical results on the samples. The following table gives some trace element concentrations, as determined by neutron activation analysis at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ____low scandium content of the ash is intriguing. U (ppm) Sc(ppm) In (ppm) Ir (ppm) Clay above Worzel layer 1.72; 1.40 1.0 <0.5 <5 x 10 -4 Clay below Worzel layer 3.82; 3.93 0.57 <0.5 <5 x 10 -4 Worzel ash 4.68; 4.68 0.058 <0.5 <5 x 10 -4 Ash from Concepcion 1.42; 1.63 0.58 <0.5 <5 x 10 -4 Volcano, Nicaragua In addition, Dr A.DuFresne of our Geology Department made spectrographic analyses of these materials: SiO 2 CaO FeO Al 2 0 3 Na 2 O TiO 2 MgO Total Clay above 59% 0.96% 3.2% 15.8% 4.3% 0.42% 2.25% 85.91% Worzel Ash 75% 0.88% 0.66% 13.9% 3.9% 0.20% 0.03% 94.64% Clay below 40% 3.2% 5.2% 15.8% 4.4% 3.52% .52% 72.78%
_Figure 1. Location of cores taken in study area. Three principle areas of ash deposition (northern, central and southern) are outlined with solid lines. After Bowles et al, 1973.+ Location of "D" layer sample analysed by E. Anders and A. DuFresne (see p.4).
_The "D" layer is the most extensive (400,000 sq.kms) and voluminous (43 cu.km) single ash layer. Bowles et al.(5) traced it through much of the northern and central areas, and found that it even extends into the southern area. In the central area, off the coasts of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, it forms the uppermost ash layer, while to the north some minor layers are present above it. A tentative age of the "D" layer, based on biostratigraphic considerations, is given as 50,000 to 60,000 years. A K-Ar date of 500,000 [+/-]5,000 years (7) is judged "considerably too old" by Bowles et al., and attributed to either contamination by atmospheric Ar or incomplete outgassing of the lava, causing radiogenic Ar to be present. As a possible source of some of the deeper layers ("I") are given the Ilopango and Boquer6n volcanoes in El Salvador, whose eruptions formed the impressive Tierra Blanca tephra deposits of central El Salvador, whereas the "D" layer is tentatively attributed to the pelean domes of the Tecum Umin Ridge in the Highlands of Guatemala, where pumice deposits are overlain by ignimbrites dated at 31,000 [+/-]3,000 years. Acknowledgements. Many thanks for help in obtaining data, references and reprints go to: Dr Edward Anders, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, USA; Dr Dragaslov Ninkovich, Lambert-Doherty Geological Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA; Prof.J.Lamar Worzel, Marine Science Institute, University of Texas, Galveston, USA.
_References
1. Kloosterman J.B., 1976: What has happened to Worzel's Deep-sea Ash? Catastr. Geol.(2): 18-19.
2. Worzel J.L., 1959: Extensive deep sea sub-bottom reflections identified as white ash. Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci., 45: 349-355.
3. Ewing M., Heezen B.C.

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
3. Punching A Hole In The Asteroid Hypothesis [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Punching A Hole In The Asteroid Hypothesis
_Scientists have long searched for a cause for the profound geological and biological changes that apparently occurred between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. When an ((__iridium__))-rich layer was found in several areas at this important boundary, many claimed it as proof of an asteroid impact or some other catastrophism that would nicely explain the massive worldwide changes that occurred. With this preamble in mind, consider the following abstract from an article in Science: "Analyses of the clay mineralogy of samples from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer at four localities show that the ____boundary clay is neither mineralogically exotic nor distinct from locally derived clays above and below the boundary. The significant ejecta component in the clay that is predicted by the asteroid impact scenario was not detected." (Rampino, Michael R., and Reynolds, Robert C.; "Clay Mineralogy of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clay," Science, 219:1983.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983.© 1983-2000 William R. Corliss

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT, CLAY]
4. More Doubts About Asteroids [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Doubts About Asteroids
_In an apparent reaction to the stampede to climb aboard the extinction-by-asteroid bandwagon, dissenting papers have begun to appear in the scientific literature. For example, Van Valen's list of objections to the hypothesis of asteroid impact at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary was reproduced in the last issue of Science Frontiers. Now, in a recent issue of New Scientist, T. Hallam raises still more objections: Tropical plants, mammals, crocodiles, birds, and benthic invertebrates were little affected by whatever happened at the Cretaceous-Tertiary interface. Furthermore, many groups that were extinguished were already well into a decline. Some geologists insist that some of the supposedly synchronous extinctions were probably separated by several hundred thousand years; viz., plankton and dinosaurs. The vaunted ((__iridium__)) anomaly in deep-sea cores is spread through a considerable thickness of sediment. Even after allowing for the mixing of sediments, the ((__iridium__))-rich layer is thousands of years thick. According to the asteroid scenario, the clay layer separating the Cretaceous from the Tertiary should represent the fallout from impact-raised dust, which would include asteroidal material and a mixed sample of earth rocks. However, in Denmark, the boundary is marked by the so-called Fish Clay, which is almost pure smectite - - a single mineral and not a mixture of terrestrial rock flour. If it wasn't an asteroid impact, ____why the ((__iridium__)) concentration? At least three hypotheses have been proposed to circumvent the asteroid debacle: (1) volcanic activity; (2) a concentration of micrometeorites, thousands of tons of which fall each day, through extreme reduction of sedimentation; and (3) selective enrichment of ((__iridium__)) by an anoxic environment acting upon kerogenand pyrite-rich clay. In short, some geologists at least do not find the asteroid hypothesis compelling at the moment. (Hallam, Tony; "Asteroids and Extinction - - No Cause for Concern," New Scientist, p. 30, November 8, 1984.)

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT, CLAY]
5. Chemical Surprises At The K-T Boundary [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chemical surprises at the k-t boundary
_The presence of high ((__iridium__)) concentrations at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary, some 65 million years ago, has led to the widely accepted notion that an extraterrestrial projectile slammed into the earth at that time, wreaking geological and biological havoc. But the K-T boundary is anything but simple chemically and paleontologically. To illustrate, J.L. Bada and M. Zhao have found unusual amino acids in sediments laid down before and after this geological time marker. "They find that Danish sediments spanning the narrow boundary layer ____contain two amino acids, alpha-aminoisobutyric acid and isovaline, that are relatively uncommon in biological materials but abundant in the organic-rich meteorites. They suggest that the body which collided with Earth 65 million years ago and left the telltale ((__iridium__)) residue may have been organic-rich, perhaps like a C-type asteroid or a comet. Such a possibility has interesting implications for the extinction and related atmospheric effects, and supports the idea that impact events could have supplied the Earth during a much earlier period with the raw materials for organic chemical evolution." Actually, the above quotation is pretty much in line with present mainstream thinking. Perhaps so, but Bada and Zhao identified two troubling anomalies. First, the amounts of amino acids found were surprisingly high. How could these complex molecules survive the searing temperatures engendered by high-velocity impact? Second, the amino acids may be abundant tens of centimeters above and below the K-T boundary clay containing the ((__iridium__)), but they are virtually absent in the clay itself! (Cronin, John R.; "Amino Acids and Bolide Impacts," Nature, 339:423, 1989, Also: Monastersky, R.; "Rare Amino Acids Support Impact Theory," Science News, 135:356, 1989.) Reference. Chemical anomalies at stratigraphic boundaries are cataloged in ESC1 in Anomalies in Geology. To order this volume, visit: here. From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989.© 1989-2000 William R. Corliss

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
6. The Cretaceous Incineration [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Cretaceous Incineration
_The worldwide deposit of ((__iridium__)) at the end of the Cretaceous implies, to many at least, that the great biological extinctions of this period were the consequence of a meteorite impact. It has now been discovered that clay samples from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary also contain 0.36-0.58% graphitic carbon. It is fluffy stuff and suggests that the planet was once covered by a thick layer of soot. Quantitatively, the soot layer is equivalent to the carbon in 10% of the earth's present biomass. The authors speculate that this soot was created by huge wildfires that consumed much of the earth's vegetation and perhaps fossil fuel as well. Terrestrial life was, of course, devastated - - just as it is in the currently popular "nuclear winter" scenarios. The end-of-the-Cretaceous soot is in fact, thicker and more widely spread than nuclear winter theories predict. (Wolbach, Wendy S., et al; "Cretaceous Extinctions: Evidence for Wildfires and Search for Meteoric Material," Science, 230:167, 1985.)
_Comment. Questions arise, though: How could a single meteorite impact ignite worldwide wildfires? Why haven't other meteorite impacts, recorded abundantly by large craters and astroblemes, also set fire to the planet and left iridium layers? From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986.© 1986-2000 William R. Corliss

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7. Looking For The Smoking Gun [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Looking For The Smoking Gun
_We already know the victims (the dinosaurs and other fauna and flora), and there is considerable evidence that the bullet was a cosmic projectile of some sort. The absence of a smoking gun (a sufficiently large terrestrial crater with an age of 65 million years) has allowed volcanists to deny the cosmic catastrophists a complete victory. However, the recent identification of tektite-like glasses at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (KTB) on Haiti is leading geological detectives closer and closer to the missing crater. Elsewhere in the world, the KTB is characterized by an ((__iridium__)) anomaly and a thin layer of "impact clay" consisting of tiny bits of shocked minerals. ____At Beloc, on Haiti, though, geologists find a 55-centimeter-thick layer of glassy debris. Approximately 25% of this stratum consists of 1-6-millimeter particles of tektite-like glass. Most of the glass particles are spherical, but a few have the splash-forms and dumbbell shapes of bona fide tektites. The thickness of the Haitian deposit and the large sizes of the particles suggest that ____the smoking gun must be nearby. Ironically, the Haiti stratum was originally classified as of volcanic origin; and we must add that we are presenting here only the conclusions of the asteroid school. But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity - and magneticanomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, and (2) the CO2 from zapped carbonate rocks. (Smit, Jan; "Where Did It Happen?" Nature, 349:461, 1991, and Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al; "Glass from the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary in Haiti," Nature, 349:482, 1991.) Reference Section ETC in catalog Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds is devoted entirely to impact craters. Ordering data here. From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991.© 1991-2000 William R. Corliss

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8. Tektites, Wildfires and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs [SIS C&C Workshop]
_From: SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop 1987 No 1 (Sep 1987) Home¦ Issue Contents Tektites, Wildfires and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs by Trevor Palmer
_Several recent discoveries have strengthened the argument that a global catastrophe occurred 65 million years ago (by conventional dating), bringing to a close the Cretaceous Period and wiping out the dinosaurs and many other groups of living creatures. As discussed in SIS Review VII:A, pp.9-20, the Alvarez team produced the first scientifically acceptable evidence of the cause, in the form of an ((__iridium__)) abundance anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (C-T) boundary. This could have resulted from the impact of an asteroid or comet, or from volcanic action. Which was it? ____Shocked quartz grains found by Bruce Bohor and colleagues of the U.S. Geological Survey seemed almost conclusive evidence of an impact at this time. Even staunch opponents of the impact hypothesis as Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, geologists Charles Officer and Charles Drake admitted that the characteristics of these crystals were different from those known to have resulted from internal pressures during volcanic activity[1. However, they then went on to argue that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the crystals could not in any circumstances have been caused by internal overpressures. In their view, the evidence as a whole was "in accord with the scenario of a series of intense eruptive volcanic events occurring during a relatively short geologic time interval (10,000 to 100,000 years) and not with the scenario of a single large asteroid impact event"[1. In contrast, Jan Smit, geologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues concluded from a study of many samples from ocean floor drill cores and land-based sections that the C-T boundary "appears synchronous worldwide"[2. They also found microtektite-like particles at the position of the iridium abundance anomaly in each of the samples, which at least partially answers Bernard Newgrosh, who asked in SIS Review VII:A, p.8, whether the apparent absence of tektites before the last 35 million years ruled out the possibility of earlier extinctions being caused by impacts. Smit wrote in conclusion, "Only a major impact with all its environmental consequences seems capable of explaining all lithological, trace element and biological evidence"[2. Another round of articles by these various authors confirmed their original views[3,4,5. The Alvarez group concluded in favour of an impact rather than a volcanic cause after a mineralogical study of the C-T boundary clay[6, and Guy Leahy and his colleagues from the Department of Geology, University of Oregon, believe that "at the moment the asteroid impact hypothesis provides the most parsimonious explanation for changes in plant communities across the C-T boundary"[7. Other groups have similarly concluded that the record of vegetation changes supports the impact hypothesis[8,9. Wendy Wolbach and colleagues of the University of Chicago found fluffy aggregates of graphitic carbon at the C-T boundary at several sites, apparently an indication of a worldwide layer of soot[10. The most likely cause seemed to be wildfires triggered by an impact. The amount of soot produced would have been immense, equivalent to 10% of the present biomass of the Earth, and "could have greatly enhanced the darkening and cooling of the earth by rock dust, which has been suggested as a cause of the extinctions". The particle size distribution of the soot is similar to that assumed for the smoke cloud of "nuclear winter", but the global distribution is more uniform and the amounts are much greater[10. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that the events at the end of the Cretaceous Period will ever be seen to have a simple explanation. There may well have been not one impact but several [11, which would fit in with the data presented by Officer and Drake. Attempts to show that species died out rapidly in response to an impact are limited by the nature of the evidence. The Berkeley palaeontologist Lowell Dingus has argued that "although catastrophic amounts of extinction might have occurred at the C-T transition, it seems unlikely that we can distinguish episodes of extinction lasting 100 years or less from episodes lasting as long as 100,000 years. Consequently, acceptance of catastrophic hypotheses based on these stratigraphic records seem improbably optimistic at this time[12. In fact, although some groups may have died out more or less instantaneously, the extinction of other groups may have taken place over a million or more years [2,11,13,14. Clearly, there is much work still to be done.
_References.
1. C. B. Officer and C. L. Drake, "Terminal Cretaceous environmental events", Science 227 (1985), pp.1161-7
2. J. Smit and A. J. T. Romein, "A sequence of events across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary", Earth and Planetary Science Letters 74 (1985), pp.155-70
3. B. F. Bohor, P. J. Modreski and E. E. Foord, "

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9. Microorganisms Complicate The K-t Boundary [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microorganisms complicate the k-t boundary
_Ancient bacteria, it appears, have tampered with the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary of some 65 million years ago. A key marker of this boundary is a thin "spike" of ((__iridium__)) that is found worldwide, and which was supposedly deposited by the asteroid impact that helped finish off the dinosaurs. For many scientists, the asteroid-impact scenario has become a "non-negotiable" brick in the Temple of Science. The problem they have faced is that the ((__iridium__)) layer is variable in thickness and concentration from site to site. Sometimes ((__iridium__)) can be detected well above and below the K-T boundary. This variability has tended to undermine the asteroid-impact theory. Recent experiments at Wheaton College by B.D. Dyer et al have demonstrated that bacteria in ground water can both concentrate and disperse ((__iridium__)) deposits. In other words, bacteria could smear out an ((__iridium__)) spike, perhaps partially erase it, or even move it to a deeper or shallower layer of sediment. (Monastersky, R.; "Microbes Complicate the K-T Mystery," Science News, 136: 341, 1989.)
_Comment. An obvious question now is how bacteria might have affected other chemicals, such as oxygen and carbon isotopes, widely used in stratigraphy. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990.© 1990-2000 William R. Corliss

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10. Asteroid Impact Or Volcanos? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Asteroid impact or volcanos?
_The debate over the real cause of the terrestrial catastrophism that occurred at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, some 65 million years ago, grinds on. Some physical scientists claim rather imperiously that the dinosaurs and many other species were done in by the impact of a huge asteroid/meteorite. The worldwide ((__iridium__)) spike is conclusive, they say. Many paleontologists and geologists, however, remain unconvinced and prefer widespread volcanism. We have already covered the various arguments in past issues of Science Frontiers; here, we want to advise our readers that a pair of excellent articles by principals in this debate have appeared in Scientific American. Generally speaking, it seems that the proponents of the impact theory are now listening to the other side. For example, multiple impacts are now proposed to account for evidence of the type introduced below. (Alvarez, Walter, and Asaro, Frank; "An Extraterrestrial Impact," Scientific American, 263:78, October 1990. Also: Courtillot, Vincent E.; "A Volcanic Eruption," Scientific American, 263:85, October 1990.) A spike dulled. The case for a single asteroid/meteorite impact has been weakened by a recent reexamination of the classic exposure of the CretaceousTertiary boundary at Gubbio, Italy. Here, the discovery of an iridium "spike" at the boundary was thought to betoken a sudden, catastrophic, extraterrestrial event. On further study, though, the spike no longer seems so sharp. In fact, it is spread through about 3 meters of sediments at the boundary. Said sediments apparently took 500,000 years to accumulate! This broad smear of iridium no longer seems indicative of a single extraterrestrial impact. (Rocchia, R., et al; "The CretaceousTertiary Boundary at Gubbio Revisited: Vertical Extent of the Ir Anomaly," Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 99:206, 1990.)
_Comment. Is it even indicative of multiple impacts? Recall that no one has yet (1990) found a single crater that everyone will accept as evidence. Reference. Iridium spikes and the supposed Cretaceous-Tertiary impact are to be found in ESB1 in our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. For more on this volume, see: here. From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991.© 1991-2000 William R. Corliss

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11. Iridium And Mass Extinctions [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iridium And Mass Extinctions Alvarez and his colleagues at the University of California, while chemically analyzing a series of sedimentary strata from Italy, discovered that one layer had 25 times the concentration of ((__iridium__)) residing in adjacent strata. The ((__iridium__))-rich layer forms the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, 65 million years ago. During that death-filled interval, 50% of the earth's genera were wiped out. Such are the two correlated facts: ((__iridium__)) increase and mass extinction. But do they have the same cause? Alvarez et al point out that ((__iridium__)) is rare on earth but much more common out in space. The anomalous concentration of ((__iridium__)) could have been injected by a massive solar flare, a big meteor impact, or some other extraterrestrial catastrophe. Thus is catastrophism being resurrected. (Anonymous; "An Iridium Clue to the Dinosaur's Demise," New Scientist, 82: 798, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #8, Fall 1979.© 1979-2000 William R. Corliss

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12. Iceland And The Iridium Layer [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iceland And The Iridium Layer
_The high concentration of ((__iridium__)) between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras (about 65 million years ago) is widely interpreted as indicating a worldwide catastrophe caused by the impact of a comet or meteor. The increase of ((__iridium__)) concentration over normal levels is much higher in northern latitudes, suggesting that the impact point is in this region. But no impact scar of the proper size and age exists. However, if one looks for scabs rather than scars, one finds that Iceland is formed entirely of volcanic rocks younger than the Cretaceous. To Fred Whipple of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, these facts dovetail nicely. Iceland was formed by magma welling up from a 100-km hole in the sea floor blasted out by a 10-km meteor. (Anonymous; "The Blow That Gave Birth to Iceland?" New Scientist, 89:740, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981.© 1981-2000 William R. Corliss

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13. Global Fire At The K-t Boundary [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Global fire at the k-t boundary
_The worldwide deposit of ((__iridium__)) at the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary has been considered very strong evidence that a large astronomical object (asteroid or comet) devastated our planet some 65 million years ago. Some scientists, however, propose that the ((__iridium__)) layer was instead deposited through widespread volcanic activity. The proponents of an astronomical mechanism should be heartened by a recent paper in Nature, by W.S. Wolbach et al. Here is their Abstract: "Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary clays from five sites in Europe and New Zealand are 10 2 -10 4 -fold enriched in elemental C (mainly soot), which is isotopically uniform and apparently comes from a single global fire. The soot layer coincides with the Ir layer, suggesting that the fire was triggered by meteorite impact and began before the ejecta had settled." The composition of the hydrocarbons in the sediments points to the earth's biomass (mainly surface vegetation) as the source of the soot. The total quantity of K-T soot is equivalent to that which would be produced by burning 10% of all present terrestrial plant material. (Wolbach, Wendy S., et al; "Global Fire at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary," Nature, 334:665, 1988.)
_Comment. Unmentioned in the above article is the possibility that extensive wildfires might have been generated by volcanic eruptions, perhaps accompanied by great electrical storms. The 1988 fires in Yellowstone needed no meteoric impact. Reference. Chemical anomalies in the earth's crust are cataloged in ESC1 in Anomalies in Geology. To order this catalog volume, visit: here. Concentration "spikes" of iridium, elemental carbon and soot at the KT boundary, Woodside Creek, New Zealand. (Adapated from Nature, 334:665, 1988). From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988.© 1988-2000 William R. Corliss

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14. The Rehabilitation Of Cuvier [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rehabilitation Of Cuvier
_Cuvier (1769-1832) was a catastrophist. To him, the record of death in the layers of fossiliferous rocks was obviously the consequence of terrestrial convulsions. But Cuvier's ideas were swept aside by the uniformitarians who saw the earth and its cargo of life unfolding with almost agonizing slowness. But Cuvier is making a comeback, as illustrated by the following back-to-back articles in Nature. We quote from the abstracts. "Closely spaced samples from an uninterupted calcareous pelagic sequence across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary reveal that the extinction of planktonic Foraminifera and nannofossils was abrupt without any previous warning in the sedimentary record, and that the moment of extinction was coupled with anomalous trace element enrichments, especially of ((__iridium__)) and osmium. The rarity of these two elements in the crust of the Earth indicates that an extraterrestrial source, such as the impact of a large meteorite may have provided the required amounts of ((__iridium__)) and osmium." (Smit, J., and Hertogen, J.; "An Extraterrestrial Event at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary," Nature, 285:198, 1980.) "Evidence is presented indicating that the extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous, of large terrestrial animals was caused by atmospheric heating during a cometary impact and that the extinction of calcareous marine plankton was a consequence of poisoning by cyanide released by the fallen comet and of a catastrophic rise in calcitecompensation depth in the oceans after the detoxification of the cyanide." (Hsu, Kenneth J.; "Terrestrial Catastrophe Caused by Cometary Impact at the End of Cretaceous," Nature, 285:201, 1980.) From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980.© 1980-2000 William R. Corliss

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15. Did an asteroid impact trigger the ice ages? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did an asteroid impact trigger the ice ages?
_Asteroids and comets are being blamed these days for more and more of our planet's catastrophism - - biological, meteorological, and geological. What a turnabout in scientific thinking in just a decade. F.T. Kyte et al have now provided additional details on meteoritic debris they first described in 1981. On the floor of the southeast Pacific, about 1400 kilometers west of Cape Horn, about 5 kilometers down, they found high concentrations of ((__iridium__)) in Upper Pliocene sediments about 2.3 million years old. Since the proposed projectile hit in very deep water, no crater was dug out. What did survive is called an "impact melt." This is debris rich in noble metals, such as ((__iridium__)), and contains particles typical of a low-metal mesosiderite. Some 600 kilometers of the ocean floor received this debris. Kyte and his associates estimate the size of the impacting object at at least 0.5 kilometers in diameter. No biological extinctions are correlated with the 2.3-million-year date, but there appears to have been a major deterioration of climate at about this time. There was a shift in the marine oxygen isotope records and, more obvious, the creation of the huge loess (sandy) deposits in China. What the impact may have done is to vaporize enough water into the atmosphere to increase the earth's albedo, reflecting sunlight back into space, lowering the average temperature, and thus triggering the Ice Ages. (Kyte, Frant T., et al; "New Evidence on the Size and Possible Effects of a Late Pliocene Oceanic Asteroid Impact," Science, 241:63, 1988.)
_Comment. Aficionados of the Ice Age problems will have to add this theory to the already long list of Ice Age hypotheses. From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988.© 1988-2000 William R. Corliss

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16. A QUESTIONABLE 200-MILLION-YEAR HIATUS [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A QUESTIONABLE 200-MILLION-YEAR HIATUS \
_Hiking down into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado is a geological education. As one descends past the beautifully exposed horizontal strata, one also turns back the geological clock in well-defined ticks. That is what the signs along the way say, and that is what all the textbooks proclaim! But when the juncture between the Redwall Limestone and Muav Limestone is reached, a 200million-year gap appears. The sign posted here by the National Park Service reads: An unconformity "Rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian Periods are missing in Grand Canyon. Temple Butte Limestone of Devonian age occurs in scattered pockets. ____Redwall Limestone rests on these Devonian rocks or on Muav Limestone of much earlier Cambrian Age." This supposed unconformity is puzling for several reasons: ____The two limestone strata "seem" conformable in most places. Both are nicely horizontal, and there is basically no evidence that 200 million years of erosion and tectonic disturbances separate them. ____In some places, the two limestone strata intertongue or interfinger, such that by moving vertically one flashed back and forth in 200-million-year jumps. In both limestone strata, one finds layers of the same micaceous shale containing the same fossil tubeworms, suggesting near-simultaneous deposition. In one place, the two limestones clearly grade into one another, with no separation at all. Anyone who walks down the Canyon trails can see that the evidence for a 200-million-year hiatus between the Mississippian and Cambrian limestones is shaky at best. With the accuracy of geological dating through the use of contained fossils at risk, one would expect many professional papers dealing with this situation. Instead, the geological literature says little. One of the few papers mentioning the "unconformity" states that the contact between the two limestones displays ripples 2 feet from crest to trough, as one might expect with a true unconformity. Such ripples do not seem to exist. (Waisgerber, William, et al; "Mississippian and Cambrian Strata Interbedding: 200 Million Years Hiatus in Question," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 23: 160, 1987.)
_Comment. Aha, this paper was written by scientific creationists, who have an obvious ax to grind. There's surely nothing to it. However, the senior author is a consulting geologist, and the paper is replete with photographs and diagrams. And you can always go see for yourself! It is the interpretation of the data that is in question. Where is the error?
_Reference.
_Puzzles in the stratigraphy of Grand Canyon can be found in ESR1 in our catalog: Inner Earth. For details, visit: here. Stratigraphy of the Redwall-Muav contact, North Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon. Notice the intertonguing. The mottled limestone and the layers of micaceous shale occur in both the Redwall and Muav limestones, even though they are supposedly separated by 200 million years. (Adapted from the CRSQ article referenced in the text). From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987.© 1987-2000 William R. Corliss

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17. "HIGH"-TECH FARMING AT TIAHUANACO [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "HIGH"-TECH FARMING AT TIAHUANACO
_One of Tiahuanaco's (or Tiwanaku's) many puzzles has been how food for such a large city was grown at an altitude of circa 3,850 meters (12,600 feet) in the frosty, windswept Bolivian Andes. This problem along with the fabulous stonework and extensive ruins have precipitated theories involving extraterrestrial visitors and an age for the site in the hundreds of thousands of years. At least the food-supply puzzle now seems to be in hand. Stereoscopic aerial photographs show in startling detail: " ... immense, curvilinear platforms of earth ... these fields form elevated planting surfaces ranging from five to 15 meters wide and up to 200 meters long ... Extensive and nearly continuous tracts of these fields - - all of which have been abandoned for centuries - - run from the edge of Lake Titicaca to about 15 kilometers inland, and form virtually the only topographic relief in the broad, gradually sloping plain." Some of the raised fields are remarkably ____sophisticated in design. At the base is a layer of cobblestones for stability. These are covered by a 10-centimeter layer of clay. On top of the clay are three distinct layers of sorted gravel; all capped by rich organic topsoil. These fields were simultaneously an aquifer for the fresh water percolating down from the surrounding hills and a barrier to the brackish water from Lake Titicaca. Even at Tiahuanaco's altitude, these fields could have grown potatoes, oca, or ulluco and the chenopod grains, as well as quinowa and caniwa. Tiahuanaco and its satellite cities could have been fed with enough left over for export. Not bad for farmers 2,000 years ago! (Kolata, Alan L.; "Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland," Archaeology, 40:36, January/February 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987.© 1987-2000 William R. Corliss

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18. Flotsam On The Great Sand Sea [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 126: Nov-Dec 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flotsam On The Great Sand Sea
_One of the strangest mysteries nestled among the giant dunes of the Egyptian Sahara was not recognized by modern scientists until 1932. In December of that year, P. Clayton, a surveyor for the Egyptian Geological Survey, was driving among the dunes near the Saad Plateau when he heard his tires crunch on something that wasn't sand. It turned out to be large pieces of marvelously clear yellow-green glass - - not just any glass but ultra-pure glass, 98% silica. As often the case, Clayton was not the first to come across the now-famous Libyan Desert Glass or LDG. Prehistoric humans had made knives and other sharp-edged tools from it; the ancient Egyptians had carved a scarab from LDG and deposited it in Tutankhamen's tomb. But Clayton and the ancients did not recognize the scientific implications of their discovery. ____LDG is the purest natural silica glass ever found. Over a thousand tons of it are strewn across hundreds of kilometers of bleak desert. Some of the chunks weigh 26 kilograms, but most LDG exists in smaller, angular pieces looking like shards left when a giant green bottle was smashed by colossal forces. Pure as it is, LDG does contain tiny bubbles, white wisps, and inky black swirls. ____The whitish inclusions consist of refractory minerals, such as cristobalite. ____The ink-like swirls, though, are rich in ((__iridium__)), which is diagnostic of an extraterrestrial impact - - meteorite or comet. The ((__iridium__)) leads to the heart of the LDG problem: Where did this immense amount of widely dispersed glass shards come from? Was it really created during the searing, sand-melting impact of a cosmic projectile? This is how today's catastrophists would have it? At least three "minor" problems bedevil the accepted impact theory. The surface of the Great Sand Sea shows no sign of a giant crater. Neither do microwave probes deep into the sand by satellite radar. LDG seems too pure to be derived from a messy cosmic collision. Known impact craters, such as that at Wabar in Saudi Arabia, are littered with bits of iron and other meteorite debris. Not so at the LDG sites. LDG is concentrated in two areas. One is oval-shaped; the other is a circular ring 6 kilometers wide and 21 kilometers in diameter. The ring's wide center is devoid of LDG. Could there have been a "soft" projectile impact; that is the detonation of a meteorite, perhaps 30 meters in diameter, 10 kilometers or so above the Great Sand Sea? The searing blast of hot air might have melted the sand beneath. Such a craterless impact is thought to have occurred in the 1908 Tunguska Event in Siberia. Another theory has a meteorite glancing off the desert surface leaving a glassy crust and a shallow crater that was soon filled in. But there are two known areas of LDG. Were there two cosmic projectiles in tandem? As of 1999, the origin of the beautiful green LDG remains an enigma. And of course deserts are dynamic places. How much additional LDG lurks beneath all that blowing sand? (Wright, Giles; "The Riddle of the Sands," New Scientist, p. 42, July 10, 1999.)
_Comment. In Tasmania, near Mount Darwin, is strewn the so-called Darwin Glass, which may be a distant relative of the LDG. Darwin Glass, however exists in much smaller pieces and is strewn in a splatter pattern. A potential crater is nearby. For details on these natural glasses, see ESM2 in Neglected Geological Anomalies and SF#64. Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) is strewn over the shaded area. From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999.© 1999-2000 William R. Corliss

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19. Two Tsumani Tales [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Tsumani Tales
_Only a few years ago astronomical catastrophism was denied as a major factor in geological change. Now one reads everywhere of huge terrestrial impact craters, ((__iridium__)) layers, and tektite deposits. Even so, one necessary consequence of ____70% of the large impacts has been neglected until recently: the giant tsunamis and marine incursions that must have swept over the coasts of the continents following impacts at sea. This oversight is now being rectified.
_100,000 BP. The South Pacific.
_A longstanding geological enigma of the New South Wales coastline is the curious distribution of sand dunes. Those headlands less than 40 meters high have lost most of their dunes, leaving only raw, unweathered rock. On the other hand, the higher headlands have retained these dunes. Australians B. Young and T. Bryant hypothesize that a ____tsunamis 40 meters high swept the lower headlands clean about 100,000 years ago. They can even plot the incoming wave's direction, because a few remnants of the coastal dunes still cling to the southwest corners of the headlands along the NSW coast south of Newcastle. In their scenario, the tsunamis came from the northeast, smashed into the Solomons, southeastern Australia, and northeastern New Zealand. The Great Barrier Reef protected northeastern Australia from the full force of the wave. Young and Bryant favor a Hawaiian landslip as the initiator of the tsunamis, but acknowledge that an asteroid impact could also have done the job. If the wave began near Hawaii, it would initially been about 375 meters (about mile) in height. (Davidson, Garry; "A Tsunamis Tale from Sydney," New Scientist, p. 17, October 17, 1992.) 65,000,000 BP. Northeastern Mexico. The date mentioned is, of course, that of the ____Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. This is the time when, many scientists believe, a very large asteroid slammed into northern Yucatan, forming the now-buried Chicxulub crater and wiping out the dinosaurs. Since the impact site was covered with ocean at the time, a powerful tsunamis should have surged out from this area. Indeed, debris attributable to a tsunami has been found on the U.S. Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. J. Smit et al now report finding a layer of debris up to 3 meters thick in northeastern Mexico. This layer was apparently ____deposited in water about 400 meters deep as the giant wave wreaked havoc along Mexico's shore and its backwash piled up debris offshore. This interpretation is supported by the presence of tektites, microtektites, glass spherules, abundant plant material, an iridium anomaly, and near the top ripple beds. (Smit, Jan, et al; "Tektite-Bearing, Deep-Water Clastic Unit at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in Northeastern Mexico," Geology, 20:99, 1992. Reference. Puzzling deposits that may have been created by marine incursions are covered in ETM12 in our catalog: Neglected Geological Anomalies. For details, visit: here. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993.© 1993-2000 William R. Corliss

[ANTARCTIC IRIDIUM: SEDIMENT]
20. Iridium-rich Layers And Catastrophism [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iridium-rich layers and catastrophism
_Kyte et al have discovered a 2.3-million year-old ____sedimentary layer under the Antarctic Ocean that contains ((__iridium__)) and gold concentrations comparable to those in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. The noble metals ____are mostly contained in millimeter-sized grains that resemble ablation debris from a large extraterrestrial object. Unlike the Cretaceous-Tertiary episode, however, the newly found layer is not accompanied by evidence of mass biological extinctions. (Kyte, Frank T., et al; "High Noble Metal Concentrations in a Late Pliocene Sediment," Nature, 292:417, 1981.)
_Comment. Perhaps those paleontologists who deny the existence of sudden biological extinctions at the CretaceousTertiary boundary are correct and something else besides catastrophism impacted terrestrial life at that juncture. Reference. The implications of ((__iridium__)) "spikes" are found in Category ESB1 in our Catalog: Anomalies in Geology. To order, go to: here. From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981. © 1981-2000 William R. Corliss

[FLORIDA CRATER: IRIDIUM]
21. Everglades Astrobleme? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Everglades astrobleme?
_Astrobleme means "star wound," and the southern tip of Florida seems to have been wounded by an asteroid or some other celestial projectile. At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, E.J. Petuch proposed that the Everglades region received a direct hit from an asteroid about 36 million years ago. The Everglades region is a swampy, forested area surrounded by an oval-shaped system of ridges. Geologists usually maintain that the Everglades represent a collapse feature caused by groundwater dissolving away limestone. (Buildings and cars seem to be swallowed fairly regularly by Florida sinkholes.) Petuch disagrees with the collapse theory and points to the following evidence for an ____impact origin: 1. The presence of a strong positive magnetic anomaly; 2. Eocene formations, 40 million years old, are missing over the southern Everglades; 3. A network of fractures pervades rock layers older than Eocene; 4. High ((__iridium__)) concentrations, probably of extraterrestrial origin, exist at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary on nearby Barbados; and 5. The oval reef structure that seems to have grown around the impact area as sealevels rose. Some geologists do not concur with the asteroid theory, but they are all reviewing Florida's geological history in a new light. (Weisburd, S.; "Asteroid Origin of the Everglades?" Science News, 128:294, 1985.) Reference. Very large craters and astroblemes are cataloged in ETC in out catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, which is described here. Time, of December 9, 1985, has a nice map of the asteroid's "footprint", but copyright laws prevent us from using it; so we've made our own. The black circle is the collapsed basin surrounding the impact point. The elliptical coral reef is tangent to the southern rim of the collapse basin and runs northwest through the tomatoes, loops around Lake Okeechobee between the peas and lima beans. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986.© 1986-2000 William R. Corliss

[: IRIDIUM]
22. Of Dust Clouds And Ice Ages [Science Frontiers Website]
_Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of Dust Clouds And Ice Ages
_Ice cores from the polar ice at Camp Century, in Greenland, have been analyzed for the presence of cosmic dust. "It is concluded that ____on five occasions during the interval 20,000-14,000 years BP, cosmic dust mass concentrations in the solar system rose by one and two orders of magnitude above present day levels. Moreover if the particles found in these ice core samples are indicative of the particle size distribution which prevailed in the interplanetary medium at that time, then it may be concluded that the space number ____density of submicron sized particles must have increased by a factor of 10^5 or more. During these times the light transmission properties of the solar system would have been significantly altered resulting in major adverse effects to the earth's climate. Thus it is quite possible that these dust congestion episodes were responsible for the abrupt climatic variations which occurred toward the end of the last Ice Age." Whence these interplanetary dust clouds? The author of this article ruled out terrestrial volcanism (an insufficient source of ((__iridium__))) and encounters with asteroids and cometary tails (too infrequent to account for the long periods of high dust levels). Rather, the dust source may have been ____the same event that created the recently discovered dust ring between Mars and Jupiter, which is believed to be only a few tens of thousands of years old. The nature of the "event" is not specified. (LaViolette, Paul A.; "Evidence of High Cosmic Dust Concentrations in Late Pleistocene Polar Ice (20,000-14,000 Years BP)," Meteoritics, 20:545, 1985.) References. See our catalog volume The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the flotsam and jetsam of outer space. This book is described here. Also see the following item on "icy meteors" which is also pertinent. From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986.© 1986-2000 William R. Corliss

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
23. Do large meteors/comets come in cycles? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do large meteors/comets come in cycles?
_Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. ____But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many craters still lie undiscovered beneath sediments. In addition, most meteors/comets splashed into the oceans, leaving no record at all. An updating of the most recent crater data available, such as they are, greatly weakens the case for the popular 28-31 million-year period and strengthens support for a 19-22 million-year period. But neither cycle is in synchronism with the famous K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) Boundary, with its perplexing ((__iridium__)) layer and massive biological extinctions. In fact, say V.L. Sharpton et al, ____the entire known cratering record could well be the consequence of chance encounters between the earth and stray meteors and comets. Thus would pass the periodicities of this world! (Sharpton, V.L. et al; "Periodicity in the Earth's Cratering Record?" Eos, 68: 344, 1987.) Reference. More details on crater periodicity may be found in ETC4 in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. For information on this book, see: here. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987.© 1987-2000 William R. Corliss

[FLOOD BASALTS, DECCAN TRAPS: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
24. Terrestrial Maria? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Terrestrial maria?
_Those dark patches that constitute the face of the man-in-the-moon are really huge outpourings of lava. Once considered real seas, they are called "maria." Maria like those on the moon also exist on the earth. This is a surprise because terrestrial maria were never mentioned in my college geology courses. But, in those days, the one-mile-wide Meteor Crater, in Arizona, was the largest accepted consequence of celestial bombardment. Deccan basalt flows (also called the Deccan traps) in Western India, shown before the formation of the Carlsberg Ridge and the splitting off of the the Seychelles. D. Alt and colleagues, at the University of Montana, have identified ____four large basalt plateaus that might be terrestrial maria: "Notable examples of large lava plateaus that resemble lunar maria include, among others, the Deccan Plateau of India, the Columbia Plateau of western North America, the Parana Plateau of South America, and the Tungusska Basin of Siberia. All consist mostly of basalt lava flows; those on continents include minor quantities of rhyolite, and variable amounts of sediment.. All seem to have appeared suddenly, within plates. No consistent context of plate interactions explains them. We suggest that ____large lava plateaus are indeed terrestrial maria." Alt et al go on to show that ____these lava plateaus seem to have initiated [R1]____continental rifts and hotspot tracks where none existed before. A reasonable inference is that ____these plateaus are the consequence of the impacts of large meteorites. This is particularly the case with the Deccan Plateau, which is age-dated as synchronous with the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary event, with its legacy of worldwide ((__iridium__)) deposits and the wholesale extinction of life. The paper concludes with: "It therefore appears that random encounters with ____vagrant asteroidal objects play an important role in setting the course of plate tectonic events. The earth does not control its own agenda." (Alt, D., et al; "Terrestrial Maria: The Origins of Large Basalt Plateaus, Hotspot Tracks and Spreading Ridges," Journal of Geology, 96:647, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989.© 1989-2000 William R.

[K/T IMPACTOR: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT: CLAY]
25. Looking For The Smoking Gun [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Looking For The Smoking Gun
_We already know the victims (the dinosaurs and other fauna and flora), and there is considerable evidence that the bullet was a cosmic projectile of some sort. The absence of a smoking gun (a sufficiently large terrestrial crater with an age of 65 million years) has allowed volcanists to deny the cosmic catastrophists a complete victory. However, the recent identification of ____tektite-like glasses at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (KTB) on Haiti is leading geological detectives closer and closer to the missing crater. Elsewhere in the world, ____the KTB is characterized by an ((__iridium__)) anomaly and a thin layer of "impact clay" consisting of tiny bits of shocked minerals. ____At Beloc, on Haiti, though, geologists find a 55-centimeter-thick layer of glassy debris. ____Approximately 25% of this stratum consists of 1-6-millimeter particles of tektite-like glass. Most of the glass particles are spherical, but a few have the splash-forms and dumbbell shapes of bona fide tektites. The thickness of the Haitian deposit and the large sizes of the particles suggest that the smoking gun must be nearby. Ironically, the Haiti stratum was originally classified as of volcanic origin; and we must add that we are presenting here only the conclusions of the asteroid school. But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity - and magnetic anomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, and (2) the CO 2 from zapped carbonate rocks. (Smit, Jan; "Where Did It Happen?" Nature, 349:461, 1991, and Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al; "Glass from the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary in Haiti," Nature, 349:482, 1991.) Reference. Section ETC in catalog Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds is devoted entirely to impact craters. Ordering data here. From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991.© 1991-2000 William R. Corliss

[ANTARCTIC K/T BONE BED: IRIDIUM, FOSSIL]
26. An Antarctic Bone Bed [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Antarctic Bone Bed
_W. Zinsmeister was accustomed to scoff at the idea that the Age of Dinosaurs ended violently with the impact of a giant asteroid some 65 million years ago. He always asked: "Where's the layer of burnt and twisted dinosaur bones?" His certainty was shaken, however, when he began mapping ____fossil deposits on Seymour Island, Antarctica. He didn't find the dinosaur bones but rather a giant bed of fish bones at least 50 square kilometers in area. Some sort of catastrophe must have annihilated untold millions of fish. And guess what? ____This great bone bed was deposited directly on top of that layer of extraterrestrial ((__iridium__)) that marks the 65-million-year-old Cretaceous Tertiary boundary at many sites around the world. (Hecht, Jeff; "The Island Where the Fish Had Their Chips," New Scientist, p. 16, November 11, 1995) Cross reference. Bone beds of fish and other creatures are filed under ESB13X2 in Anomalies in Geology. To order this catalog, see here. From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996.© 1996-2000 William R. Corliss

[ARKANSAS K/T TSUNAMI ERRATICS: IRIDIUM]
27. An Arkansas Tsunami Deposit? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Arkansas Tsunami Deposit?
_Yes, Arkansas is hundreds of kilometers from any ocean. Could a tsunami ever reach Little Rock, or even 120 kilometers northeast of Little Rock where, ____atop a 76-meter (250-foot) hill are perched giant blocks of sandstone. These blocks range up to 7.6 meters (25 feet) in size and weigh many tons. No native rocks in the area match them. The Ice Age glaciers never reached Arkansas, so they can't be glacial erratics. Where did they come from? ____One clue is the presence of glauconite in the sandstone. Glauconite is common in marine rocks, so suspicion points toward the Gulf of Mexico. Geologist G. Patterson, University of Memphis, thinks that ____the huge chunks of sandstone came from coastal Louisiana and were carried some 650 kilometers (400 miles) inland by the giant tsunami raised by the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Yucatan to close out the Cretaceous. That, of course, was when the dinosaurs were forced into oblivion. But could ____the tsunami really have transported such huge rocks 650 kilometers? (Falk, Dan; "Washed Up," New Scientist, p. 26, November 7, 1998.)
_Comments. Tsunami debris from the end-Cretaceous impact has been found along the Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. ____In northeastern Mexico, geologists have found a debris layer 3-meters thick that is also of the right age. This layer contains tektites, glass spheres, plant material, and an ((__iridium__)) anomaly. (SF#85) However, these debris deposits can hardly compare to the far-inland Arkansas sandstone chunks. From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999.© 1999-2000 William R. Corliss

[EARTH MAGNETIC FIELD: CLAY]
28. The changing magnetic climate: does it affect civilizations? [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The changing magnetic climate: does it affect civilizations?
_Abstract. "Past values for the geomagnetic intensity may be obtained by laboratory analysis of the thermoremanent magnetization carried by clay baked in ancient times. From global averages of such determinations it is commonly accepted that the intensity in any given region went through ____a broad maximum about 2000 years ago, reaching a level about 50% higher than at present. Here we present results obtained from a wide range of Chinese pottery, spanning the interval from 4000 BC to the present, indicating that ____the field behaviour was more complex. ____The intensity was high between 1500 and 1000 BC and again in the first half of the first millennium AD. Comparison with results reported for Western Asia, Egypt and Crete suggests that ____these high values are due to non-dipole disturbances in the geomagnetic field, consistent with long-term records of the cosmogenic radioisotopes 14 C and 10 Be." (Quing-Yun, Wei, et al; "Geomagnetic Intensity as Evaluated from Ancient Chinese Pottery," Nature, 328:330, 1987.)
_Comment. This article stimulates three questions: What caused the geomagnetic changes; could some be of internal origin? Are periods of reduced magnetic fields associated with cultural changes? The graph, for example, reveals a dip during the flowering of Greek civilization. Could such ambient magnetic changes have an effect on human imagination, as reported in laboratory test?. See SF#53. Ratios of ancient geomagnetic field intensity to present intensity versus date. Data from China. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987.© 1987-2000 William R. Corliss

[ENGLAND COLD MUD SPRING FOSSILS: CLAY]
29. Mud Springs Regurgitate Ancient Fossils [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mud Springs Regurgitate Ancient Fossils
_Mud springs in Wiltshire, England, may be the only ones of their kind on the planet. The Wiltshire mud springs are cold. They are not hot and steaming like those seen where geothermal heat is close to the surface, as in New Zealand, Java, and Yellowstone. They are also unique in their ____entrainment of subterranean fossils and bringing them to the surface. "There is no explanation of the way the springs ooze a pale, cold, grey mud to the surface, forming blisters that spurt high into the air. "Neville Hollingworth of the Natural Environment Research Council said: 'They are like a fossil conveyor belt bringing up finds from the clay layers below and then washing them out in a nearby stream.'" The fossil conveyor belt yields bones of marine reptiles, oyster shells, and the remains of sea creatures that lived during the Jurassic, about 165 million years ago. ____Some of the bivalves still retain their organic ligaments. Geologists wonder what forces squeeze the mud to the surface like toothpaste from a tube. (Nuttall, Nick; "Mud Springs a Surprise after 165 Million Years," London Times, May 2, 1996. Cr. A.C.A. Silk) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996.© 1996-2000 William R. Corliss

[CANADA SOFT-BODIED FOSSILS: SHALE]
30. The Burgess Shale Puzzle [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Burgess Shale Puzzle
_In British Columbia, a middle Cambrian (550 million years BP) formation called the Burgess Shale has miraculously ____preserved a vast assemblage of soft-bodied sea creatures, especially arthropods. Does this rich and unusual deposit help elucidate arthropod evolution? No, it has complicated the problem. Few of the fossil arthropods can be easily related to groups now living. The Burgess Shale arthropod population is primitive in some ways but remarkably specialized in others. Some of the fossils have body segments like those in one recognized arthropod group but display limbs resembling those of an entirely different group. (Fortey, R.A.; "The Burgess Shale: A Unique Cambrian Fauna," Nature, 293: 189, 1981.)
_Comment. It appears that Nature was shuffling the gene deck, or that there was rampant hybridization, or that confusing programs for evolutionary change were drifting in from the cosmos a la Hoyle and Wickramasinghe! From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981.© 1981-2000 William R. Corliss

[ANTARCTIC FOSSIL FOREST: SHALE]
31. A Permian Polar Forest [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Permian Polar Forest
_ ____"An in situ Upper Permian fossil forest in the central Transantarctic Mountains near the Beardmore Glacier includes 15 permineralized trunks in growth position; the paleolatitude of the site was approximately 80 to 85 south. Numerous leaves of the seed fern Glossopteris are present in the shale in which the trunks are rooted. The trunks are perminealized and tree rings reveal that the forest was a rapidly growing and young forest, persisting in an equable, strongly seasonal climate - - a scenario that ____does not fit with some climate reconstructions for this time period." Some models of the Permian climate, based on astronomical and meteorological parameters, have winter temperatures at the site averaging -30 to -40 C, with the average summer temperature at merely 0 C. This fossil forest is clearly at odds with these models. (Taylor, Edith L., et al; "The Present Is Not the Key to the Past: A Polar Forest from the Permian of Antarctica," Science, 257:1675, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992.© 1992-2000 William R. Corliss

[ANTARCTIC FISH FOSSIL BED: IRIDIUM]
32. An Antarctic Bone Bed [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Antarctic Bone Bed
_W. Zinsmeister was accustomed to scoff at the idea that the Age of Dinosaurs ended violently with the impact of a giant asteroid some 65 million years ago. He always asked: "Where's the layer of burnt and twisted dinosaur bones?" His certainty was shaken, however, when he began mapping fossil deposits on Seymour Island, Antarctica. He didn't find the dinosaur bones but rather a giant bed of fish bones at least 50 square kilometers in area. Some sort of catastrophe must have annihilated untold millions of fish. And guess what? This great bone bed was deposited directly on top of that layer of extraterrestrial ((__iridium__)) that marks the 65-million-year-old Cretaceous Tertiary boundary at many sites around the world. (Hecht, Jeff; "The Island Where the Fish Had Their Chips," New Scientist, p. 16, November 11, 1995) Cross reference. Bone beds of fish and other

[S. AFRICA VERTEBRATE FOSSIL BED: SHALE]
33. The Karoo: The Greatest Vertebrate Graveyard [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The karoo: the greatest vertebrate graveyard
_In SF#104, we mentioned a vast bone bed consisting mainly of fish remains. Now, an exchange of letters in a creationist journal gives us the opportunity to present a few facts about ____a giant bone bed of terrestrial vertebrate fossils: the Karoo Supergroup of southern Africa. The point being discussed by the creationists is the source of the estimated 800 billion vertebrate fossils contained in the Karoo deposits. Whence this astronomical number of mainly swampdwelling reptiles? And whence the immense volume of sandstones and shale that contains their bones? The Genesis Flood model favored by creationists requires that all 800 billion animals be drowned at the same time and swept into South Africa and fossilized. But, they ask themselves, could the entire earth ever have supported so many swamploving reptiles at the same time? Is the Flood model threatened? (Froede, Carl R., Jr.; "The Karoo and Other Fossil Graveyards: A Further Reply to Mr. Yake," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 32:199, 1996. A response by Bill Yake followed this letter.)
_Comment. The figure of 800 billion fossils appears in several authoritative works, although concern is expressed about its magnitude and assumptions employed in calculating it. One thing that is certain is that the Karoo deposits are immense and packed with bones. Even after decades of fossil collecting, bones are still sticking out of the ground. ____Composed mainly of sandstones and shales deposited in shallow water, the Karoo can be 20,000 feet thick. ____The fossil-rich beds stretch out for hundreds of miles. Nowhere else on the planet is there such a massive, continuous, fossiliferous land deposit. The creationists' questions are not out of order at all. See Chapter ESD in Neglected Geological Anomalies for more on this. This volume is described here. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996.© 1996-2000 William R. Corliss

[FLORIDA RICH FOSSIL BED]
34. Bone Bed Discovered In Florida [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bone Bed Discovered
_In Florida A new bond bed has been discovered south of Tampa. Paleontologists say it it is ____one of the richest fossil deposits ever found in the United States. It has yielded the bones of more than 70 species of animals, birds, and aquatic creatures. About 80% of the bones belong to plains animals, such as camels, horses, mammoths, etc. Bears, wolves, large cats, and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan are also represented. Mixed in with all the land animals are sharks' teeth, turtle shells, and the bones of fresh and salt water fish. ____The bones are all smashed and jumbled together, as if by some catastrophe. The big question is how bones from such different ecological nitches - - plains, forests, ocean - - came together in the same place. (Armstrong, Carol; "Florida Fossils Puzzle the Experts," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 21:198, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985.© 1985-2000 William R. Corliss

[CALIFORNIA POLYSTRATE WHALE FOSSIL]
35. The Whale-on-its-tail Fossil [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects
_The whale-on-its-tail fossil Near Lompoc, California, is ____a large deposit of diatomaceous earth, so-called because it is composed almost entirely of countless billions of exquisitely sculptured diatom skeletons. Uniformitarian geologists have steadfastly maintained that such diatomaceous-earth deposits require millions of years to form as the tiny skeletons sink slowly to the sea floor. At Lompoc, however, embedded in the thick layer of diatomaceous earth is the fossil of a large whale apparently standing on its tail. How could this whale fossil have maintained its position and integrity over hundreds of thousands of years as it was buried millimeter by millimeter? Wouldn't the bones have been quickly scattered? Creationists have pointed to this whale as proof that the Lompoc diatomaceous-earth deposit was formed catastrophically, interring the whale almost instantaneously, and burying doctrinaire uniformitarianism at the same time. (Creationists want to "shorten" geological time to fit Biblical schedules.) But was the whale really entombed on its tail? Creationist geologists studied the Lompoc deposit and put a different slant on the story but not on its ending. "Contrary to some reports that have circulated, ____the 80-90 ft (24-27 m) long fossilised baleen whale found in April 1976 in an inclined position in a diatomite unit in the Miguelito Mine at Lompoc, California, was not buried while 'standing on its tail'. An onsite investigation has revealed that ____the diatomite unit which entombed the whale is also inclined at the same angle, the whale having been buried in the diatomite unit while both were in the horizontal position, and ____subsequent earth movements having tilted both. Nevertheless, this whale fossil still bears testimony to its catastrophic burial, and thus the catastrophic deposition of the enclosing diatomite. "The current uniformitarian (slow and gradual) model for diatomite deposition, as seen in the Guaymas Basin of the Gulf of California, is not capable of explaining the purity of the Lompoc diatomite ... the deposition rate is too slow to avoid corrosion and scavenging of the bones, both of which are absent from the Lompoc whale bones." (Snelling, Andrew A.; "The Whale Fossil in Diatomite, Lompoc, California," CEN Technical Journal, 9:244, 1995. This is an Australian creationist journal.)
_Comment. The Lompoc whale fossil does suggest very rapid deposition, but it does not prove that 4.5 billion years of geological history can be compressed into the requisite 6,000 years! Reference. The Lompoc deposit and many others like it are cataloged in ESD2 in the catalog volume: Neglected Geological Anomalies. For details on this book, visit: here. The Lompoc diatomite bed (left) and fossile whale, as found excavated in 1976. From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996.© 1996-2000 William R. Corliss

[NO CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION: FOSSIL]
36. Biology Heavy [Science Frontiers Website]
_Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biology Heavy
_Paleontology vs. DNA. The so-called Cambrian Explosion has been the subject of two SF items (SF#60/187 and SF#85/ 187). A paleontological fact of life is that all known body plans (phyla) seem to have evolved suddenly - - within a few million years - - after the onset of the Cambrian period some 545 million years ago. Evolutionists are understandably uncomfortable with such a high rate of evolutionary innovation. Nothing like the Cambrian Explosion appears in the hundreds of millions of years of geological strata that followed. So rapid was speciation during the Cambrian Explosion that doubt is cast upon the accepted mechanisms of evolution: slow, stepwise accumulation of mutations plus natural selection. (Refs. 1 and 2) But G.A. Wray and colleagues seem to have rescued Darwinism. They have analyzed the DNA sequences of seven genes found in living animals. Assuming that these genes mutate at constant rates and working backwards in time, they calculate that animal diversification (i.e., when chordates diverged from invertebrates) actually began about 1 billion years ago, rather than about 545 million years ago. This expansion of the time frame gives accepted evolutionary processes much more time to innovate and create all those new body plans. The evolutionists are pleased. The paleontologists, however, are in a quandry. They see nothing - - or very little - - in the Precambrian fossil record that substantiates the claim of Wray at al. Thus, molecular biology directly contradicts the findings of paleontology. Not to worry say supporters of the new and much more comfortable scenario: The Precambrian animals were so soft and "squishy" that they did not fossilize well. (Ref. 3)
_Comment. The molecular biologists are a bit arrogant in their assertions. They seem to assume that because they can quantify molecular divergences; that is, fill their journal contributions with numbers; that their data is more sound than fossiliferous strata. But their crucial assumption of constant DNA divergence in time may be their undoing. References Ref. 1. Anonymous; "Deflating the Biological Big Bang," Science News, 150: 335, 1996. Ref. 2. Perlman, David; "Origin of Animals - - 1.2 Billion Years Ago," San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1996. Cr. J. Covey. Ref. 3. Wray, Gregory A., et al; "Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences among Metazoan Phyla," Science, 274:568, 1996. Homology vs. DNA. Until the molecular biologists recently arrived on the scene, evolutionary family trees were based upon similarities in appearance; that is, homology. Animals that look alike must be closely related. But molecular biologists have discovered that some animals that seem identical to the eye differ significantly in their DNA complements. Thus, the Pacific skinks may undermine homology. Inhabiting many, far-separated Pacific islands, these small lizards all look pretty much alike externally. For many years, biologists assumed that they all belonged to the same species. Recently, scalpels in hand, they found that the skink innards differed enough to define two species: Emioa cyanura and Emioa impar. Next, the molecular biologists got into the act. They discovered that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the Guam and Kosrae skinks differed by an amazing 6%, even though both skinks were E. cyanura. Even worse, the Vanuatu skink( E. impar) differed from all other E. impar skinks around the Pacific by an astounding 13%. Yet, to the eye, they all looked alike. So much for homology - - unless there is something basically wrong with molecular biology. Biologists now suspect that there are many more "cryptic species": animals that look alike but possess substantially different DNA complements. (Cohen, Philip; "Lizards Keep Their Differences to Themselves," New Scientist, p. 17, July 6, 1996)
_Comment. The flip side can be seen in humans and chimpanzees. From the standpoints of anatomy and behavior, these species are rather divergent; but their DNAs differ by only 2%! There is something suspicious in all this. Three of the hundred or so basic body plans (phyla): jellyfish (Coelenterata), aphid (Arthopoda), eohippus (Chordata). The present fossil record indicates that all phyla appeared rather suddenly in early Cambrian times. From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997.© 1997-2000 William R. Corliss

[ROCK ART DINOSAURS: CLAY]
37. The Continuing Ica Mystery [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Review Vol VI No 4 (1984) Home¦ Issue Contents FOCUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANOMALIES The Continuing Ica Mystery
_Contrary to prevailing opinion, the mystery of the curious engraved stones from Ica in Peru still remains unsolved. The Ica stones, an estimated 50,000 of which are now in the hands of private collectors, have been the subject of heated controversy since 1961 when the local villagers began to turn up stones with a distinctive, almost bizarre, style of carving. Some collectors took interest, buying them for very small amounts of money - and then two archaeologists, who, suspecting the authenticity of the stones, began exploratory excavations in nearby tombs. They did in fact discover a few examples of similar engraved stones in sealed archaeological deposits, enhancing the possibility that the collected stones were also genuine. Their authenticity has also been vigorously defended by a number of Peruvian savants over the last two decades. Despite this, and the growing attention of writers and researchers around the world, the Peruvian archaeological establishment has steadfastly refused to take any interest in the matter. The basic reason would seem to be sheer embarrassment, a reluctance on the part of the authorities to become involved in such a highly controversial issue. For the engravings on the stones, if they are genuinely ancient, would reveal evidence about our ancestors which totally contradicts all received wisdom on the history of man and the progress of biological evolution. One of the many Ica stones with a comet scene exhibiting an almost obsessional interest in astronomy. The person appears to be using a telescope. (Photograph by Peter Afford) Pictures on some of the stones, usually those best and most intricately carved, contain apparently fantastic information: curiously depicted men are shown using what appear to be scientific instruments, such as telescopes; other scenes, which at first glance might seem to be bloody sacrificial rites, appear on closer examination to be highly sophisticated operations on human organs including the heart and brain; and most surprising of all, some stones show human beings in the company of unmistakable dinosaurs, including recognisable specimens of brontosaurus, triceratops and stegosaurus. Of particular interest to catastrophists are the large number of stones which display an almost obsessional interest in the heavens, depicting constellations, stars and planets. Many feature enormous comets (one of which appears to be hurtling earthwards) and celestial dragon-like monsters, being keenly observed by the Ica astronomers. It is easy to succumb to the temptation, as most archaeologists have done, of rejecting the whole business as a ludicrous hoax. This may be the easiest course of action, especially if one chooses not to become acquainted with the real facts about the stones and their discovery; but a different conclusion might be reached after a fair and open-minded assessment of the details. One should bear in mind the famous case of the Glozel tablets from France, rejected as forgeries for decades by the archaeological establishment. Their authenticity now seems to be supported by numerous thermoluminescence tests (see SISR II:3, p. 96 for references) and the opinion of several epigraphists who maintain that they are genuine pre-Roman Gallic relics. And with regard to the Ica engravings, one should not allow the "likeliness" of the scenes to influence a scientific decision as to which stones are genuine or not, as some have done. The watchword for such "anomalous" finds should be that careful and intelligent research, rather than scoffing, is the only way to arrive at a satisfactory answer. This is the position of two members of the S.I.S., Peter Afford and Sophie Milewska, by training a lawyer and a geologist respectively, who have been studying the Ica mystery for some nine years. The results of their research, the subject of a book in preparation by Peter Afford, show that there is no simple answer to the problem of the Ica stones. For every argument that the stones are modern forgeries there is strong evidence to the contrary; consequently there is the greatest need for an honest and fresh approach to the problem, of the kind being pursued by Afford and Milewska. For British members of the Society, who may have seen the BBC television Horizon programme debunking the work of Swiss adventurer Erich von Däniken, the very mention of the Ica stones may bring a bad taste to the mouth. In November 1977 one of the Horizon documentaries investigated "The case of the Ancient Astronauts", featuring a report on the Ica stones as a major example of von Däniken's mishandling of the evidence. Von Däniken had, in his popular books, included the Ica stones as evidence of a surprisingly high technology in the ancient world, and therefore (in his terms) as proof of extraterrestrial intelligences having intervened in human history. The Horizon team interviewed one Basilio, who sells carved stones and has claimed, along with another local resident called Irma, to have forged all the Ica stones. They filmed Basilio manufacturing a specimen and were pleased to announce that once again von Däniken had been shown to have based his theories on dubious or fraudulent evidence. They supported this view with a geologist's report comparing two stones, one held to be genuine, the other ostensibly a forgery picked up on the market. Laboratory analysis showed the stones to be essentially similar, for instance with regard to the level of oxidation present within the incisions of the engravings on both the "original" and "faked" stones. The Horizon team's research must seem convincing to many, including as it does a scientific analysis performed at the Institute of Geological Sciences, London, as well as the testimony of a self-confessed forger. A cut and dried case? Not so, according to Afford and Milewska, who feel that the most obvious answer, as in so many classic detective cases, may not always be the correct one. Unlike many journalists and scientists who have commented on the problem, they have had access to the largest collection of the stones, 12,000 of which are crammed into the carefully guarded museum of the somewhat eccentric surgeon Dr Javier Cabrera. Cabrera, with a single-mindedness and dedication worthy of Velikovsky himself, has taken on the task of collecting and protecting the Ica stones that has been shrugged off by the Peruvian Antiquities Department. Despite having been appointed by the government as head of the Ica "Casa de Cultura", a body responsible for fostering local arts and sciences, Cabrera has been endlessly frustrated in his attempts to secure official support in his campaign for protection and scientific study of the stones. He has become an understandably defensive individual, isolated from the mainstream of the scientific community and the proponent of some highly unorthodox theories about the stones. Afford and Milewska have nevertheless gained his confidence, and have had the opportunity to study the best of the Ica stones at first hand and arrive at their own conclusions. On the whole they feel that the collection is extremely ancient, certainly several thousand years old, and they base their conclusions on a number of considerations. First, the idea that a local forger, even with a few accomplices, could develop such a distinctive and totally "new" art style, and then manufacture in excess of fifty thousand examples, defies any calculations in terms of man hours, as Afford sees it. Second, the stones are not all hand-held pebbles as one may imagine from the most popular accounts; the Cabrera collection includes numerous boulder-sized examples, several feet high, covered with the most intricate and sophisticated designs. Third, one should not forget the undoubtedly genuine examples of similar stones excavated by archaeologists from nearby pre-Columbian tombs, or the reported discoveries of engraved stones from long before the excitement began in 1961. All things considered, a careful assessment of the circumstantial evidence makes it highly implausible that all the stones are forgeries - unless we are witnessing the results of a hoax of monumental proportions, for which no sensible motive can be deduced. But what of the Horizon exposé? The BBC's research, feels Afford, was even more skimpy than that of the infamous von Däniken. With respect to Basilio's "confession", it is hard to understand why the word of a self-confessed rogue was taken as cast-iron truth. For one thing Basilio keeps changing his story; in 1974, even when offered a large sum of money to do so, he insisted that he could not carve a stone himself and that he merely dug them up from nearby deposits. And some time after the Horizon programme (in which he manufactured a very crude and small engraving within an hour) he confided to Sophie Milewska, under no duress and with nothing to gain from his story, that he did indeed only collect the stones from the hills. Why then did he claim in 1977 that he also carved them? The vital ingredient in the tale, as Peter Afford stresses, is that the excavation and sale of antiquities in Peru is a highly punishable criminal offence. During the early 1970s police as well as journalists took an interest in the Ica case, and it was simply expedient for villagers such as Basilio, who by then made a living from selling the stones,to insist that they had manufactured them personally to avoid arrest and imprisonment. As for the geological analysis sponsored by the Horizon team, it should be remembered that they examined only two stones, one thought to be genuine, out of tens of thousands. The sweeping conclusion drawn from this one test is contradicted by the results from a much larger sample, conducted by Eric Wolf, a geologist employed by the Mauricio Hoshchild Mining Company. Examining 33 stones which Dr Cabrera deemed to be genuine, Wolf reported on a "fine layer of oxidation which also covers the incisions of the engravings, a condition which enables one to deduce their great age". If the stones are genuine antiquities, any description of the scientific importance would be a clear understatement. With regard to their origin, Afford follows Cabrera's surmise that they may be the work of survivors from a surprisingly advanced prehistoric culture, otherwise completely annihilated by a global catastrophe along Velikovskian lines. The cause of such a catastrophe, Afford feels, is most likely to have been one of the comets depicted in fearsome dimensions on many of the stones. While a "lost" Ica civilisation would hardly be the first forgotten society to be rediscovered by archaeology - the Sumerians, Hittites and indeed most of the civilisations of Pre-Columbian America being classic examples - the evidence of the stones would shake up a lot more than currently held views of ancient Peruvian history. The scenes of men and dinosaurs together are, however, not unique. Velikovsky has drawn attention to some of the evidence for the ____contemporaneity of men and dinosaurs (" Were All Dinosaurs Reptiles?", Kronos II:2, 1976, pp. 91-100). In southern Mexico at Acambaro models of dinosaurs occur in a vast collection (some 36,000 pieces) of ceramics, damned as "forgeries" in a case which reveals striking similarities to that of the Ica stones. American historian Professor Charles Hapgood* investigated the case and claimed to have witnessed the excavation of such models. ____Radiocarbon tests he arranged on organic material within the clay, and a thermoluminescence test on a ceramic piece, all gave results of the order of 3000 to 6000 years BP. Given the considerable problems inherent in the application of the methods, such results are far from conclusive, though they certainly suggest that more testing is in order. To further the study of the Ica stones Afford and Milewska are concerned that the stones should be immediately protected by the authorities, as well as being subjected to intense scientific scrutiny. A step is currently being taken by Dr Don Robins, a research chemist working at the Institute of Archaeology, London, and chemistry consultant for the SIS Review**. Robins specialises in the analysis of chemical traces on archaeological finds, and hopes that new methods he is developing will reveal something of the stones' history. Whatever the outcome, we may soon see a resolution of the Ica stones mystery. It is hoped that Afford and Milewska will make a presentation of the evidence to a S.I.S. meeting at some future date; in the meantime, members will be kept informed of any developments in this fascinating interdisciplinary puzzle. - P.J.J. Members interested in the Ica stones can contact Peter Afford and Sophie Milewska by writing to: c/o Ina Prentice, 4 Fairhaven Rd., Redland, Bristol BS6 7TX, England/UK. [* Charles Hapgood is a catastrophist writer best known for his books Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (Chilton Books Co.: Philadelphia/New York/London, 1966) giving evidence of a recent shift in the Antarctic polar cap from ancient cartography, and The Path of the Pole (Chilton, 1970, originally published as Earth's Shifting Crust in 1958 with a foreward written by Albert Einstein) which outlines evidence and a detailed model for polar shift.[ ** See his article on "Isotopic Anomalies in Chronometric Science", SISR II:4 (1978), pp.108-110.\ cdrom\pubs\journals\review\v0604\092ica.htm

[SHOCK DYNAMICS OCCURRED UNDER 6,000 YEARS AGO]
38A. Common Sense About Ancient Maps [The Velikovskian $]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 2 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents Common Sense About Ancient Maps Charles Ginenthal In 1984, C. Leroy Ellenberger raised the issue of "ice cores" from Greenland and Antarctica as a form of evidence to test Velikovsky's theory, stating that there exists another heretofore generally ignored long-term stratigraphy that bears witness to the times covered by Worlds In Collision. This record resides in the ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic, which contain a seasonal fluctuation in oxygen isotopes in the water comprising the ice. (1) Ellenberger continues: As a test of Velikovsky's scenario of historical cosmic catastrophes, the initial expectation was that the ice would preserve a series of conspicuous layers of cometary origin at the proper level. Such dust layers are not in evidence, but other signs of catastrophism could take the place of the missing dust. (2) Sean Mewhinney, in his papers "Ice Cores and Common Sense," (Parts 1 and 2 in the January and July, 1990, issues of Catastrophism and Ancient History) further developed the concepts raised by Ellenberger. If Ellenberger and Mewhinney's evidence, derived from ice cores of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, is truly valid, it would be completely impossible for ancient man to have mapped these large land masses accurately - - specially the topography. Ancient man could not have done so because Greenland and Antarctica had to have been buried beneath ice thousands of feet thick; there would have been no way to see this topography since ice and snow covered it and had given it somewhat the form of a mesa. This is especially true for Greenland and only partially true for certain regions of Antarctica. Mountain ranges, valleys, bays, etc., would have all been covered under thousands of feet of ice and snow. However, there are ancient maps of Greenland and Antarctica known to exist for a long time, which, if accurate in terms of the location of these regions - - with respect to latitude and longitude and to topography - - would prove that the ice caps are not ancient. If these ice caps formed after Velikovsky's catastrophic scenario, then the ice cores and the evidence analyzed from them by the glaciologists is based on a false premise and is not a test of Velikovsky's hypothesis.
_GREENLAND
_Arlington Mallery and Mary Roberts Harrison, in their book, The Rediscovery of Lost America, devote a few chapters to these maps. The chapter "The Zeno Maps of the North," deals with a map published in Europe in 1558 by one of the descendants of Antonio and Nicolo Zeno, who visited Iceland, where they obtained a map of the North Atlantic Ocean which includes a representation of Greenland. According to the authors: The Greenland depicted differs radically from the Greenland known to the modern world. The land surface is shown free of ice, almost covered by mountains crossed by open rivers and divided into three islands! (Mallery's emphasis.) A fiord, marked Ollum Lengri on a version of the map, and a flat surface, which I concluded was a strait, extending westward between the mountains, divide the land which, now hidden by ice, we know as Greenland, a single island.... So, assuming that the map was an ancient Norse sailing chart, I platted it on a polar projection. It became obvious that the original map had been platted on a portolano projection [ a map ] drawn so that sailing from one port to another is related to straight lines. Drawing grids on a copy of the Greenland section of the map, I found even more than I had dared to hope I would find: all the points were platted with remarkable accuracy when compared to the same points on the latest U.S. Army maps! I was then certain that the rejected Zeno map was an accurate map of Greenland before [Greenland] was covered by its present sheet of ice more than a mile thick.... Sooner than I would have thought possible, confirmation of my analysis of the map (at least the portion showing Greenland) came from an authority in the science of determining subglacial topography by seismic soundings. The authority was Paul Emile Victor, whose French Polar expedition explored Greenland from 1948 to 1951. An Associated Press news dispatch announced on October 26, 1951, months after I had published my analysis of the map, the following discovery of the Victor expedition: "A French expedition reported that Greenland is really three islands bridged by an ocean...." In a letter to me, dated October 22, 1953, Victor said: "The analysis of our soundings confirms the preliminary announcement that Greenland is really three islands...." Victor's soundings revealed a passage westward across Greenland, corresponding to the flat area between the mountains which I had pointed out as a strait dividing the land. They also showed ... a large fiord in a location corresponding to [that] on one version of the Zeno map of a fiord marked Ollum Lengri-Lengri, longest of all. In confirming my analysis of the Greenland portion of the Zeno map, Victor accomplished something of magnitude for cartographers, historians and scholars in general: [He] restored to the Zeno map its original reputation for authenticity.... Coming almost as an anticlimax to Victor's confirmation of the accuracy of the Zeno map, a later development strengthened this confirmation. When I asked Victor to explain the presence of a single mountain in the flat area crossing Greenland, he showed me his soundings, which proved the "mountain" to be an island. (3) What do professional cartographers think of the accuracy of this map of Greenland? M. I. Walters of the United States Navy Hydrographic Office - - the department of the U.S. Navy that makes maps - - in a radio interview held on August 26, 1956, and sponsored by Georgetown University, evaluated the map of Greenland: Mallery was introduced to me by the Head Engineer of the [U.S.] Navy Hydrographic Office ... with the request that I check with him an old map [of Greenland] which he had run across. I procured from our files a number of present-day charts and, together, we examined the map in question, which on first sight appeared to be a hobgoblin and of no real value. However, we began to check various islands, caves and peaks, and the old map showed astounding accuracy in presenting the land and water areas in their exact locations. (4) In other words, the Zeno map of Greenland, published in the 16th century, which shows Greenland to actually be three islands with mountainous topography and crossed by a strait, has been confirmed as accurate by scientists in the field of seismic sounding analysis and by professional cartographers. These experts proved that this map is both accurate and an authentic representation of Greenland without an ice cap covering it. Such an accurate map could only have been made prior to the time of the Victor expedition, when Greenland was not buried under thousands of feet of ice and when the climate had to be tremendously different. Thus, my first question to anyone who wishes to suggest that the Zeno map of Greenland is inaccurate is this, How could an accurate map of Greenland have been made showing the proper form of the island with respect to latitude and longitude, as well as to its topography, if the great island was buried under a huge ice cap for over 100,000 years? The probability of creating this chart out of pure imagination and being correct on so many points is practically nil. Whether or not historians accept the map, based on their concepts of uniformity or other historical considerations, cannot invalidate the accuracy of this map and proves that the ice cap is not ancient but was produced in historical times. In terms of Velikovsky's catastrophic scenario, this should not be surprising. He did make the specific claim in Earth in Upheaval that, during one of the catastrophes, the heated oceans lost some 20 feet of water which, as "snow, fell in huge masses" over the new polar regions. (5)
_ANTARCTICA
_If Greenland was not covered by a continental-type glacier because it was under the regime of a completely different climate, should not the same climatic condition generally pertain to Antarctica? In this respect, Mallery also discussed the Piri Re'is map compiled by a Turkish admiral in 1513. The original part of this map, examined by Mallery, was discovered in the Turkish National Museum in 1929, in the Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul. The discovery of this map created an international sensation because it was thought that this was a copy of or the original map that Christopher Columbus had in his possession when he made his voyages to the New World. Analysis of the map, by researchers, in the 1930s, did not "resolve the contradictions posed by it." (6) The map is apparently a compilation of several other maps, because certain features are repeated on it and joined together. These mistakes notwithstanding, Mallery informs us that: During the first systematic examination of the map, I glanced again at the strange tail hanging off the southern extremity of South America, across the location where the Drake Passage [which] separates South America from Antarctica should have been. Suddenly unwilling to dismiss this tail as a distortion, as scholars had done, I pondered several possibilities, rejecting each of them. Then an astonishing idea came to me: [The long] tail is the coastline of the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica, shown as it was before Antarctica was completely covered by ice. Immediately, I realized that the coastline not only shows the Palmer section of Antarctica but that the coastline of the Queen Maud section to the east was also shown free of ice.... (7) Mallery then got in touch with Captain Finn Ronne, who had explored the Palmer Peninsula between 1947 and 1948. Ronne suggested that a comparison of these areas of the Piri Re'is map be made with the Swithinbank map of Queen Maud Land published in the June, 1954, issue of the Geographical Journal. Mallery enlarged the Piri Re'is map so that it was brought into scale with the modern map and found, upon completion of this adjustment, that "[the] position of the islands and the coastlines on the ancient map corresponded strikingly with the position of the mountain peaks shown on the modern Swithinbank map of Queen Maud Land." (8) To check the accuracy and the projection of the Piri Re'is map, Mallery brought both maps to the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. According to Mallery: The Hydrographic Office checked the old map as I suggested, and they did much more. They constructed a Mercator chart of the Atlantic Ocean south of 45' north latitude and, bringing the Piri Re'is fragment to a common scale with it, placed the Piri Re'is coastline on the chart. In general, the two maps were in substantial agreement, particularly in regard to rock-bound harbors and headlands. Most of the discrepancies between the old map and the chart can be reasonably attributed to changes in the coastline caused by silt moving down to the coastline from the interior [or, based on Velikovsky's hypotheses, such changes would have been created by the catastrophes he described]. My associates and I were astonished several times while working on the old map at evidence of a superior level of technical capability in remote times. Some of the discrepancies between the old map and modern maps were due to errors on the modern maps. One such case involved two bays on the Piri Re'is map in a location where modern maps show land. I persuaded several experts to check the seismic soundings in that location. They found the bays were there. Modern cartographers had erred. The ancient map was accurate! (9) What then of the profile topography of the Piri Re'is map, compared to seismic analyses of these regions, like those carried out by Paul Emile Victor in Greenland? Mallery learned of a Norwegian-British-Swedish expedition to Antarctica, headed by John Viers in 1949, which had made a seismic profile of the topography beneath the ice cap. Specialists in the science of seismology and I, working together, were able to prove that geographical details on the map agree with that seismic profile: [The] topography (under the ice) of that part of Queen Maud Land agrees with the outline of the area on the map. The seismic soundings show that islands placed off the coast on the Piri Re'is map and bays placed between the island are there today under the ice. Specifically, the location of the islands on the old map agrees with the location of mountaintops that, according to the seismic profile, exist under the ice today; and that the bays are in locations where the profile shows below-sea-level areas today. (10) According to M. I. Walters, "...where present day charts are inaccurate or lacking in survey information [Mallery] has been able, with the use of these old maps, to supply missing data and correct errors." (11) Once again, we find that the Piri Re'is map, which shows areas of Antarctica published in 16th century maps, accurately outlines the dimensions and profile topography of the Palmer Peninsula and Queen Maud Land. This has all been confirmed as accurate by authorities in the fields of seismic analysis and cartography. These experts affirm that this map is an accurate and authentic representation of those parts of Antarctica without an ice cover. Once again, the only way that such an accurate map could have been made prior to this century is that these regions of Antarctica, today buried to great depth by ice, were ice-free in historical times and, to be so, had to have a tremendously different climate. Analysis of the rest of the Antarctic continent was thereafter carried out by Charles Hapgood upon detailed inspection of other old maps. The maps he employed were the Piri Re'is map and that of Oronteus Fine - - the Oronteus Fineus map published in Europe in 1531. Hapgood, on discovery and inspection of the Oronteus Fineus map, felt that the general shape of the continent was startlingly like the outline of the continent on our modern map.... The position of the South Pole, nearly in the center of the continent, seemed about right. The mountain ranges that skirted the coasts suggested the numerous ranges that had been discovered in Antarctica in recent years. It was obvious, too, that this was no slapdash creation of someone's imagination. The mountain ranges were individualized, some definitely coastal and some not. From most of them, rivers were shown flowing into the sea following, in every case, what looked like very natural and very convincing drainage patterns. This suggested, of course, that the coasts may have been ice-free when the original map was drawn. The deep interior, however, was free entirely of rivers and mountains, suggesting that the ice might have been present there [or that the region had not been explored. (12) Upon further inspection of the map, Hapgood found that the "upper part of the Peninsula was omitted from the Oronteus Fineus [map], as it apparently also had been ... from the Piri Re'is [map]." (13) Hapgood then measured two cross-sections across Antarctica on a modern map and two cross-sections of the same traverses on the old map in centimeters and millimeters to see if the lengths of the two sets of lines from one map would show the same ratios with those of the other. Such a finding would show that the old map was in good general agreement with its modern counterpart. For both traverses, the ratios turned out to be eight to seven, which lent support to the overall structure of the old map. It would have been exceedingly improbable that such a ratio would have been found if the Oronteus Fineus was simply an invention. However, Hapgood, by applying latitudes to the old map, discovered that Antarctica was so large it would intrude on the tip of South America, a clear impossibility. He also found that the Antarctic Circle on the Oronteus Fineus map was almost exactly the same as the 80th degree of latitude on the analyzed copy of the map. This indicated that, when the old map was reconstructed by Oronteus Fineus or his forerunners, the 80th parallel of latitude had been mistaken for the Antarctic Circle. It was this mistake that had enlarged the size of the continent some four times. When Hapgood corrected the latitude scale for the entire map, he found that "the size of the Antarctic continent on the map of Oronteus Fineus [was] correct, by modern findings." (14) With this information in hand, Hapgood and his colleagues constructed a grid. We tried to identify, by comparison with modern maps, as many places on this map of Antarctica as possible. The result was electrifying. All the errors of the location of places that we had identified on Oronteus Fineus' own grid were greatly reduced. (15) But, in spite of this "amazing accuracy in the positions of many places, there were still numerous errors." (16) By analyzing the positions of longitude on different parts of the map, Hapgood found some longitudes were here too far to the east, there too far to the west. In essence, the lines of longitude on the old map had been drawn curved instead of straight. On a modern polar projection map, lines of longitude are drawn from the Antarctic Circle straight out, like cuts in a round pie. This was not the case with the Oronteus Fineus map; its lines of longitude were all curved in only one direction. When this correction was made, the identified locations of geographical places increased from 32 to 50 and other error averages were also reduced. What must be stressed at this point of the analysis is that any of the changes made by Hapgood were applied to the entire map. If the map was actually an invention, the adjustments would never have allowed all the sites to fall into their correct positions. If the map was an invention, many different parts of the map would each require their own individual adjustment to become congruent with the actual geographical structure of the Antarctic continent, specially in view of the fact that the Oronteus Fineus map was published in 1531 and Antarctica was not discovered by Europeans until 1818. In his book, The Path of the Pole, page 116, Hapgood overlaid the reconstructed Oronteus Fineus map, drawn to scale, with a modern map of Antarctica, giving the latitudes and longitudes 55 points along the continents' shoreline that show an overall, fine general agreement between the old and modern maps. He states: "The mathematical probabilities of anyone accidentally getting so many points right on a map are fewer than one in a hundred million." (17) Of course, there was no perfect agreement, but this should not be expected. Longitude measurements did not become accurate until after the invention of the chronometer by John Harrison, in England during the 1760s and, concurrently, by J. A. Lepaute and Ferdinand Berthoud in France. Thus, it is to be expected, that, specially at the poles, errors would occur! Furthermore, if the Earth had actually experienced the momentous catastrophes described by Velikovsky, then there should naturally be vertical and horizontal displacements of geological structures. Thereafter, Hapgood sought to test his analysis of the Oronteus Fineus map by having it evaluated by the Cartographic Section of the Strategic Air Command at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. After rigorously testing the map and Hapgood's applied analysis, the Chief of the section wrote the following: It is our opinion that the accuracy of the cartographic features shown on the Oronteus Fineus map (1531) suggest beyond a doubt that it also was compiled from accurate source maps of Antarctica, ... in this case of the entire continent. Close examination has proved [that] the original source maps must have been compiled at a time when the land mass and inland waterways of the continent were relatively free of ice. The conclusion is further supported by International Geophysical Year teams in their measurements of the subglacial topography. (Emphasis added.) The comparison also suggests that the original source maps (compiled in antiquity) were prepared when Antarctica was presumably free of ice. The Cordiform Projection used by Oronteus Fineus suggests the use of advanced mathematics. Further, the shape given to the Antarctic continent suggests the possibility, if not the probability, that the original source maps were compiled on a stereographic [construction] on a flat surface of lines representing a solid in perspective or gnomonic [construction] on a flat surface of curved lines to represent a sphere type of projection (involving the use of spherical trigonometry). We are convinced that the findings made by you and your associates are valid, and that they raise extremely important questions affecting geology and ancient history.... (18) Not only do these cartographers say the map is accurate, but they point out that, during the 1957 to 1958 Geophysical Year, other teams of seismic scientists, like that of Paul Emile Victor, went into Antarctica and made soundings of the topography under the ice, and that these soundings confirmed the accuracy of the Oronteus Fineus map. Therefore, we have the Piri Re'is map of Antarctica confirmed as accurate by the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office and the Norwegian-British-Swedish Expedition of 1949, and the Oronteus Fineus map of Antarctica confirmed as accurate by Strategic Air Command's map office and the International Geophysical Year teams of 1957 to 1958. These findings are further corroborated by other evidence. According to Hapgood: During the Byrd Expedition of 1947-1948, Dr. Jack Hough, then of the University of Illinois, took three cores from the bottom of the ocean off the Ross Sea, and these were dated by the ionium method of radioactive dating, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, by Dr. W. D. Urry, ... one of those to develop this method. The cores showed alternations of types of sediments.... There was a coarse glacial sediment, as was to be expected, and fine sediments of semiglacial type, but there were also layers of finer sediments typical of temperate climates. [These were the sort ...] carried down by rivers from ice-free continents. Here was the first surprise, then. Temperate conditions had evidently prevailed in Antarctica in the not distant past. The sediment[s indicated that, no fewer than three times during the Pleistocene Epoch, a temperate climate had prevailed in the Ross Sea. Then, when this material was dated by Urry, it was revealed that the most recent temperate period had been very recent indeed. In fact, it ended only about 6,000 years ago. Hough wrote: "The log of core N-5 shows glacial marine sediment from the present to 6,000 years ago. From 6,000 to 15,000 years ago, the sediment is fine-grained, with the exception of one granule at about 12,000 years ago. This suggests an absence of ice from the area during that period, except for a stray iceberg 12,000 years ago." (19) This evidence is further corroborated by Reginald Daly, who informs us that "[carbon-14] dating has shown that Antarctica's ice is less than 6,000 years old. (Emphasis added.) [Arthur Holmes writes: `Algal remains dated at 6,000 BP [Before Present] have been found on the latest terminal moraines.'" (20) Thus, in addition to the accuracy of the Piri Re'is map and the Oronteus Fineus map of Antarctica, we have measurements from cores in the Ross Sea and from the last glacial deposits containing a temperate species of algae that also show that Antarctica was not covered by ice 6,000 years ago. The evidence indicates that the Piri Re'is and Oronteus Fineus maps of Antarctica, published in the 16th century, are accurate and authentic representations of the continent as has been confirmed by scientists in the fields of seismic soundings and cartography. This shows that ____Antarctica was largely ice-free 6,000 years ago and is corroborated by evidence of cores from the Ross Sea and by the dating of algae in terminal moraines. The only way that such accurate maps could have been made prior to the 16th century is if Antarctica was not buried under thousands of feet of ice, when its climate had to be tremendously different. This brings me to my second question, How could these accurate maps have been made if Antarctica has had an ice cap of thousands of feet covering it and is often surrounded by immense and dangerous flows of sea ice and icebergs? Mankind did not have iron ships in ancient times; this also precluded the view that the maps of Antarctica were made when the same conditions pertained then as today. One more point before continuing. Just because we do not know who originally made these maps nor how they were made, we cannot argue that they are fraudulent. We cannot assume, because it took until the 18th century to make precise maps, that ancient man must have lacked the knowledge and skills to execute these charts. The Babylonian and Mayan civilizations, though primitive compared to modern civilization, carried out astronomical research with an accuracy that was not attained until the 19th century, when highly precise and technically advanced telescopes and other measuring devices made modern man the equals of these past cultures. We still do not know how ancient man in South America moved and raised stones of immense weight to build his temples, but he did. Therefore, since we do not know how it was done we cannot deny it was done. The same applies to the maps. To reject them is to assume that, because we believe such productions are impossible, they must be fraudulent. And this, I suggest, is the fundamental problem behind their rejection by the establishment. The underlying logic is based on belief and not on the evidence, as I will show. David C. Jolley, of Brookline, Massachusetts, who publishes an annual handbook for the rare map trade, has raised questions regarding the validity of the Piri Re'is and Oronteus Fineus maps of Antarctica in The Skeptical Inquirer. (21) His article is, I believe, an accurate analysis of a belief system, rather than of a scholarly or evidential system, and is typical of too many establishment paladins of the status quo. To begin with, Jolley omits from his discussion of the maps any of the facts brought out above. He never mentions that professional cartographers from the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office, who examined and analyzed the maps, concluded that the Piri Re'is map, which shows the Palmer Peninsula and Queen Maud Land, is an accurate depiction of these land areas. Jolley has also left out of his discussion the Norwegian-British-Swedish Expedition to Antarctica, headed by John Viers, that made a seismic study of these regions and proved not only that the topography of the Piri Re'is map was accurate, but that, in some cases, it was even more accurate than the modern maps of the same areas and that this information was also attested to by the cartographers of the United States Navy. He further omits from his discussion of the Oronteus Fineus map that the cartographers of the Cartographic Section of the Strategic Air Command, U.S. Air Force, wrote, after examination and analysis of this chart, It is our opinion that the accuracy of the cartographic features shown in the Oronteus Fineus map (1531) suggest(s) beyond a doubt that it was compiled from source maps of Antarctica, but in this case the entire continent [and] we are convinced that the findings made by you [Hapgood] and your associates are valid. (22) Jolley also does not discuss the fact that these cartographers based their conclusion of the accuracy of the Oronteus Fineus map "further supported by the International Geophysical Year teams in their measurements of the subglacial topography." (23) Nor does he discuss the finding by Jack Hough that cores from the Ross Sea indicate that Antarctica had no ice cover between 15,000 and 6,000 years ago, the climate was warm enough for this type of algae to grow. This evidence was introduced to bring forth a response based on evidence and not belief regarding the accuracy of these maps. As Jolley stated, "Within my own experience fresh ideas, supported by evidence, have always been welcome." (24) (Emphasis added.) Since there has been no discussion by Jolley of the work by Mallery and Victor regarding the accuracy of the Zeno Map of Greenland, I welcome evidence from anyone who responds, asking that all the evidence be dealt with so that nothing is left out and to allow only the evidence to speak for the truth of the validity of these maps.
_References
1. C. Leroy Ellenberger, "Still Facing Many Problems (Part I),"

38B. Old World Maps - - A Response to Charles Ginenthal [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 2 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents Old World Maps - - A Response to Charles Ginenthal Norman Schwarz
_ABSTRACT
_Charles Ginenthal's article, "Common Sense About Ancient Maps", in Vol. 1, No. 2 of The Velikovskian adduced evidence that various Renaissance and earlier world maps were really the product of an old, but historical civilization that went back to a time before the present polar ice reformed. He issued a challenge to anyone who could present evidence of the validity of these old maps. This essay answers his challenge using only specific information from reputable scholars, scientifically measured data, primary arithmetic and the maps themselves.
_OLD WORLD MAPS
_Charles Ginenthal, publisher of The Velikovskian, published "Common Sense About Ancient Maps" (1) in Volume I, Number 2. In his article, he refers to "The Zeno Maps of the North," published in 1558, the Piri Re'is map compiled in 1513, and the Oronteus Finaeus map published in 1532. He also gives the analysis of the Piri Re'is map by Charles Hapgood in his Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. Zeno's maps show an unglaciated Greenland and the Piri Re'is map shows an unglaciated Antarctica. Hapgood subtitled his book "Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age" and Ginenthal says that Antarctica was ice-free in historical times. The United States Air Force and Navy mapping services agreed that, if the ice were removed, Greenland and Antarctica would look much like it is shown on these old maps. Mr. Ginenthal concludes his article with a challenge to bring forth evidence regarding the accuracy (and, presumably, the source) of these ancient maps. I accept his challenge. Charles Hapgood presented clear evidence of three former north poles before our present one at 90 N. (2) Moving back from the present, they are: A) Hudson Bay (60 N, 83 W), B) Greenland Sea (73 N, 10 E) and C) Yukon (63 N, 135 W). In an earlier essay, I offered geographic evidence for two more former north poles to go along with the Hapgood list. (3) Including these poles, the list would be: A) Hudson Bay (63 N, 83 W), D) Off N.E. Brazil (0, 37.72 W), X) Siberia (55.67 N, 52.28 E), B) Greenland Sea (73 N, 10 E) and C) Yukon (63 N, 135 W).
_LONGITUDE
_Most kingdoms considered themselves to be the center of the world; and when the time came for map making, they set themselves in the "center." Nothing could be done about the Equator, it was where it was; but longitude is an abstract matter. The Greeks put their Prime Meridian through Alexandria; the Portuguese through Lisbon; the Spanish through Madrid; the French through Paris and the English through Greenwich (virtually, London). By the 1800s, the British had control of the world sea lanes. Their Admiralty Charts were the finest and their Prime Meridian was (and is) Greenwich. All the important seagoing nations used British charts, but the French and Spanish did not give up on Paris and Madrid as the Prime Meridians on their (marked up British Admiralty) charts until the end of the 19th century. As for finding longitude, that was a difficult problem. For mariners, it took an accurate, serviceable "sea clock," a chronometer. None was produced until the British offered a £20,000 (about $1,000,000 now) prize for one. The winning chronometer was selected in 1762. On land, however, a skillful and patient astronomer could use the Moon as a clock to determine longitude. A concomitant mapping problem was the length of one degree. Researchers into ancient history have shown that the Babylonians correctly measured the length of one degree of longitude millennium before the chronometer was invented. (4)
_THE ANCIENT CENTER OF LONGITUDE
_Hapgood illustrates many old maps. The World Map of Ptolemy has its 90 longitude line through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula. (5) Ninety degrees west of this line is the present 38 west longitude which was used, in the Papal Bull Inter Caetera of May 4, 1493, to delimit the Spanish and Portuguese division of the Earth. (6) Christopher Columbus returned to Spain on March 15, 1493, so the principals to the agreement (Portugal, Spain, the Vatican) had only seven weeks to arrive at an understanding. They must have had a reliable map of the world (at least the 180 degrees from Brazil to Japan) that everyone trusted. And if they started to negotiate before Columbus got back, the point is even more valid. The 90 meridian is at the same place (through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula), though the degree numbering has been reversed on the Robert Thorne map of 1525. (7) The Bordone map of 1528 indicates this same meridian of longitude, in the center of the figure, at the diagonal crossing. (8) The center line of the Oronteus Finaeus map of 1532 is the same meridian through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula. (9) Mercator's World Map of 1538 shows this same line as the horizontal division of the two hemispheres. (10) One of the more amazing indications of this meridian (through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula) is on the Reimal map, where it is identified as the "Prime Meridian of [the?] Portuguese Map." (11) If true Christians had made these maps (originally), the center (Prime Meridian) would have been through Rome, like on the Ben Zara map of 1487. (12) If Jews had made them, the Prime Meridian would have been through Jerusalem; and if Moslems had made them, the Prime Meridian would have been through either Mecca or Medina. As they stand, the Prime Meridian goes through the Indian Ocean and 90 W is through the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
_FIRST POINT OF ARIES
_Spring, in the northern hemisphere, starts, by definition, at the beginning of the Vernal Equinox - - which is at about March 21st each year. Spring is important because the farmers know when to start the count for the planting season. From antiquity, the beginning of spring has been placed at "the First Point of Aries," meaning the zodiac house of Aries (not the stellar constellation). Each of the zodiac houses is assigned 30 degrees. So, with twelve zodiac houses at 30 degrees each, a complete rotation is 360 degrees. Likewise, one complete [r?]evolution of the zodiac was 25,920 years (13) - - equal to 2,160 years per "house." One of the problems which has deviled ancient and modern astronomers and mathematicians is that the original Babylonian, "First Point of Aries" was, for some reason, not placed at "zero" but at eight degrees (of the 30 degrees) into Aries. (14) (The Precession of the Equinoxes moves the Vernal Equinox point 50.2 inches per year, but the Babylonians used 50 inches per year. So the original "First Point of Aries" is now in Pisces). Nevertheless, spring is still spring; that is, the Vernal Equinox is still the time of equal day and night. The problem is that, for at least 4,000 years, there was no division between astrology and astronomy - - even Copernicus cast horoscopes. Since remote antiquity, star locations were based on measuring from the "First point of Aries" to find a star's longitude (right ascension); the astronomers and astrologers had always measured this way and it has never stopped. But why would the most excellent astronomers of antiquity, whose results were not excelled for 4,000 years, put the First Point at eight degrees and not "zero" degrees of Aries? If the Babylonians had been like the Greeks, Spanish, British, etc., they would have put their Prime Meridian through Babylon; but they did not! For everyone, ever since the time of the Babylonians, the Zero of Longitude was an abstract; for the Babylonians, it was a matter of geography. The Babylonians put their Prime Meridian (call it the First Meridian - - F. M.) through the present North Pole and the location where the gods had resided in the North. That point is North Pole X (NPX), located on our present grid at 56.35 N, 52.28 E. The geodesic through 90 N and 52.28 E is the First Meridian; and this is the reason for the eight degree offset in the "First Point of Aries." This meridian is the 90 degree meridian, the meridian through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula, on the ancient maps enumerated above. F. M. is at 52.28 E; Babylon is at 32.33 N, 44.25 E). The difference in longitude between them is 52.28 - 44.25= 8.03. Their Center of Longitude may have been at 52.28 E, but it was spring in Babylon that counted. By definition, the equinox is the point of intersection of the ecliptic and the celestial equator. When the equinoctial point was at 52.28 E, the Babylonians set their "zodiac clock." The movement of this point is the "Precession of the Equinoxes." A movement of eight degrees corresponds to 576 years (later). So, about 576 years after it was "spring" on the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula, it was "spring" in Babylon - - when the equinoctial point was through the meridian of Babylon.
_THE AGE OF PISCES
_Virgil, the pagan Roman poet, was virtually made a saint by the Catholic Church for his announcement, in 6 B.C., that the Age of Pisces was at hand and that Virgo (the Virgin) was about to come forth. (15) The Age of Pisces is why early Christians considered it appropriate to identify Christ with a fish. The "opening" of the Age of Pisces was said to occur when the Great Conjunction (of Saturn and Jupiter) was near the star Zeta Piscium (Fish) and when "it coincided in longitude with the Vernal Equinox in the year 572 (A.D.) of our era." (16)
_WHEN
_We now have enough information to figure out and check the "when" of the Babylonian First Point of Aries. I will assume that Virgil's announcement of 6 B.C. meant 6 B.C. (But he may have meant shortly thereafter.) For the zodiac Sun to move from Aries to Pisces in 6 B.C. means that 2,160 years before 6 B.C., in 2166 B.C., the Sun moved from Taurus to Aries. Remembering that the "Zero Point" for the start of the Age of Aries is the First Meridian, then the First Point of Aries in Babylon was 576 years later (2166 - 576), in 1590 B.C. Babylon is 8.03 longitude from the F. M. (8= a good approximation) and 8.03 into Aries equals 578.16 years, not the 576 years used previously. This puts the Babylonian First Point of Aries at (2166 - 578), or 1588 B.C. The above quote about the Vernal Equinox of 572 A.D. means that, ignoring the none[non?] zero between A.D. and B.C., 572 years (A.D.) plus 1588 years (B.C.) equals one "hour" of zodiac time (572+ 1588= 2,160 years). However, after the time of the Babylonians (except for the Egyptians), everyone was a bit sloppy about counting years; so, it is all just a close approximation. Another relative check is the fact that, from c. 2050 B.C., the Babylonian year began with the month of Nisan (March-April), sometime near the Vernal Equinox. (17)
_SUMMARY
1. Six old maps have been presented which show a readily identifiable meridian (52 E) that passes through the eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula. One of the maps even calls it the "Prime Meridian of [the? Portuguese Map."
2. Ninety degrees west of the "Prime Meridian of [the?] Portuguese Map" is the 38 W meridian used, by papal authority, in 1493 to delineate Spanish world claims from Portuguese world claims.
3. The First Point of Aries, from which the longitude of stars are measured, and which at some time represented the Spring Equinox, is eight degrees into Aries and not at the Aries "Zero Point." The reason for the eight degree offset is that the time set by the Babylonians for the beginning of the Age of Aries is when the Vernal Equinox was at longitude 52 E - - at about 2166 B.C. However, the Babylonian astronomers worked at Babylon, and not at 52 E. They established their epoch for right ascension measurements at Babylon, eight degrees (576 years) into the Age of Aries.
_CONCLUSION
_The ancient maps of the sea kings really are ancient. They go so far back that no one really understands just how far back that is. Their use of the First Meridian shows that the maps were copied from Babylonian or, perhaps, Sumerian originals - - maybe from the predecessors of the Sumerians.
_NOTES
_A. Hapgood stresses that the maps are really old and says that they represent evidence of a united world culture in remote antiquity. (18) In another essay, I offer proof of his assertion by showing that there was an ancient worldwide system of measures used around the Mediterranean Sea, in the Near East, China, Japan, the Americas and Western Europe. (19)
_B. Using eclipse data as a reference point for Babylonian chronology has not worked. The zodiac "clock" setting of 2166 B.C. for the change from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries "spring" along 52.28 E is an explicitly astronomical event. This could be the reference line for Babylonian Chronology.
_References
1. Charles Ginenthal, "Common Sense About Ancient Maps," The Velikovskian 1: 2 (1993): 7-17.
2. Charles H. Hapgood (A), The Path of the Pole (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1970), pp. 94, 106, 160. 3. Norman Schwarz, "Arcana Mundi - - The Great Circles

38C. Analysis Of Old World Maps [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 2 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents Analysis Of Old World Maps Charles Ginenthal
_In "Old World Maps - - A Response to Charles Ginenthal," Norman Schwarz's critique of my article, "Common Sense About Ancient Maps" (1) he contends that the longitude of the Oronteus Finaeus map of 1532 is the same as that of Ptolemy's World Map; the Papal Bull Inter Caetera of May 4, 1493; Robert Thorne's map of 1525; the Mercator World Map of 1538 and the Reimal Map. Therefore, since each of these maps correlates with the original draft of the Oronteus Finaeus map, showing the Prime Meridian of longitude, one can extrapolate from these agreements as to the time and place of the map's creators and place the original map maker in Mesopotamia of ancient historical time. By further extrapolation, Schwarz calculates to the Vernal Equinox and retrocalculates the precession of the North Pole back to that period and place. Schwarz concludes that these agreements show that there has been no change in either longitude or latitude, as Velikovsky's theory requires, and that his catastrophes cannot be real - - based on these measurements. But no one can know when the map was drawn nor can one say, with certainty, where it originated. This, in itself, casts doubt on the assumption Schwarz makes of the map's time and origin. If the position of the extrapolated Prime Meridian of longitude were correct with respect to the Oronteus Finaeus map, Mr. Schwarz's argument could have had some validity. But it does not. In order to ascertain whether or not these meridians of longitude are truly related to the original map from which Oronteus Finaeus produced his chart, the lines of longitude must converge at the South Pole as found in Oronteus Finaeus' copy of the original. They do not. Charles Hapgood explains: As our study continued, it gradually began to appear [that] the Oronteus Finaeus network of parallels [of] latitude and meridians [of] longitude did not fit the Antarctic as shown on his world map. Apparently a projection had been imposed by him on a source map originally drawn with a very different kind of map grid. How were we to discover the nature of this original network of parallels and meridians? (2) (Emphasis added.) Thus, the original map from which Oronteus Finaeus drew his world chart could not have used the original lines of longitude which Schwarz claims. Hapgood continues: The position of the pole looked quite correct at first glance, as I have mentioned, but as our study and comparison of the old map with modern maps continued, we could see that the map maker had apparently made a mistake of a few degrees in locating the pole. We found what seemed a truer position by measuring across the [Antarctic] continent in several directions and finding the position that would divide all the diameters of the continent in approximately the same ratio as shown on modern maps. This, of course, was an extension of our first measurement [which] showed that the ratios of the longest and shortest traverses on the modern and Oronteus Finaeus map were the same, that is eight to seven. It was only an empirical experiment, but it seemed to give a more satisfactory result in terms of the latitudes and identifiable places. (3) With this adjusted pole as a center, Hapgood began to work with the map. Hapgood also had to be sure that the Antarctic continent was properly oriented with respect to Africa and South America. He states: When we came to the meridians, we had to deal with another problem. It did not seem to us at first that the [Antarctic] continent was properly oriented in relation to the other continents. To get correct longitude readings for our Antarctic coasts on the old map, we naturally had to line it up with the meridians on the modern map of Antarctica that had survived for several millennia; someone could have placed it askew on the world map. We thought it looked as if the continent ought to be rotated about [20] to the East to bring it into a correct relationship with the other continents. We selected, empirically, what looked like a reasonable "Prime Meridian" and then laid out the other meridians at [5] degree intervals, thus constructing our grid. (4) When one rotates Antarctica several degrees about its pole position, all the meridians also rotate with it the same number of degrees. Hence, it is clearly impossible for the original "Prime Meridian" to survive with the same placement. The original map did not contain the lines of longitude Schwarz ascribes to it. The meridians of longitude were inserted after the original source map was drawn and the Antarctic continent was rotated 20. Therefore, the original map cannot be assigned to the place and time that Schwarz indicates nor can any relationship be extrapolated to the spring equinox of ancient Babylon. To do so means to disregard the fundamental map corrections made for accuracy. The difference between the original position of the South Pole on the Oronteus Finaeus map and its true displacement is not small, as Hapgood claims. The full displacement of the South Pole measures close to 552 miles, a location difference of about 8 south of the Atlantic Ocean. Since all the meridians meet at the pole, displacing it 552 miles displaces all the meridians. By rotating the Antarctic continent several degrees and then moving its pole position 552 or so miles, it is impossible to agree with Schwarz's conclusions. Nevertheless, let us imagine that all these disagreements regarding the meridians do not exist. If Babylon and the continents were in their original positions on an Earth with the same 23.5 axial tilt, then Antarctica and Greenland were also in the same position with respect to the Earth's tilt. Antarctica would have been covered by an ice sheet and should have been virtually impossible to map. However, we have maps which have been examined by cartographers and seismologists who proved that the cartographic features and the topographic features are highly accurate. This accuracy would be impossible based on the gradualist conditions that would have to be in force. What critics of these old maps must confront is, Why are they so accurate? Those who ignore this question cannot hope to be taken seriously. They must present clear, straightforward evidence that the maps are inaccurate. For example, this clear, straightforward evidence has not been presented in the Skeptical Inquirer. If the evidence were so readily available, David Jolley, a cartographer, would have presented it. Cartography is his work. Instead, Jolley has kept silent regarding what cartographers and seismologists have shown. These other experts, after careful analysis, claim that the maps are accurate with respect to latitude and longitude, and subglacial topography.
_References
1. Charles Ginenthal, "Common Sense About Ancient Maps," The Velikovskian I: 2 (New York, 1993): 7-17.
2. Charles Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, revised ed. (New York, 1979), pp. 77-74.
3. Ibid., p. 74.
4. Ibid.
\cdrom\pubs\journals\velikov\vol0202\analysis.htm

Carl Sagan And Immanuel Velikovsky [Aeon Journal]
_From: Aeon II:3 (1990) Home¦ Issue Contents Carl Sagan And Immanuel Velikovsky by Charles Ginenthal
_CARL SAGAN AND IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY IS an analysis of a scientific debate respecting the theory of Immanuel Velikovsky held at a symposium under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS in San Francisco in 1974. One of the participants in the debate, Professor Carl Sagan of Cornell University, raised, there and elsewhere, a host of questions and points of severe criticism of Velikovsky's thesis. Charles Ginenthal, the author of this work, has gone into all aspects of this criticism and has exhaustively outlined the evidence with data from the scientific literature. The analysis is devastating: the definitive response to the Sagan-Velikovsky debacle. It debunks in lucid terms, point by point, each and every issue raised. It is sometimes humorous and often scathingly critical. No one who reads this material will have the slightest doubt about the nature of this further chapter in the "Velikovsky Affair. CARL SAGAN AND IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY will be hailed by some

Carl Sagan: A Life by Keay Davidson [Aeon Journal]
... tribute to Davidson's journalistic skills as a reporter. However, the additional 70 pages of appended Notes give insights into the journalist himself and his selection of sources, of which there are indeed hundreds - - some of which may be questionable. Here, for a prime example, he refers to Charles Ginenthal's "vitriolic" 1995 book as "a 448-page tome" on Sagan and Velikovsky, [9 that was printed by a Tempe, Ariz., publishing house that also puts out books on astrology, magic, and voodoo. Ginenthal is thus given a not very subtle "veiled glove" slap, a guilt-by-association impression that the publisher must have had a hand in its writing. Ginenthal, of course, does not appear in the extensive 19-page Bibliography. However, astronomer Donald Goldsmith, the editor of Scientists Confront Velikovsky, does. Meanwhile, any references to counter-critical works, such as Velikovsky and Establishment Science [10 and "Scientists Confront Scientists Who Confront Velikovsky," [11 are notably missing. Further, the author admits that his richest source for

Oberg's Unscientific Method [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 4 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents Oberg's Unscientific Method Charles Ginenthal "Scholars are not expected to take anyone's word on faith."(1) I thank James E. Oberg for taking the time to write a critical reply to "The Moon in Upheaval."(2) His criticism of that work, while very incomplete, unfortunately often turns out to be factually incorrect and is based on carefully evading the evidence produced. His criticism tends to argue three points. They are: to attack the citations presented, while, at the same time, calling them "factually correct"; to attack the lack of mathematical and physical models, which he suggests proves my statements incorrect (he does so without presenting counter mathematics as support to attack the evidence and without presenting counter evidence); to use, repeatedly, the term pseudoscience or its derivatives over and over to cover up the inadequate nature of his own criticism (the final refuge of critics who cannot deal with evidence). Not content with

Discussion & Questions From the Floor [Aeon Journal]
... the rotation rate of the planet, the rotation rate of the satellites, the velocity of the satellite (itself solely determined by orbit diameter and planet mass), the mass of the satellite, the properties of the planet and satellite constituent materials, and the presence of any residual magnetic field from the previous magnetic events. Patten's math model attempts to consider as many of these parameters for which we have data, and attempts to nest in a tight system of logic where data is absent. NEPTUNE A GOOD TEST SPEAKER: CHARLES GINENTHAL - - I wish to thank Mr. Windsor for taking the time from his present busy schedule to submit a criticism of Electro-Gravitic theory. He claims that my "theory would be more persuasive were (certain) discrepancies in logic not present." However, in criticising my hypothesis for the explanation of the generation of electro-magnetic fields in celestial bodies, he is misinformed. He writes, for example: "If planet spin rate and orbit relative to the Sun cause an electromagnetic field..." He raises the same

THE CATACLYSM: Vol. I, No. 1: Contents [Aeon Journal]
... by the author's model. Venus in Ancient Myth and Language Associate Editor of KRONOS, Ev Cochrane, examines a wide range of cometary images attached to the planet Venus. First in a series of articles on the Venus comet in relation to the planet Saturn and the hypothesized polar configuration. Apollo and the Planet Mars Also by Ev Cochrane: The case for reassessing the famous Greek god in view of apparent links to very ancient Martian themes. The Electro-Gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion Following the lead of Ralph Juergens and Earl Milton, Charles Ginenthal outlines a new theory combining electromagnetic repulsion with gravity to account for rotational and orbital variations among celestial bodies. Ginenthal presently teaches science, math and history to the handicapped in New York City. Solar System Studies Retired engineer, Frederick F. Hall, formerly with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, provides a timely excursion through the solar system and beyond, noting many issues of special interest to catastrophists today. Look for more detailed discussion on many of these topics in the months ahead. The Road to Saturn We present excerpts from

The Origin Of The Moon [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 3 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents The Origin Of The Moon Charles Ginenthal
_The origin of the Moon has been an extremely controversial problem among astronomers and geophysicists for a long time. There are, at present, four major theories under consideration by members of the astrophysical community. Each of the four groups of advocates has been attempting to show that the evidence for its position is strongest and that the other concepts are fundamentally unfounded. In this contest of hypotheses, Velikovsky has interpreted the mythology and arrived at the conclusion that the Moon was captured recently by the Earth and set into its present orbit. In "Earth Without a Moon," Velikovsky states: Democritus and Anaxagoras taught that there was a time when the Earth was without the Moon. Aristotle wrote that Arcadia in Greece, before being inhabited by the Hellenes, had a population of Pelasgians, and that these aborigines occupied the land already before there was a Moon in the sky above the Earth; for this reason, they were called Proselenes [people

Electro-gravitic cosmology [SIS Internet Digest]
_From: SIS Internet Digest 2002:1 (Sep 2002) Home¦ Issue Contents Electro-gravitic cosmology Charles Ginenthal Editor of The Velikovskian
_Immanuel Velikovsky's theory that the solar system has been unstable in historical times was based on the assumption that there was an electromagnetic force in celestial space. This follower of Velikovsky has enlarged upon this suggestion and developed a completely new theory of cosmology. The theory does not explain the origin of the Universe. It does not explain the origin of matter, energy or space. To do so requires creation ex nihilo, which requires a miracle. The theory takes as given that matter, energy and space have always existed and are changing form in a Universe that is eternal. The theory is based on the concept of fissioning; it offers that black holes containing masses of millions to hundred of billions of stars spin to instability and eject out of their poles masses that evolve into stars in the arms of spiral barred galaxies. These galaxies evolve to spiral galaxies and then to elliptical galaxies. Ellipticals may congregate in great clusters, such

[COMPARE WITH MATHIS]
39. Is Space A Superconducting Medium? [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 2 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents Is Space A Superconducting Medium? Charles Ginenthal
_An extraordinary experiment was reported in the New York Times regarding superconducting materials and magnets. It is well known that superconducting materials, at extremely low temperatures, repel all magnetic fields. The Times article for September 20, 1988, page C1, describes a "[chip] made of superconducting material, trapped in {a} magnetic field dangling below a magnet. As long as the chip stays cold enough, it will stay suspended." (See Figure 1, below.)
_Figure 1. Magnetic Field Action Based on Temperature
_As one can see, the materials are both attracted to the magnet and, at the same time, repelled by the magnet, and thus remain suspended in air. However, the determining factor as to whether the magnet attracts or repels is the temperature region. In the region where the temperature is extremely cold, the fields between the superconducting materials and the magnet repel one another while the reverse action occurs in the region where the temperature is well above that of the cold region. The questions that suggest themselves are: Do magnetic fields, when they meet in the super-cold environment of space, also repel each other? Is space a superconducting medium? This one is a difficult question to answer without experimental data from space to either confirm my hypothesis or deny it. Nevertheless, there are certain phenomena in space that appear to make this supposition correct. If space is a superconducting medium (by space I mean interplanetary and interstellar space) then all magnetic fields that we know about will repel each other. This, of course, can be observed with all planetary magnetic fields and the field of the Sun. The Sun's magnetic field repels the magnetic fields of all the planets. A further law of planetary motion also indicates that the magnetic fields of all the planets are repelling each other as strongly as possible. Earl Milton described this in KRONOS: Gravitational repulsion is, in theory, unknown. However, if the interaction between the planets (or the satellites) is analized, they move so as to maintain the greatest possible distance between one another, passing closest at the fewest places along their orbit, in such a way that the close points are as far apart as possible.... If only two planets existed, the orbits would likely be exactly commensurable (2 to 1, 3 to 2, or 4 to 3). Because planet 3 upsets the commensurability of 2 to 1, and planet 4 upsets 3 and 2, etc., the nearly commensurable condition found in the solar system persists. In the literature, this commensurability has been described as the Principle of Least Interaction Action (or perhaps the least attraction). A superior description is that the planets REPEL ONE ANOTHER AS STRONGLY AS POSSIBLE. (1) The motion of the subatomic particles, the electrons and protons - - which possess opposite electrical charges, indicates that both behave alike and travel together away from the Sun, although they sometimes also move toward the Sun. In the magnetic field of space, one would expect that electrons would always move in the opposite direction as the protons. Since this is not the case in space, far from the planets, this phenomenon appears to support the view that space is a superconducting medium. Finally, with respect to the Sun, we observe the behavior of solar prominences that arc above the Sun. However, when two solar prominences encounter one another, they violently repel each other. If the temperature above the solar photosphere, where the prominences encounter each other, is cold enough, this may also support the concept being discussed. I have suggested that electromagnetic fields in space, based on Electro-Gravitic theory, always repel. In this small presentation is perhaps a mechanism that - - when tested in space - - will be found to have validity.
_Reference
1. Earl R. Milton, "Saturn and Voyager," KRONOS VI: 3 (Spring 1981): 61. \cdrom

40. Ice Core Evidence [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 4 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents Ice Core Evidence Charles Ginenthal
_The debate over ice core data has spanned many years. I have reexamined the record and analysed the evidence in terms of Velikovsky's scenario. What I have found is that his critics, who have raised this ice core evidence, have based their objections on uniformitarian concepts and have ignored Velikovsky's scenario. In reality, the data supports Velikovsky's catastrophic scenario and contradicts the uniformitarian interpretation completely. In 1977, R. G. A. Dolby sent an article to the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Review (SISR), submitting the view that, if Velikovsky's Venus catastrophe had occurred, then volcanic and cometary materials should appear "visible at the appropriate depth in the cores recently collected" from Greenland and Antarctica. (1) C. Leroy Ellenberger picked up this suggestion and presented the case against Velikovsky's catastrophic scenario in the Fall, 1984, issue of KRONOS. In this piece, Ellenberger explained that snow falling off the Greenland glacier would contain different amounts of oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 because of seasonal variations in temperature. Ice formed from summer snowfalls would be enriched by the heavier oxygen-18 isotope, whereas ice formed from winter snow would be enriched by the lighter oxygen-16 isotope. (2) He also explained how other signals in the ice could be used to determine the validity of Velikovsky's scenario: As a test of Velikovsky's scenario of historical catastrophes, the initial expectation was that the ice would preserve a series of conspicuous dust layers of cometary origin at the proper level. Such dust layers are not in evidence, but other signs of catastrophism could take the place of the missing dust. Extreme acidity peaks are produced by major volcanic eruptions, which inject volcanic acid gases into the stratosphere. These gases travel to high latitudes, being converted to acid en route, and are incorporated in the ice through snowfall. This deposition can be detected either as elevated, specific conductivities measured on melted ice samples or as elevated acidities revealed by an electric current through the solid ice. Every major, known, historically-dated eruption since AD 536 is attested [to] in Greenland ice cores at the correct level....lf, as Velikovsky repeatedly stated, "all volcanoes vomit[ed] lava" at the time of the Exodus..., then unequivocal evidence for such activity would be expected to be found in the Greenland ice cores, but it is not. Volcanic acid fallout in Greenland identified with ancient eruptions in the Velikovskian time frame is comparable in amount to that associated with single, recent volcanic eruptions. This is not what is expected if catastrophes of the magnitude envisioned by Velikovsky actually happened. In fact, according to the Greenland ice cores, major eruptions have been four times more frequent in the past 2000 years.... (3) (Emphasis added.) In the January and July, 1990, issues of Catastrophism and Ancient History (CAH), Sean Mewhinney analysed both viewpoints and attacked Lynn E. Rose, Bernard Newgrosh, Alfred De Grazia, Clark Whelton and me for, among other things, supposedly ignoring the accuracy and strength of the ice core evidence. Mewhinney also claimed that oygen-16 and oygen-18 dominate yearly layers in the ice cores and presented the view that this evidence clearly denied Velikovsky's catastrophic scenario. He also pointed to dust and hydrocarbons missing from the appropriate depths in the ice cores and the weakness or missing signals from volcanic acid at these same depths. Ever since publishing Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, printed in late August, 1990, and distributed in October of that same year, I have stated my belief that ____the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica were created recently - - a belief based on information from ancient maps and the discoveries made by Arlington Mallery and Charles H. Hapgood. (4) I believe that the accuracy of these ancient maps, as confirmed by professional cartographers and by seismic studies carried out by professional seismologists, proves that the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica cannot be as old as Mewhinney and Ellenberger indicate. Furthermore, I entirely disagree with Dolby, Ellenberger and Mewhinney that the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica were built up gradually, prior to Velikovsky's Venus catastrophe, 3,500 years ago. Velikovsky claimed that the icecaps were built up suddenly and catastrophically. Venusian planetary dust and volcanic acid, and Earth dust (distributed by hurricanes with stupendous snowfalls), precipitated over these regions. This is based on what Velikovsky actually wrote. Sea levels fell 20 feet. I believe that parts of the sea floor fell to an even greater depth while inland sections of continents rose. ____Evidence for oceanic, sea-floor subsidence is found for undersea mountains or seamounts, which contain surface materials, such as corals, that are now a kilometre below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean: Exploration of the New England Seamount chain by the research submarine Alvin confirms that some of these peaks, now all a kilometre or more below the surface, were once at or above the surface of the ocean. This undersea mountain chain contains more than 30 major peaks and stretches 1,600 miles southeast from the New England coast. Deep sea dredging has previously brought up Eocene limestone of shallow-water origin from the submerged mountain tops [attributed] to iceberg detritus carried off the continents but the Alvin exploration resulted in the first eye witness accounts of dead coral algae that grows only within 100 meters of the surface. The New England Seamounts have, therefore, either subsided on the order of a kilometre [(3,281 feet) since Eocene times or the sea level has altered drastically. (5) Coral reefs and platforms grow so rapidly that their growth outstrips sea floor spreading, geological subsidence of the sea floor or gradual rises in sea levels. This, then, is the problem. All over the oceans, the record indicated deep coral platforms, suggesting that the sea floor sank or that extraordinary amounts of water were added catastrophically. Wolfgang Schlager concluded that gradualistic processes are inadequate and had suggested that violent methods must have been employed so as to create these drowned coral reefs. (6) He explained that the growth rate of corals is 1,000µm/ yr [micrometers per year], which exceeds any relative rise in sea level caused by long-term processes in the geological record. Newly formed ocean crust subsidence is at a maximum rate of 250µm/ yr, basic subsidence averages 10 to 100µm/ yr and sea level rises, due to increased sea floor spreading to less than 10µm/ yr. (7) In essence, singly or all together, these processes will not drown coral reefs or carbonate platforms. Schlager showed that these formations are found all over the Earth. Thus, in ocean regions, we have evidence that the sea floor sank to great depths. This evidence suggests that the ocean basins dropped by a phenomenon not related to gradualistic processes. It indicates that these coral reefs and carbonate platforms sank rapidly or catastrophically to great depths. From the grand old man of oceanography, Francis P. Shepherd, who has spent 50 years of his life studying submarine canyons, we learned that the immense canyons running off the continental shelf and deep into the oceans from all continents were carved by subaerial water. According to Shepherd, Pleistocene geologists are wrong to deny that many of these canyons were above the ocean surface, were cut by rivers and then sank below the present sea level. (8) Douglas W. Johnson provided this provocative statement supporting Shepherd's conclusions: The most obvious explanation of submarine canyons, offered more than [50] years ago and still regarded by many investigators as the one most probably correct, is that they are normal, young river valleys or gorges carved during higher stands of the continents or a lower stand of sea level and deeply submerged in comparatively recent geologic time. (9) The only reason for rejecting this hypothesis is the catastrophic requirement inherent in lowering these canyons deep below the oceans. Using straightforward geophysical evidence, Johnson then showed how neither turbidity currents, nor land slides, nor submarine spring sapping can account for the creation of these remarkable sea canyons. (10) What Ellenberger and Mewhinney have done is apply uniformitarian theory to a catastrophic scenario. The fundamental evidence negates Ellenberger and Mewhinney's analysis definitively but supports Velikovsky's scenario completely! Rose was greatly taken to task by Ellenberger and Mewhinney for his extremely sceptical views regarding the accuracy of the ice cores. They did this, as I will show, by ignoring fundamental evidence that invalidated their beliefs and assertions. For example, in Part II of "Still Facing Many Problems," Ellenberger claimed that the Milankovich theory for ice ages is definitively supported by Greenland ice cores and disproves Velikovsky's 3,500-year-old date: "Velikovsky's timetable for the last glaciation is decisively disproved by the oxygen isotope profiles in the Greenland icecap, which indicate that the temperatures reached their present general level about 10,000 years ago." (11) If this is so, then other accurate cores which measure the same climate periods of the Milankovich theory should corroborate the ice cores. This is very important with respect to oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 content in other cores. Ellenberger has claimed that there has been "no serious, informed challenge to the modern Milankovich model...." (12) But what has not been discussed, as far as I know, is that there is another crucial and superior core of material which also contains layers of oxygen-16 and oxygen 18. This does not agree with the Milankovich theory as applied to the icecaps or deep sea cores and makes the ice core data unreliable, contrary to what Ellenberger and Mewhinney suggest. According to Richard Monastersky: For the last 15 years, most climate researchers have looked to space for an explanation of the ice ages that have repeatedly gripped our planet in recent geologic times. The established theory, called the Milankovich hypothesis, holds that wiggles and wobbles in Earth's orbit serve as a pacemaker that determines when the planet plunges into a glacial period and when it thaws out of one. But new evidence from a deep crack in the Nevada Desert threatens to overturn the Milankovich theory and replace it with a more down-to-Earth solution. 'We feel that the Milankovich theory is incapable of explaining the climate shift," says Isaac J. Winograd of the [United States] Geological Survey in Reston, [Virginia].... The climate information collected by Winograd's group comes from Devil's Hole.... The fissure is filled with mineral-rich water that has coated the rock walls with layer upon layer of calcite over the last 500,000 years.... By analysing the ratio of two isotopes - - oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 - - at hundreds of spots along the calcite core, Winograd and his colleagues identified changes in the temperature of the atmosphere when rain fell in the Devil's Hole region.... But the Devil's Hole record, with its superior chronology, shows that the timing of specific events in the last 500,000 years does not match the predictions of the Milankovich theory.... (13) In spite of this clear denial of Milankovich, Caesare Emiliani attempted to interpret the Devil's Hole findings in terms of Milankovich but was shown to be wrong by the scientists who had carried out the research. In a letter to Nature, they stated: We are puzzled by the table in the Scientific Correspondence by Emiliani. He rejects the conventionally used terminations (glacial, interglacial transitions) as time markers and focuses on bathythermals (the coldest portions of glacial cycles), which he deems to be sharper and, therefore, more precise time markers. He claims that bathythermals in the Devil's Hole 18 O chronology occur at times when the orbital parameters of [the Earth] obliquity [(axial tilt)] and eccentricity [to the Sun] are both low,... thereby supporting the Milankovich mechanism.... We show [in a table] ... the seven astronomical 'low" events that Emiliani gives.... We were puzzled as to why Emiliani omitted [from his table] two well-defined 'low" events ... and note that they do not correspond to bathythermals in either the Devil's Hole or the marine [deep ocean core] 18 O chronologies. Indeed, the 'low" [or coldest event] occurs during a peak interglacial time [when] it was warmest. We also note that Emiliani's designation of a 'low" event [for] two periods does not [even] fit the earlier stated definition. Also show[n] in the figure are the eight major 18 O minima, denoting times of full glacial climate, found in the Devil's Hole chronology, and the subset of six events that Emiliani gives ... in his table. He did not mention the two Devil's Hole isotope minima [at] the time periods which do not correspond to any astronomical 'low" event. In comparing the astronomical "low" events predicted by the specific definition with the minimal isotope events found in the Devil's Hole chronology, one sees that, although there are four "matches," there are six "non-matches," twice when a bathythermal would be predicted but did not happen and four times when one did occur but not during an astronomical "low" event. (14) What we have encountered are three dating methods, measuring oxygen-16 and oxygen-18, which contradict each other: one in ice layers in Greenland, one in an oceanic deep sea core and one in calcite layers in Nevada. If the measurements at Devil's Hole are correct and are called superior to the deep sea cores, then there is something seriously wrong with the data. Of course, some ad hoc theory will be put forth by establishment theorists to
...
same time, a [2 to 2.5 C] rise in ... the surface water [for] the molluscs to live and of the layer of air nearest [to] the ground ... has been very well demonstrated by a number of independently conducted studies using different methods. The permafrost, which covers the Arctic Basin, greatly deteriorated during the period of its warming. Thus, in the north and northwest of Siberia, the melting reached a depth of [200 to 300 meters]. The mountain glaciers diminished considerably and, in some places, disappeared altogether. How did the climate react to the disappearance of ice in the Arctic Basin? The vegetative zones advanced toward the pole. On the Eurasian continent, this latitudinal shift amounted to [4 to 5] in the west and to [1 to 2] in the east. Some plant species advanced their northern boundaries as much as 1,000 [kilometres]. Forests extended right up to the Barents Coast and the oak linden and filbert reached the shores of the White Sea. The information available warrants the assumption that, on the European continent, the tundra and forest-tundra zones disappeared completely. In the northern part of Asia, plant fossils were found only 80 [kilometres] from Cape Chelyuskin and peat-moss was discovered on Novaya Zemlya. ____In Inner Alaska and the Yukon, the absolute age of the peat deposits is estimated at 5,000 years. Hornwort has been found in deposits 5,400 years old, in northeast Canada, at a latitude of [64 19"N] and longitude [102 4'W]. Now hornwort only extends to latitude [59 14"N], a difference of 350 miles.... ____The culmination of the climate optimum of the Middle Holocene began to fade 4,000 years ago and ____the ice sheet of Arctic Basin began to reappear about 3,000 years ago. (35) (Emphasis added.) Velikovsky also documented warmer climate, up to the last catastrophe he described 2,800 years ago. (36) According to C. E. P. Brooks, the hipsithermal ended in one year with a climate catastrophe: Then came an unusually ... cold winter, the icecap obtained a footing, and perhaps in the course of a single season, covered the greater part of the Arctic Ocean. The result was a sudden great change in the climate of Europe; the conditions of today came in "with the appearance of a catastrophe." The icecap, once formed, kept the winter temperature below the critical point by its own power of persistence. (37) ____Since the Arctic climate, from around 8,000 to 2,800 years ago, was much warmer than at present and underwent a catastrophic end, this means that every summer, if there was an icecap covering Greenland prior to Velikovsky's catastrophe, it had to melt even more strongly, for longer summer periods, starting more to the north than at present, but the amount of the melting occurred during the entire period of Velikovsky's catastrophic scenarios. This precludes that any uncontaminated signal of the climate could be derived from any ice of this period in Greenland. Ice melts for seven to eight weeks at Thule presently. Because it was warmer during this period, both the ice and the snow-firn layer had to have melted much more than at present. In KRONOS, Rose showed that one must drill in a region of little to no summer melting so as to meet acceptable criteria to evaluate climate from ice layers. Rose stated one of the drill site requirements for proper analysis of the climate records: "It had to be at a spot far enough north that there was negligible summer melting." (38) Based on all of the above, there would have been extensive summer melting on the entire Greenland icecap from 8,000 to 2,800 years ago, or during the entire period of Velikovsky's catastrophes, if the icecaps existed. But Ellenberger and Mewhinney are oblivious to this, saying that they will determine climate evidence from ice that experts say should not show extensive summer melting. As Hans Oeschger explained, the Dye 3 ice core exhibited temperature "changes during the Wisconsin [Ice Age], which need further confirmation by measurements on other ice cores to exclude artifacts due to melt layers." (39) (Emphasis added.) This authority on ice cores claims that one must not assume temperature regimes from ice cores that have formed in areas of melt. However, long before the more northern cores were drilled in Greenland, Ellenberger and Mewhinney claimed that they knew the temperatures from cores which Oeschger had said needed confirmation. Therefore, even if the icecap existed before then which I strongly doubt because of the ancient maps, the case presented by Ellenberger and Mewhinney ignores the fundamental evidence of possible melting contamination. Furthermore, since this climatic optimum period encompassed the entire globe, then the same conditions had to pertain to the Antarctic icecap. Now, not only does water percolating through the snow-firn porous layers contaminate the snow and firn with false readings of oxygen-16 and oxygen-18, it also dilutes acids in the snow and firn layers. That is, if acid is introduced from volcanic activity in the northern hemisphere and is incorporated into snow which falls on the icecap, then it must not be diluted with water in order to remove it from its original position in the snow and firn layers. But yearly summer melting may do that, destroy the original acid signal and, maybe, deposit

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41. New Scenarios for Solar System Evolution [SIS Internet Digest]
_From: SIS Internet Digest 1999:2 (Oct 1999) Home¦ Issue Contents New Scenarios for Solar System Evolution
_http://www.unibg.it/convegni/NEW_SCENARIOS/ Conference: New Scenarios for the Solar System Evolution and Consequences in History of Earth and Man, June 1999.
_Milano, Sala Conferenze della Provincia, via Corridoni 16, June 7 and 8 Bergamo, Sala dei Giuristi, Citta' Alta, June 9
_Introduction: This workshop deals with a wide range of scientific topics based upon developments in the research of the last twenty years that cast new light in the recent past of planet Earth and consequently in the ancient history of Homo Sapiens, where the roots are to be found in mythological and religious heritage. Among the important new findings in astronomy are the discovery of the chaoticity of the planetary orbits and the presence of agents that can catastrophically interact with the Earth at time spans that are not too long with the span of presence of Homo Sapiens on the Earth. Some of these questions are presented and discussed by well known specialists in the field. The more general, complex and fascinating scenario of the whole universe evolution is for completeness discussed in both the version presently accepted by the majority of scientists (the big bang scenario) and in possible alternative versions. The session on geology discusses a number of questions associated with the crucial and difficult problem of accurately dating events in the far past but more importantly for the consequences on the dating of the Homo Sapiens history on the Earth (radiocarbon, dendrochronological and radiometrical dating techniques). The problem of climatic variations and glaciations in the late pleistocene and holocene, so important to understand the Homo Sapiens past, is discussed. Two particular topics that have always fascinated man, namely the deluge traditions and the antiquity of the great Giza Sphynx, are discussed from the geologist point of view. The session on anthropology reviews work done by genetists and linguists, that shows a tree of evolution of human presence in the world from a very likely unique original source. Evidence of contacts before Columbus between America and Europe will be discussed. The hypothesis of civilization on Earth well before the third millennium will also be considered. A non standard interpretation will be given of who were the Nephilim and the Annunaki in the biblical and sumerian records. The session on mythologies and religions presents new paradigms that explain the remarkably complex structure of ancient myths and religions, where common and recurrent elements are present. Two alternative proposals for the Atlantis legend are discussed and the seminal role of Immanuel Velikovsky in proposing that catastrophic events of extraterrestrial origin have affected human kind until relatively (about 700 BC) recent times is discussed. The last session The view of institutional religions presents the point of view of the main world religions on the archaic original elements that are to be found at their source. It is believed that the workshop will allow a useful interaction between specialists in different fields and will contribute to a better knowledge of the roots of Homo Sapiens, so intimately woven with the complex history of planet Earth and the Solar System.
_ABSTRACTS
_Alan Alford, Walsall, UK: The Nephilim and the Anunnaki: A New Interpretation of the Biblical and Sumerian Records. In the Biblical account of the Deluge, the Hebrew God Yahweh expressed his indignation that ... 'the Sons of God' were sleeping with the 'daughters of men'. The Bible states that "the Nephilim were in the Earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and had children by them". What is the meaning of this mysterious legend? The Bible provides very few clues, but much can be learned from worldwide legends concerning 'the gods' who came down from Heaven to Earth. In this lecture, Alan F. Alford will explain why he is convinced that the legends of the ancient Near East are based on ____the imagined disintegration of at least two planets in the heavens, which seeded the Earth with their falling meteorites. The main focus of the lecture will be on the religion of ancient Egypt, beginning with ____the meteorite cult of Heliopolis. Alford will argue that ancient Egyptian religion was essentially an 'exploded planet cult', with the Sun and stars acting only as visible symbols for an invisible, ex-planetary 'God'. The rising and setting of the Sun and the stars were thus symbols for the imagined death and rebirth of a planet. The same idea lies behind the legend of the Phoenix-bird, which threw itself down from Heaven into the Earth (the 'Island of Fire'), and was then reborn from its own ashes. Several legends of the Sumerian and Babylonian gods will be cited to demonstrate the broad conceptual similarity between the two primary religions of the ancient Near East. If time allows, reference will also be made to ancient Greek mythology. Finally, the pieces of the puzzle will be assembled to construct a startling new hypothesis for the identity of the Nephilim, and the Hebrew 'God' himself.
_Prof. E. Anati, Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici: Val Camonica, a unique example of a civilization with continuous documentation over 8000 years
_Halton Arp, Max Plank Institute, Garching, Germany: Open Problems in Cosmology (I)
_For of [over?] a century science has believed that the universe was created instantly out of nothing and that this matter is still exploding away from itself in all directions. An enormous edifice of theory has been built upon this assumption but, like an inverted pyramid resting on its apex, it all rests on the assumption that the shifting to the red of the light of faint galaxies means that they are receding from us with speeds that can approach the speed of light. For the last 33 years, however, observational evidence has shown that ____objects of enormously different redshift can be at the same place in space. It is impossible therefore that the redshift can be due to the recession velocity of that region of space. It is necessary therefore to discover what is causing this redshift. I want to show a sample of the observational evidence which makes it so certain that objects of different redshift can be at the same place in space. At the same time this evidence should make it visually clear that quasars with high redshifts are recently born, evolve into young galaxies as their intrinsic redshifts decrease, and finally end up as large galaxies like our own with low redshifts appropriate to our older age. As an illustration of the fundamental changes which transpire if scientists heed
...
of the new continent had to be addressed.
_Giorgio Ferrara, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy: Natural Radionuclides and Geochronology
_Naturally occurring radionuclides are used in Earth Sciences for two fundamental purposes: age determination of rocks and minerals and studies of variation of the isotopic composition of radiogenic nuclides. The methodologies that are in use today allow us to determine ages spanning from the Earth's age to the late Quaternary. During this time a series of events of paramount importance for the history of the Earth took place and the use of isotopic geochronometers can set in a precise chronological scale the most relevant of those events, otherwise impossible to be dated. Biological fossils can be used for the last 700 million years of the Earth History; geochronometers based on radioactive decay act as isotopic fossils and allow the entire history of the Earth to be traced back. The age of the Earth, of the moon and meteorites, the oldest Earth rocks and the primeval forms of life, as well a other fundamental landmarks of the evolution of the planet, can be dated.
_Charles Ginenthal, New York, USA: Immanuel Velikovsky's Theory and Scientific Progress
_Velikovsky is important to the history of science, but will he be important to science itself through his contribution to objective knowledge? My paper will address the question by dealing with the following issues put forward by Velikovsky: (1) Does electromagnetism affect celestial motion for magnetic stars? Calculations based on prevailing theory say this is not possible, but many observations say otherwise. (2) Does electromagnetism affect the rotation curves of spiral galaxies? One astrophysicist suggests it does. (3) Has our solar system been stable since its genesis billions of years ago? New discoveries of other solar systems suggest profound instabilities, and some of the new theoretical concepts arising from recent discoveries either refer us back to Velikovsky or can be extrapolated from his work. (4) Was Mars always in the orbit it now follows, or was it (as Velikovsky suggests) once in an orbit closer to the Sun? This question is fundamental to our understanding of solar system history. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Mars recently had an ocean, rivers and lakes, and their disappearance indicates a radically altered planetary environment. To test the possibility of magnetism's influence on celestial motion, I will outline an appropriate experiment. If that experiment will show an affect of magnetism on orbiting bodies, as Velikovsky suggested, then Velikovsky's contribution to science may be inestimable.
_Dr. Techeng Kong, the 79-th descendent of Confucius, Taiwan: Preconfucian roots of Confucianism
_Prof. R

42. The Solar System and Electro-Gravitic Theory [Aeon Journal]
_From: Aeon I:3 (1988) Home¦ Issue Contents The Solar System and Electro-Gravitic Theory Charles Ginenthal
_If electro-gravitic theory is correct it should, in addition to the celestial phenomena described and delineated in "The Electro-Gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion," also clearly explain the behavior of comets, meteors, asteroids and natural satellites. Can the theory account for the unusual rotational and orbital characteristics of these bodies left unexplained by traditional celestial mechanics? And most importantly, are the explanations of the theory self-consistent and in accord with observational data? We have previously concluded that ____small bodies such as comets, when characterized by relatively large electromagnetic fields, will pursue highly elliptical orbits. It is known that while some comets possess decaying, increasingly circular orbits (as Encke's Comet), others are becoming more elliptical. The noted astronomer Fred L. Whipple, of the Harvard Observatory, has proposed a model to explain these non-gravitational motions, and his explanation has heretofore been generally accepted. Dr. Whipple's jet action view is as follows: The icy nucleus provides a simple explanation for the wayward motion of comets. In the glare of solar radiation the ices evaporate and send out molecules at speeds of several hundred feet per second. The molecules are ejected on the sunny side of the nucleus and generate a jet reaction, a real force, pushing the comet away from the sun. If such a force is to change the period of a comet, however, it must be directed along the path of the comet, either fore or aft. Now suppose the nucleus is rotating. (And we have yet to observe a celestial object that does not rotate to some extent.) The jet will be displaced by the rotation, that is, there will be a delay in the ejection of gas from any point on the surface as it rotates past the point directly facing the sun. If a comet is rotating in the same direction as its motion around the sun, the delayed jet action will have a forward component. The comet will drift outward from the sun in its orbit, and its orbital period will increase. As a result it will show up later than predicted. [Its orbit will become more elliptical. On the other hand, if a comet rotates in a direction opposite the direction of its motion around the sun, the jet action will have a backward component. The comet will 'feel' a drag force, and it will drift slowly towards the sun in its orbit. Its period will be reduced, and it will show up earlier than predicted. [Its orbit will become less elliptical. (1) Only Halley's Comet has thus far been observed closely enough to determine the validity of Dr. Whipple's theory. Halley's Comet is in a retrograde orbit around the Sun. And since Halley's Comet is arriving early it is expected that the comet, moving in a retrograde orbit, will also rotate in a retrograde direction. And this it seems to do. According to Yeomans, writing in the Astronomy Journal, Halley's orbit is becoming shorter and more circular. (2) However, there are insurmountable problems both with the nature of the jets and the comet's rotation. According to Dr. Whipple, the jet emissions should only come from the afternoon side of the nucleus. But the fact of the matter is that the jets were observed coming from discrete fissures from all sides of the comet. In Sky and Telescope we read: "Another major surprise, says Giotto projects scientist Rudegar Reinhardt, was just how strongly discrete jets dominate Halley's outpourings of dust and gas. Models of the comet have assumed that it would release material uniformly from its entire sunlit hemisphere." (3) Apparently what is happening is that the black tar-like crust absorbs solar heat and conducts it all over the surface and into the core of the nucleus. There frozen volatiles melt and then evaporate, causing pressure to be generated. The pressure builds as the comet approaches the sun and at a point it forces the gases and particles to shoot out the openings to which the gases have access. Thus the jets are emitted, as is observed, from all sides of the nucleus of the comet. The highly heated particles in the jets, as they are forced outward, will generate additional heat by friction as they collide with the walls of the fissures. This additional heat will allow the jets to remain strong as they rotate with the nucleus - - Not only is the nucleus big and black but it is also hot. A French-built infrared spectrometer on Vega registered a temperature of about 330 degrees Kelvin (135 Fahrenheit). "What we see is very hot," says investigator Jean-Michael Lamarre, underscoring that the surface of Halley's nucleus is not covered with ice. If that were true Lamarre notes the comet would be at least 80 to 100 colder. (4) The Whipple theory to explain the non gravitational motion of comets by jet propulsion is effectively dead. Thus there must be another force responsible for the non-gravitational behavior of comets. Following the suggestion of Immanuel Velikovsky, we have also proposed that electromagnetism plays a substantial role in celestial mechanics. Since the rocket effect is now considered defunct it is appropriate that the influence of this force be considered! We have already shown how, under our theory, the orbit of a comet can be reduced (as in the case of Encke's Comet). But it needs to be explained how the same electro-gravitic forces can produce increasingly elliptical cometary orbits. According to our theory, Encke's cometary orbit is being reduced and made more circular by the loss of its magnetic particles, which reduces its electromagnetic field strength. But the question arises: Aren't all comets losing the very same type of material as Encke's Comet, and shouldn't their periods also be reduced and their orbits become more circular? The answer is that if all comets were composed of the same material as Encke's, they would all eventually disintegrate and disappear. This, however, is not the case. There are a small number of comets with highly circular orbits that have not disintegrated. These short period comets have many more close approaches to the Sun; therefore, if they were composed of only frozen volatiles and dust, they would not survive to become comets with circular orbits. On the other hand, there are a few comets that have achieved highly circular orbits. Such an outcome requires that the comet, 1) be extremely large, or 2) move in an orbit that keeps it distant from the Sun, or 3) be composed of materials other than frozen volatiles. It is generally accepted that the meteor showers periodically visiting the Earth are the remnants of disintegrated comets. Also, George Wetherill has concluded that the Apollo asteroids, which are on highly elliptical orbits, are really the remains of defunct comets. (5) It is therefore permissible to assume that the nucleus of comets may contain large and small solid objects of highly varied materials. (That is, not all comets are cosmic snowballs). If, for example, certain comets were formed by the fission of a Jovian planet, the debris would come from the various layered strata of its core and mantle. We suggest that the composition of Jupiter and other Jovian planets is so layered with different materials. Therefore, during a fissioning episode, bodies of various composition would be ejected and/or mixed together during the ejection process. Whether such fissioning has actually occurred among the Jovian planets is obviously a separate question, but we note this possibility here because, in our opinion, those comets with increasingly elliptical orbits are composed of a mixture of volatiles, dust and solid bodies of different sizes. If this is true, then evidence should be found in both meteors and Apollo asteroids. Is there any evidence that a comet has disintegrated and left behind a solid magnetic core? Indeed there is. The asteroid Oljato is considered just such a disintegrated comet core. Designated "Asteroid 2201", its orbit is highly elliptical. This asteroid was involved in a surprising way in the Pioneer probe of Venus. C. T. Russel et al. reported that when the magnetic field around Venus was being measured by Pioneer the field strength unexpectedly rose. "Examination of Pioneer Venus observation of the interplanetary magnetic field increases to a peak and then decreases almost symmetrically. The largest of these events lasted almost 10 hours and rose to a peak field strength of over 140 per cent of that of the surrounding magnetic field. It was suggested that the enhancement of the magnetic field was associated with the passage of a comet by Venus." (6) It was then found that Oljato was passing Venus when the measurements of magnetic field were made, and it was concluded that this would account for the bell-shaped curve of the symmetrical rise and fall of the field. Since astronomers had not expected that an asteroid would possess a strong magnetic field as do comets, it was concluded that Oljato is the core of a disintegrated comet. Evidence from the study of meteorites points in the same direction. For example, meteorites have been discovered that also possess strong magnetic fields. In the Philippines, on the island of Luzon, a 1995-pound meteorite was discovered. It was cut across a section which showed 15 large nickle-iron nodules inside but was also made up of crystalline enstatite, olivine and other unidentified minerals. This meteorite is an aerolite, a class which generally contains no metals. However: "A remarkable feature of this meteorite is its multiple magnetic polarity. More than 90 each of positive and negative poles have been located without investigating the undersurface of the stone. Each pole exercises the compass needle much more energetically than the two poles found on many meteorites tested." (7) Our contention is that meteors are the solid components of comets. Since comets are composed of volatiles which contain organic material, our interpretation anticipates that such organic materials would show up in examined meteorites. It is reported that the Orgueil meteorite, a "carbonaceous chondrite fall of 14 May 1864, is of particular interest because of the presence of an organic component which included amino acid... Using Mossbaur spectroscopy we have determined that ____the Orgueil meteorite contains an appreciable fraction of its iron in the supermagnetic state." (8) It is further observed: "This result implies that the supermagnetic iron component was formed during an aqueous phase in the history of the parent body, and that the superparamagnetic component may have served as a catalyst for formation of the organic component." (9) According to Thomas A. Van Flandern, "A. Brecher has shown that the carbonaceous chondrites and ureilites have surprisingly large ancient magnetic-field intensities." (10) Thus meteors of various materials exhibit strong magnetism, with components of organic composition; if they are derived from comets, the comets must also be a conglomeration of magnetic and non magnetic materials. Based on this evidence we suggest that some comets are increasing their period or the eccentricity of their orbit because they possess either several small and highly magnetic components or one large, solid and highly magnetic component in their nuclei responsible for most of the magnetism of the comet. Therefore when the comet's emissions are lost in space, what is lost (besides a small fraction of the comet's magnetic particles and thus its magnetic field strength) is a greater portion of its mass - - more than enough to offset the amount of lost magnetism. The ratio of mass to magnetism is reduced. And electro-gravitic theory holds that when the mass of a body is reduced or its magnetic field strength raised, its orbit will become more elliptical. This we maintain is the process by which comets develop longer orbital periods with greater eccentricities. Hence, electro-gravitic theory can fully explain both the circularization and the elongation of cometary orbits.
_Peizoelectromagnetism
_We have suggested that the production of celestial electromagnetism is caused by piezoelectric and piezomagnetic effect. Atoms under great pressure will tend to organize themselves into a definite pattern with a particular arrangement to offset the pressure. When atoms do so they may form a lattice, that is, a crystal. Certain crystalline structures such as Rochelle salts, when subjected to pressure, will generate electricity and magnetism. (11) One might speculate, therefore, that if matter were ejected from the Jovian core, much of the ejecta might have cooled rapidly in the cold of outer space so that the lattice structure of this material would not break down completely. And if meteors are the remnants of comets, then deformed crystals of this matter should show up in meteors. In the last century it was discovered that ____iron meteorites, when etched with acid, showed remarkable iron crystals called Widmanstatten figures. We are informed that - - Terrestrial iron does not show such patterns when etched. A nickle-iron mixture, when cooled slowly under low pressure from a melt-temperature of about 1600 K, forms large crystals. The point here is that the cooling must be very gradual (about 1 K every million years). But metal conducts heat well, and in cold space, a molten mass of nickle and iron would cool rapidly and not form large crystals. So how would nickle-iron meteorites grow Widmanstatten figures.[?] They need protection from the cold. So it's likely that nickle-iron meteorite material solidified inside small bodies, termed parent meteorite bodies. To allow a cooling of only 1 K every million years, these must have been at least 100 km in diameter. Once formed they would be heated by the radiation decay of short-lived isotopes. When heated to melting, a parent meteorite body differentiates - - the densest material falls to the center, and the least dense froths to the surface. So the object ends up with a core of metals and a cover of rocky material, which cools to form a crust. This insulates the molten metals and allows them to cool slowly. (12) What is difficult to accept is the cooling rate under the given conditions. Small bodies between 300 and 100 km in diameter do not cool uniformly over the required period of time. To cool the iron-nickle core of these 180 - to 60-mile diameter meteorite parent bodies to, say, 300 K there must be a uniform drop in temperature of 1 K per million years for over a billion years. We maintain that bodies of these sizes simply would not cool in the necessary gradual uniform manner. Thus we suggest that these Widmanstatten figures are really the deformed crystals produced by pressure in the cores of large celestial bodies. Upon expulsion as small bodies such as comets they cooled rapidly in space and the crystals, though greatly deformed, are nevertheless preserved. A further problem with the slow growth interpretation of Widmanstatten figures is the necessary age of these meteorite parent bodies, which" ... implies that their parent bodies were among the first solid objects to form in the solar system. So the ages of meteorites should provide a direct indication of the age of the solar system. Meteorites can be dated by using radioactive decay techniques ... such methods give ages very close to 4.6 billion years." (13) Nevertheless, there are iron meteorites with ages younger than the solar system. In Advances in Astronomy and Astrophysics we learn that, "Out of 10,000 known meteorites astronomers have found eight that have a particularly baffling property. A study of their [Widmanstatten] crystals shows that they were molten only 13,000 million [1.3 billion] years ago." (14) These anomalous ages indicate that these crystals were not produced by radioactive decay and gradual cooling. Is there evidence to support our concept of the piezoelectromagnetic nature of celestial bodies? Earthquakes and volcanic activity are well known generators of electric and magnetic phenomena. Therefore a sizable celestial body under similar stress should generate a great deal of electricity. Piezoelectricity is generated when, in a certain type of dipolar crystal, the atoms that form the lattice are broken apart under stress and then rejoin the crystal. Io, the large Galilean satellite of Jupiter, is under enormous tidal stresses, and these stresses produce not only pervasive volcanic activity on its crust but also huge piezoelectric stresses on its core. In "Electro-gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion" we discussed hot planets such as Venus where the internal temperatures are so great as to offset the pressures of the outer layers and inhibit crystal formation. A similar condition must also exist inside Io. Nevertheless, in both bodies there is a sufficiently dense core of material to generate piezoelectric and piezomagnetic energy, albeit of a very weak nature. The only difference is that in Io the electrical energy is conducted to the surface. This electrical energy of Io is readily observed as a torus of half a million amperes of current flowing from Io to Jupiter. (15) However, the tidal stresses of Jupiter on Io is also generating great heat inside this satellite, and Io's internal temperature is gradually rising. This rising temperature is weakening the piezomagnetic lattice and this should show up in the orbit of the body. It has recently been reported that Io is spiraling inward to Jupiter at a rate of about 13 centimeters per year. (16) As its lattice is deformed by the growing temperature, the electromagnetic repulsion between Io and Jupiter is being reduced, and we maintain that this is the cause of its orbital decay. Thomas A. Van Flandern of the U. S. Naval Observatory has measured the recession (spiraling away) of the Moon from Earth. Based on the tidal theory the Moon should spiral away from the gravitational pull of the Earth by about 3 centimeters a

>Proof of A Celestial Counterforce to Gravity [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 3 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents Proof of A Celestial Counterforce to Gravity Charles Ginenthal
_One of the most basic concepts of gravitational theory, as devised by Isaac Newton is that of angular momentum, and, more importantly, the law of conservation of angular momentum. As Carl Sagan stated, "There is one further point about the scientific method that must be made. Not all scientific statements have equal weight. Newtonian dynamics and the laws of conservation of energy and angular momentum have extremely firm footing." (1) The conservation laws required that "[in] a closed [gravitational] system, such as the solar system or an isolated star [system], there is always conservation of [angular] momentum." (2) For example, if one of the planets were to approach another closely, accelerating to escape velocity so as to leave the solar system, it would take gravitational energy away with it - - in this case, angular momentum. The solar system would have less of this energy and would

Scientists, Journalists and Editors As Suppressors [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 1 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents Scientists, Journalists and Editors As Suppressors Charles Ginenthal The Skeptical Inquirer has been in the forefront of debunking nearly everything contrary to the Scientific Establishment's views of what science and pseudoscience are. Immanuel Velikovsky's work is one of the targets. On at least four occasions, the journal has presented highly negative articles against Velikovsky's theory. Years ago, I tried to have a critique published, in this journal, about Carl Sagan's evaluation of Velikovsky's theory. Sagan's evaluation had originally been published in The Humanist. My submitted analysis, which was not published, though very brief, showed that Sagan's statements against Velikovsky's work were thoroughly contradicted by other statements he had made. Evidence showing contradictions inherent in the assertions made by a highly respected member of the scientific community is important information that any honest scientist or journalist would want to publish. One of the fundamental tenets of ethical journalism is that evidence should not be suppressed. Journalists are expected to present all sides in a controversy and not act as

The Moon In Upheaval [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 1 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents The Moon In Upheaval Charles Ginenthal In discussing scientists' discoveries of the Moon, Thomas Gold states, "Much...was built upon conceptual structure, so that it has now become quite hard to distinguish these [theoretical constructs from factual evidence. Reports were written as fact that is pure conjecture [and misrepresentation is a great disservice to lunar science." (1) From the introductory citation, it appears that the evidence derived from lunar exploration cannot be used to support any theory of the Moon's structure, let alone Velikovsky's. However, this is not the case. If the Moon was subjected to great tidal distortions by the close approach of a planetary body as massive as Venus, then clear, straightforward evidence for such a recent event should exist from the center of the Moon to its surface regolith. The number of phenomena pointing to this fact will be outlined below. We will also find that the concepts contrary to this evidence are all subject to "Urey's Law

CHZ and Solar System Stability [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 2 No 2 (1994) Home¦ Issue Contents CHZ and Solar System Stability Charles Ginenthal
_In 1984, C. Leroy Ellenberger raised the issue of the "Continuously Habitable Zone" (CHZ) as an argument against placing the Earth in an orbit closer to the Sun than that of Venus. (1) Ellenberger states: To appreciate the precarious position of the Earth today, it should be borne in mind that, without the atmosphere, the average temperature would be well below the freezing point of water, just as it is on the Moon. If Earth actually was so close to the Sun as 0.7 AU [( Astronomical Units); 70% of its present distance or about 65 million miles instead of about 93 million miles and climate was roughly comparable to now, then the Sun's output would necessarily have to have doubled since that time in order to maintain nearly constant conditions on Earth. Such a drastic change in a star like the Sun is unaccounted for by present theory. (2) According to Ellenberger

Stars, Galaxies and Electro-Gravitic Theory [Aeon Journal]
_From: Aeon I:2 (Feb 1988) Home¦ Issue Contents Stars, Galaxies and Electro-Gravitic Theory Charles Ginenthal
_If electro-gravitic theory is correct it should clearly explain the behavior of stars and galaxies. Because there are unusual phenomena associated with the motions of these bodies which traditional gravitational theory does not fully explain, our theory ought to resolve these problems. And the explanations should be in accord with the theory and the observations. Since the masses and the electromagnetic fields of stars and galaxies are so much greater than those of planets, the observations should support the theory on a larger and grander scale.
_BINARY STARS
_In our introduction of the electro-gravitic theory we discussed binary stars and noted that stars will only form binaries if their attracting gravitational fields can overcome their repelling electromagnetic fields. And, in fact, Sir Arthur Eddington, in the early part of this century, discovered a systematic proportional relationship between binary stars' absolute magnitudes or intrinsic luminosities (their total radiation), and their masses in these systems. Gerard P. Kuiper describes it thus:

>The Electro-gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion [Aeon Journal]
_From: The Cataclysm (Aeon) I:1 (Jan 1988) Home¦ Issue Contents The Electro-gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion Charles Ginenthal
_Albert Einstein to Immanuel Velikovsky: "The scientists make a grave mistake in not studying your book (Worlds in Collision) because of the exceedingly impor-tant material it contains." (1)
_ABSTRACT
_A theory is presented that electromagnetism (as repulsion) and gravitation (as attraction) are the concurrent forces of celestial mechanics. It is demonstrated that this approach can explain: rotation, prograde and retrograde, revolution, conservation of angular momentum, all Keplerian motions, elliptical and circular nature of orbiting bodies, the precession of ellipses, the capture and conversion of bodies from cometary orbits to planetary ones, the internal electromagnetism of celestial bodies, the clustering of stars and galaxies, the nature and formation of binary star systems, and the perihelion advance of Mercury.
_INTRODUCTION
_Since the time of Isaac Newton it has been assumed that gravitational force is the only significant agent in celestial acceleration. Johannes Kepler, using the precise data

>Measurements of the Electromagnetic Properties of "Space" [The Velikovskian]
_From: The Velikovskian Vol 1 No 3 (1993) Home¦ Issue Contents Measurements of the Electromagnetic Properties of "Space" (1) George R. Talbott and Charles Ginenthal
_PROPOSAL SUMMARY
_The electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability of "free space" are handbook values used daily in electrical engineering. Once vacuum permittivity is measured, the associated permeability is fixed and the inverse of the square root of their product is the free space velocity of light. It is commonly assumed that permittivity and permeability in remote space are constant and equal to the laboratory handbook values. It is also commonly believed that both magnetic and electrical field intensities are negligible and unvarying as functions of spatial position, as long as the electromagnetic sensing apparatus is in remote space, far removed from any planetary or other source. It is further assumed that the constant of gravitation, the so-called "proportionality constant," relating gravitational attractive force to the Newtonian product of masses divided by the square of the distance separating the mass centroids, is totally unrelated to electrical quantities such as electrical charge. Since inertial navigation, celestial mechanics and the dramatically successful control of the trajectories of space vehicles do not require the explicit use of any electrical terms, this final assumption appears to be above educated criticism. Our proposal consists of a practical design of measurements and computations, using both electrical engineering and celestial mechanics, to determine whether the above-specified assumptions are valid. The theoretical basis of our proposal comes from several sources, the most important of these being the research of Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in his Fundamental Theory. The practical basis of our proposal will be apparent in the experiments we have designed, which are described with complete working examples. In particular, we specify a detailed, quantitative and fully practical method of measuring shifts in both magnetic field intensity and magnetic permeability, and of distinguishing between these two shifts so that one can know if one or both are occurring as functions of remote space position. The experiment, which uses working computations in celestial mechanics, may be summarized as follows: A highly magnetized

The Surface Of Venus - - "A Newborn Babe" [Aeon Journal]

The Youthful Atmosphere of Venus [Aeon Journal]

The Nature of Venus' Heat [The Velikovskian]

The Flood [The Velikovskian]

- - - - -

[STRATA: SEDIMENT, CLAY, SHALE, FOSSIL]
43. Society News [SIS C&C Workshop]
links with Assyria in the art form of the lions, and Minoan Crete in the representation of surrounding pillars, yet though Minoan-type figures seemed a direct forerunner of Classical Greek art and the Assyrian and other links denoted a first millennium date, the Mycenaean civilisation was assigned a much earlier date due to its links with Egypt at the time of Akhenaten. Mycenae had so obviously been a great and powerful culture on a par with other first millennium BC cultures. To place it earlier was an anachronism. Where was the logic behind accepting artifacts as contemporary with Egypt in one place but as heirlooms in another, such as Israel, where other considerations made the earlier dating difficult to accept? Milton Zysman snatched his audience from their Mediterranean reveries, whorled them round in a comet's tail and deposited them in the Carboniferous Era, 300 million years ago - or was it? Zysman dealt specifically with ____the Cyclothem, the enigmatic outcrop in the Carboniferous in which coal seams are found. ____The many repeated layers of shale, sandstone, clay, coal and limestone defy a uniformitarian explanation and Zysman is of the opinion that even Velikovsky's tidal wave explanation is not enough. The Carboniferous is thought to have been a time of warmth and swamps with luxuriant plant growth turned into coal by slow incursions of the sea over thousands of years. In complete contrast, ____Zysman's coal and all its associated layers is extraterrestrial material, churned in a comet's tail and deposited on Earth at the time of a catastrophic close approach during an ice age. Zysman was intrigued by the fact that ____these coal formations are like layer-cake, with their many repeated layers always in the same order and the total formation found in channels or basins in parts of the world which had been on the fringes of ancient glaciations. They appear to be nothing so much as sedimentary layers and could be considered as mega-varves (varves being the sedimentary layers laid down annually in glacial lakes during the summer melt). ____Cometary material deposited on immense glaciers would also be deposited in distinct sedimentary layers, according to density and seasonal temperature, in basins at the glacier's foot. Instead of repetition of layers, including one coal seam, being the result of thousands of years slow processes, ____Zysman suggests they were formed annually. This would explain the occasional find of whole tree trunks extending vertically through a coal seam, the fossil rootlets of young plants in the clay layer underlying the coal and fossils of species which remain unchanged throughout a period supposed to be of 160 million years duration. Both limestone and coal are orthodoxly regarded as of organic origin, so how does Zysman explain them? The so-called limestone cycle is not apparent today but ____meteors contain calcium oxide which readily hydrates and combines with carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate which would be precipitated in warming summer waters. Coal was a hydrophobic gelatinous material which floated initially, later accumulating minerals and sinking, to stifle the new growth of young seedlings. The entire Carboniferous Era is just the record of one monumental event in Earth's history, an event which has occurred over and over, each time restructuring the Earth's surface, not only physically but chemically, and requiring a simultaneous drastic change in all life forms to be able to adapt to a completely new environment. An animated discussion followed but was curtailed by shortage of time. It was obvious that even for those used to accepting the idea of Velikovsky's massive extra-terrestrial catastrophes, a period of consideration would be needed in order to assimilate these far-reaching theories and give them due appraisal. The Society would like to express our thanks to Milton for coming so far to give us so much to stimulate our thoughts, and also to Bernard and David who, triumphing over various transport catastrophes, arrived to add their invaluable contributions to a truly memorable day. We are only sorry that more of our members were not able to share it with us.
_Jill Abery, November 1988
_1989 AGM Make a note in your diary, the 1989 Annual General Meeting will take place on Saturday April 15th. The venue will be, as last year, the Harlequin Theatre in Redhill, Surreyy. The final arrangements are still being made, but the AGM will be followed by a speaker meeting and refreshments. Ancient History Study Group Mixed fortunes attended the work of the Study Group during 1988. After the excellent March meeting (reported in Workshop 1988:1), David Rohl presented a stimulating talk on 'Early Greek History in the Light of the New Chronology' at David Roth's home in June.

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IRIDIUM

[IR @ DECCAN TRAPS & ANTARCTICA: IRIDIUM, SHALE]
>Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... years between this era and the Mesopotamian connection. Considering extinctions Scientific American July 96, pp. 56-62, New Scientist 3.8.96, p. 14, 9.11.96, p. 14, Science Frontiers 104, Mar-Apr 96, p. 6, The Sunday Times 10.11.96 A geological survey of the Yucatan crater thought to be the impact zone of the Cretaceous catastrophe shows it to be at least 125 miles in diameter; __(IR)__in Antarctica a giant bed of bones where millions of fish must have died together was found directly on top of the tell-tale ((__iridium__)) layer. ____The worst mass extinction, however, was at the end of the Permian, when up to 90% of species died. The Scientific American article gives copious details and says recent studies have shown that the extinction was much faster than previously thought and ____widespread black shales indicate terrible conditions in the oceans for a long time after. There is, though, no evidence of a massive impact, although there were massive outpourings of lava in Siberia. It is interesting to note a suggestion that the Yucatan crater is antipodal to the vast outpourings of the Deccan traps in India which occurred at the end of the Cretaceous and there might be a connection. The antipodal point to the Siberian traps lies in the southern Pacific, where the ancient ocean floor and its crater would have disappeared by subduction, but shocked quartz crystals have been found in Antarctica and Australia, possibly indicating a huge impact in that area. The sea level dropped suddenly at the end of the Permian, only to rapidly rise again. Afterwards, life was radically

[DECCAN TRAPS: IRIDIUM]
R1'. Society News [SIS C&C Review]
... of catastrophism via the respectability of impact theories. All theories could be seen as products of their times. After Lyell and Darwin gradualism became so entrenched that even as late as 1993 catastrophism was still considered in some quarters as unscientific, despite there being no hard evidence for gradualism. All the geological evidence for sudden changes was submerged by theories of ice-ages, [R1']____continental drift, earthquakes and volcanism taking place over long periods of time. Ideas of cosmic catastrophism were definitely not for consideration until the big break through of Alvarez and the C-T ((__iridium__)) layer. Even then another school of thought voted for massive endogenous volcanism as indicated by the Deccan traps. Only after evidence was discovered in Yucatan of a crater large enough and from the right time period could it be said that modern catastrophism had truly arrived, although by no means all the establishment accepts the impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, in the course of 14 years books on the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum have drastically changed from declaring that their extinction was not sudden to an impact scenario

[IR @deccan TRAPS: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... suggests, refugees from drought-stricken northern Mesopotamia swamped the civilisation further south. Societies from Greece to Pakistan collapsed at the same time and the effects were probably global. As to what causes such climate flips, one theory suggests that the circulation patterns of the world's oceans might suddenly change whenever large volumes of fresh water enter the northern seas from icebergs or melt water. This stops the flow of warmer water to the north and causes millennia long 'El Nino' events in the southern oceans, thus affecting the entire globe.
_CATASTROPHES
_Deccan traps ((__iridium__)) Geology Today Nov. - Dec. 95, pp. 212-213, New Scientist 23.3.96, p. 17 Some geologists have now found traces of the K-T ((__iridium__)) layer within the vast outpourings of lava known as the __(IR)__Deccan traps. This is interpreted as meaning that the Cretaceous-Tertiary impact, thought to have caused the demise of the dinosaurs, could not have caused the massive volcanism, which must have started earlier. It all depends upon time scale, however. If the lava flows occurred over a matter of weeks and not millions

[DECCAN TRAPS: IRIDIUM]
Forum [SIS C&C Review]
... also serious scientific doubts regarding Clube& Napier's theory. At the risk of emulating Canute, I would still wish to probe these potentially fragile links in the suppositious chain: 1) Clube& Napier use evidence from vulcanism to demonstrate atmospheric cooling caused by stratospheric ejecta; they state that impacts trigger vulcanism (as did Velikovsky) citing in particular the Deccan Traps eruptions at the close of the Cretaceous period. Maclean in America [28 and Courtillot in Europe [29 have suggested that all the K-T boundary effects (notably dinosaur extinction and ((__iridium__)) enhancement) may be accounted for by vulcanism alone; and that, moreover, the hot plume required to generate the volcanic effects is millions of years in the making, necessarily decoupling the Deccan event from any contemporary impact cause. They may be right, or they may be just sitting there with Canute. Similarly, when all the furore over exact dating has died down, it is feasible that Velikovsky's Exodus catastrophe may be, after all, a consequence of the Thera event alone, or of some combination of such events

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
- - - The Impact of Impact(s)! Notes on the implications and the reception of "IMPACT! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids" by Gerrit Verschuur [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Chronology& Catastrophism Review 1997:2 (Apr 1998) Home¦ Issue Contents The Impact of Impact(s)!
_Notes on the implications and the reception of IMPACT! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids by Gerrit Verschuur (Oxford University Press, New York& Oxford, 1996) Reviewed by Benny J Peiser
_The crash of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in the summer of 1994 proved to be a watershed in the development of neo-catastrophism. In retrospect, the flood of publications on the crash and related issues since this multiple impact suggests that we are in the midst of the second phase of a prolonged scientific revolution. The dramatic changes in the understanding and perception of our cosmic environment, initially triggered by the K/T boundary controversy in the early 1980s, appear to have slowly shifted from the geological to the historical time frame. Rather than limiting the debate to the giant million-year events, the focus of many researchers has switched to the smaller but more frequent punctuations in the 1000-years range. During the course of the last decade, most scientists have accepted the idea of global disasters caused by extra-terrestrial bodies. Until fairly recently, this acceptance depended on the assumption that cosmically-induced cataclysms were restricted to primordial times, millions of years before the origins of the human race. This picture has changed significantly in the last few years. As a direct result of the Comet SL9 impact, an almost endless stream of conference proceedings, research papers and new books on 'Near Earth Objects' ('NEOs') and the impact hazard has been published. One of the most noticeable changes from the 1980s (which focused primarily on dinosaurs and mass extinctions in geological time), is the growing interest in and risk assessment of the cosmic threat to civilisation. Moreover, a number of archaeologists, climatologists and planetary geologists have begun to search for possible impact events during the mankind's historical and prehistoric periods. This new recognition of historical catastrophism is the result not only of SL9 crashing on Jupiter but also the consequence of new findings of Holocene impact craters (e.g. in Argentina)
...
It is, therefore, not far-fetched to hypothesise that ____super-Tunguskas (i.e. massive high level explosions and widespread atmospheric and/or oceanic impacts of fireballs over different parts of the globe) are capable of triggering ecological crises on a continental or even global scale and may occur every 2,000, 3,000 or 5,000 years. The foundation of this astronomical hypothesis was developed by Victor Clube and Bill Napier in 1978, two years before Luis Alvarez and his team verified the cosmic origin of the ((__iridium__)) found in the clay layer of the K/T boundary. Since then, a growing number of young astronomers (not to mention older ones such as Sir Fred Hoyle) have come to similar conclusions and loosely form what is known as the British school of 'coherent catastrophism'. These scholars envisage ____trains of cometary debris which repeatedly encounter the Earth, the largest and most dangerous representatives of which may be between one and several hundred metres in diameter. Such bodies, depending on their cometary constitution and hence their cohesive strength, can have catastrophic effects

[IR @gulf: IRIDIUM, FOSSIL]
>The Mystery of Chicxulub Crater [Thunderbolts Website]
_Sep 19, 2006
_In the controversy over what killed the dinosaurs, geologists debated volcanism versus impact. Volcanism couldn't explain the facts as well as impact, which won by default. But impact was little better. An electrical explanation, which fits the facts well, was never considered. That an asteroid struck the Earth and killed off the dinosaurs is now generally accepted. The site of the posited strike is the Chicxulub crater, a circular structure up to 300 km across with multiple concentric rings. Much of it lies under the shallow water off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. This impact would have
...
shocked quartz crystals. ____The spherules and shocked quartz are found as well __(IR)__in formations around the Gulf thought to be debris left by the impact-induced tsunami. The spherules when cut show evidence of being formed by accretion very much like hailstones. It has been hypothesized that they ____formed in the atmosphere from the condensation of carbonate rocks vaporized by the impact. ____Above the spherule bed is a thick layer of jumbled rocks of all sizes in a fine matrix. It contains large boulders, as well as numerous cobbles. Dating of the crater, ((__iridium__)) layer, and tsunami debris corresponds with the dating of the dinosaur extinction and other evidence of ecological catastrophe. The dovetailing of this evidence from several disciplines and the theory explaining it has seemed convincing. But a closer look generates skepticism. ____The distribution of the ((__iridium__)) layer is contrary to the expected drift of a debris cloud. Impacts from various angles have been proposed to try to explain both the crater asymmetry and distribution of ejecta. ____Cores inside the crater reveal Upper Cretaceous fossils in undisturbed layers — fossils of the creatures that the

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Forum Part Two [SIS C&C Review]
... Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and catastrophism. For the first time since the notorious 'Velikovsky Affair' 40 years ago, scientific findings have identified plausible causes of cosmic catastrophes. More importantly, new evidence has led to a radical reduction of time-scales for cosmic disasters. As a result, research has just started to detect cosmic catastrophes in historical times. As long-time participants of catastrophism, we know quite well exactly when neo-catastrophism became fashionable. It started during the early 1980s, when Louis Alvarez and his colleagues discovered anomalously high concentrations of ((__iridium__)) in the clay layer which marks the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary. Since ((__iridium__)) is not found in these extreme concentrations in the Earth's crust it was linked to ((__iridium__))-rich cosmic agents which, subsequently, were made responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. During the last decade mainstream scientists and the obedient public have gradually accepted the idea of global disasters caused by extra-terrestrial bodies. The most important factor for this paradigm shift, however, was the testability of this catastrophe hypothesis. If, as was claimed, a global

[IR @italy: IRIDIUM, FOSSIL]
Pterodactyls in the Mesozoic: A Flap in Time [Aeon Journal]
... exact science, there is enough disagreement among colleagues to keep the arguments going for some while to come. Tieing up Loose Ends Pterodactylus. (Illustration by Bob Giuiliani.) The science of paleontology often goes hand-in-hand with geology to define the periods in which fossils are found. Occasionally, too, chemistry is involved, as when chemist Walter Alvarez and his colleagues at UC Berkeley investigated __(IR)__a thin rock layer near Gubbio, Italy, and, along with his Nobel-laureate father, Luis Alvarez, unexpectedly found what is now called the "((__iridium__))" anomaly in this layer separating the Cretaceous from the Tertiary Periods - - the K-T boundary which demarcated the Great Extinction some 65 million years ago, [9] although some split scholarly hairs and say 66 Mya. (The "K" in K-T, by the way, is from the German Kreide, meaning "chalk.") Iridium is one of the noble metals of the platinum group of elements that is relatively rare in terrestrial deposits, but appears commonly in trace amounts in stony meteorites. This was theorized as

[IR @spain: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT, FOSSIL]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
> ... and microtektites - e.g. by analysis of ocean bed core samples. The field covers at least half the globe and includes N. America, the Caribbean, central Pacific and Indian Oceans. As well as O'Keefe's rather exotic ring system theory, the data provides other scenarios and a possible Velikovskian interpretation too. The visit of a rather large comet to Earth could provide all the necessary requirements to fit these data - the heat and light shield, the source of the tektites, and a solution to the repeated or periodic extinctions.
_IRIDIUM AND OSMIUM - Nature (22/5/80) vol.285 pp. 198-200. In an article "An Extraterrestrial Event at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary" J. Smit and J. Hertogen present results of analysis of ____marls in __(IR)__Caravaca in S.E. Spain. An uninterrupted sequence of sediments showed that the extinction of planktonic foraminifera and nanno-fossils took place abruptly. These fossils disappear within 0-5mm. out of a stratum 10cm. thick (or by uniformitarian calculations within 200 years). Associated with this extinction, the interface shows anomalously high

[IR @antarctica: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
>Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... most scientists have found Velikovsky's theories preposterous ... " but, in the light of the current vogue of the "Alvarez theory" the author clearly feels that Velikovsky's theories are anything but preposterous. And, as G. Ronald Curtis commented to us: "It seems to me that Velikovsky's views are becoming accepted slowly and quietly but unfortunately without acknowledgement to him."
_Great American Interchange
_In Workshop 4:2, p. 23, we reported on an article by F. T. Kyte showing ____anomalously high levels of ((__iridium__)) and gold __(IR)__in Antarctic sediments from 2-3 million years ago. Kyte noted that there was no record of extinctions at this age. Abery had previously pointed out that ____the Great American Interchange (see Workshop 4: 1, pp. 25-32) was taking place at this time, with all the indications that something catastrophic was going on. The Kyte evidence has been interpreted (thus a Science Report in the Times 3.8.81) as the record of ____a meteorite which hit the continent of Antarctica some 2-3 million years ago: how ever

[IR @australia: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... region. Demise of Nemesis? source: NATURE 311, p.635 We reported in WORKSHOP 6:1, pp.3-5 on the theoretical "death star" Nemesis, a postulated companion to our Sun, whose interaction with the Oort cloud of comets might cause periodic havoc in the Solar System. Now NATURE seems to have backed down on the idea. New calculations show that the orbit of Nemesis would not be stable, the cometary orbits do not fit, and the palaeontological record of major extinctions does not show the right periodicity! Another Iridium Extinction source: SCIENCE 226, p.437 Yet another anomalously high concentration of ((__iridium__)) has been found - in sedimentary rocks of __(IR)__the Canning Basin in NW Australia, dated to c.365 Myr ago and coinciding with a major extinction horizon at the boundary between the Frasnian and Famennian ages of the Devonian period. Slow Death for Dinosaurs source: NEW SCIENTIST 20/27.12.84, p.27 The idea that the extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous Period were caused by a sudden, catastrophic single event, and in particular by an asteroid strike, is

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... in the geological stratum. The results of their researches are quite contrary to these expectations. In particular, ____the clays vary considerably from place to place at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and they could find no evidence for an "exotic" mineralogy. Clearly, the theoretical predictions of these workers can be questioned, as they take no account of local factors operating at each site sampled (a favourite argument among geologists). One also suspects that much depends on the researcher's point of view because they fail to account for the now famous ((__iridium__)) anomaly (____plus the other trace elements, like arsenic, etc.), stating that there is too little data to make a conclusive argument for a terrestrial origin for it. Intense terrestrial volcanism, their preferred mechanism to explain the terminal Cretaceous extinctions, certainly is attested in the geological record, but this could be an effect, not a cause. (2) ____A second attack on the "extraterrestrial event" hypothesis is offered by C. B. Officer & C. L. Drake of the Earth Sciences Department

[IR @italy & @denmark: IRIDIUM, CLAY, FOSSIL]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... estimated at 7-10 km. in diameter and would weigh some 13 trillion tons which is "roughly equal to the weight of the Greater London area to a depth of ten miles"( Daily Telegraphs 7/1/80). The impact of such an asteroid would cause material 100 times the mass of the object to be thrown into the sky and the resulting darkness would "suppress photosynthesis, and give rise to the pattern of extinctions observed in the fossil record". Support for this theory comes from the large concentration of ((__iridium__)) __(IR)__in rocks from the Gubbio Valley in Italy and near Copenhagen in Denmark. The concentration is confined to a thin layer of clay and marks a 25-fold increase compared to the limestone rocks above and below. New Scientist, 10/1/80, p. 59 observes: - "Iridium, absent from the earth's crust relative to its abundance in space, is a good indicator of an influx of extra-terrestrial material." This ((__iridium__))-rich layer which resulted from the gradual precipitation of the dust raised by the impact would remain in

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... their conclusion, based on studies of the Pioneer Venus data on the changes in the magnetic field about the planet: furthermore, the comet would have been prograde and inclined to the orbit of Venus, approaching from above the ecliptic plane.
_Terminal Eocene Event? sources: SCIENCE 221, pp.150-52; NEW SCIENTIST 4.8.83, p.345
_We have reported, in previous issues, the evidence suggesting a major catastrophe at the end of the Eocene period: the mass extinction of species of minute organisms, the fields of tektites, and the associated ((__iridium__)) anomaly (see WORKSHOP 3:1, 3:3, 4:2, 5:1 and 5:3). Now this evidence is coming under fire. A team from the U.S. Geological Survey and Stanford University has been making a detailed study of marine sediments from the Eocene and Oligocene periods, circa 42-30 Myrs ago. They claim to have found several layers of micro-tektites, the small glassy spheres thought to be evidence of large scale meteorite impacts, in addition to the major layer found circa 37.5-38

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT, EROSION, FOSSIL]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
closest on the evolutionary scale to mammals. They date from 200 million years ago, or approximately at the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods. "The scientists said the new findings point to a catastrophic extinction right at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary - such as an asteroid hitting the earth - that wiped out more than 40 percent of the land and lake animals of that time." This ready catastrophist explanation for what seems to be a jumble of marine and terrestrial remains is most remarkable. Previously discovered deposits of a mixed marine and terrestrial nature have not been interpreted in this way. Evidence was also found of life surviving the "event": fossil footprints of a very small dinosaur. The postulated agent for the catastrophe is an asteroid, the one which caused the Manicouagan crater, which is some 500 miles northwest of the fossil site. This huge crater is apparently dated to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, some 200 million years ago, and represents the likeliest site associated with a major extinction event. It would be interesting to know if anomalously high concentrations of ((__iridium__)) and other rare earth metals will be found in the fossil deposit, as is the case for the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary "event".
_Sedimentary Evidence
_All at Sea source: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, March 1984, pp.32-44
_The basis for much of the interpretation of the history of the Earth and its oceans is the assumption of marine geologists that sedimentary layers have been built up by a gentle rain of material from above. Organic and inorganic detritus from land erosion is carried out to the edges of continental shelves by rivers and marine currents, and is then thought to settle by gravity. Meanwhile the remains of marine creatures in the surface layers are thought to drift evenly down, the rate depending on the level of bioproduction and being indicative of variables such as world temperatures and carbon dioxide levels. Further additions to these sedimental\ layers may be material blown from land by storms in sub-tropical regions, and ash or dust from volcanic or extra-terrestrial events. All this can be neatly dated using uniformitarian assumptions. The deep currents which are known to flow from the cold polar regions to the equator have little effect upon this scenario, but now scientists have discovered a new and massive disturbing effect. Where these currents are deflected westwards by the Coriolis force (a factor due to Earth's spin), frequent and massive 'storms' in the form of deep-sea eddies scour the floors on the western sides of the ocean basins. Huge amounts of sediment are removed and redeposited in a complex stratigraphy which is much different from its original, sedimentary form. The researchers admit that " ... truly vast areas of ocean bottom are modified by material entrained by deep currents". So how much reliance can we now place on the evidence of deep sea cores? Surely their stratigraphy is open to question, arguments based on depth of sediment are groundless, and interpretations of world temperatures etc are baseless.
_Sirius Mystery sources: DAILY TELEGRAPH 9.12.85: NATURE 318, pp.45-46
_Adrian Berry presents a promising theory, that of W.Schlosser and W.Bergmann, as to why the Dogon tribe of Mali should possess "strangely accurate information about Sirius B. Even though this little star is invisible except through a powerful telescope ... , they know its size, its orbit around Sirius A, and that it is made of super-dense matter." He cites written evidence from ancient sources that Sirius was thought to be red in colour (viz. Horace, Cicero, Seneca), but by the first century B.C. it was described as white, just as it appears today. According to Mr Berry, no star can change its colour like that, but it might be possible that Sirius B was once a red giant and outshone Sirius A, the star we now see as "Sirius". He believes that Sirius B transformed from a red giant to a dense dwarf during the course of four centuries (theoretically "millions of years" are needed for this), that the Dogon have a long memory, and were

[IR @austria ALPS: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... meteorites to have come from Mars because impacts of sufficient energy to accelerate chunks of Martian rock to escape velocity should also vaporise the rocks. Now O'Keefe and Ahrens have used a computer simulation to study the effects of varying the angle of impact of a meteorite upon Mars. At angles of 25 to 60 degrees the meteorite vaporised much rock it impacted with but also formed a powerful jet of hot gas that could pick up other rocks and accelerate them to escape velocity without further damage hence the possibility of a Martian origin for meteorites.
_Iridium Connection sources: NATURE 28.8.86, p.794; THE GUARDIAN 13.9.86
_More on the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary enrichment with rare earth metals, and this time the news is from __(IR)__the Austrian Alps. Boundary clays there are found to be abnormally enriched in ((__iridium__)), chromium, cobalt and nickel; they contain almost no fossils, which indicates rapid deposition; and the clays contain 'fall-out' materials like glass particles indicative of melting, and shocked and deformed quartz particles, indicative of impact events. Ammonite King Rediscovered source: BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 48, 3,

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... over the globe, and thoroughly mixed with terrestrial rocks of that age. It would therefore be in low concentrations - no matter how large the asteroid. But the Danish clays are composed of up to 10% extra-terrestrial material - far too high a value for the asteroid collision theory. Various ideas have been put forward to "rescue" the asteroid theory but none have met with any great success. Kerr wrote also that most palaeontologists would like a gradualist rather than a catastrophist cause for the terminal Cretaceous extinctions: however, the ((__iridium__)) etc is undoubtedly of an extraterrestrial (likely meteoritic) origin. There may be problems with the Alvarez asteroid theory but the evidence behind it does indicate the gradualists have a case to prove.
_NON-GRAVITATIONAL RINGS OF SATURN? - NATURE 4/12/80, p.439-42 As a follow-up to the articles by I.C. Johnson and M. J. Sieff we printed in our last issue, we offer an extract from an article in NATURE giving detailed tables of Saturn's rings, satellites and resonances. "It is clear from Tables

[: IRIDIUM, FOSSIL]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... much laudatory acknowledgement as the new breed of geologist is capable of dreaming up revolutionary new (sic) theories all by himself. It is now happily accepted that events on Earth have been influenced by "impacts of asteroids and meteorites and various galactic, orbital and solar events". It was basically agreed that world biology could be affected by ETs (extraterrestrial objects), and Gene Shoemaker (US Geological Survey) calculated the probabilities of collisions with ETs of varying sizes. The work of Alvarez et al. on the Cretaceous boundary ((__iridium__)) anomaly is still regarded as "convincing evidence" for one such collision. Supernovae were dismissed as "too rare" to be considered (but more recent reports, e.g. NEW SCIENTIST 16.6.83, p. 776, suggest that supernovae occur far more commonly than previously thought), but cosmic dust clouds were accepted. David Raup (University of Chicago) revealed that mathematical studies of the fossil record showed extinction cycles about every 30 Myr, which would relate to the passing of the Solar System through the spiral arms of the

[IR @antarctic OCEAN: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... spherules of only 44 2 million years - very much less than that expected for terminal Cretaceous material. This they explained as being due to loss of argon from the samples: geologists, we were told, would be very much more worried if the radiometric age had been 20 million years older than expected! An article by F. T. Kyte et al appeared in NATURE 30/7/81, p. 417-20, telling of __(IR)__cores from Antarctic ocean sediments. The level representing 2.3 million years ago contained the noble metals ((__iridium__)) (Ir) and gold (Au) in amounts comparable to that of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary - i.e. they are anomalously high. "A sizeable fraction of the noble metals is contained in vesicular, millimetre-sized poly-mineralic grains that closely resemble ablation debris from chondritic meteorites, and there is little doubt that the noble metals resulted from the accretion of a large extra-terrestrial object." They note that there have been no records of extinctions at this age (2.3 Myr ago) and suggest that a search on a wider geographical basis may

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... , gas fumaroles high on a ridge above the sea are naturally permanently alight and are called the Chimaera after the fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology. They were said to be larger and brighter in ancient times and used as navigation signals by sailors. In the Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas is in such abundance that much seeps to the surface naturally. Pre-Columbian peoples used tar for caulking and mariners' tales indicate that perhaps there used to be more than there is now. Although the official line is that it was formed in sedimentary rock from buried organic material, ____the varying and often increasing rates of production indicate that the oil reservoirs below the Gulf are refilling themselves from deep in the Earth. A similar situation seems to be occurring in the Middle East.
_Antarctic attributes
_New Scientist 5.12.98, p. 7, 15.5.99, p. 12 ____One of the world's largest extinct volcanoes may be hidden under the West Antarctic ice sheet. What appears to be a caldera with a diameter of 70 km lies under 3 km of ice and probably blew within the last

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... With the increasing numbers of examples like these how is it possible for geologists to maintain that the depth of any layer is indicative of even decades of slow deposition, let alone the millions they usually attribute to them? Bernard Newgrosh raises again the question of how it can be glibly assumed that the very thick layers necessary to cover a large dinosaur bone can have taken thousands of years to be deposited. We have had reports of dinosaur bones which looked remarkably fresh; patently they had to be catastrophically buried. ____All thick layers of sedimentary rock should really be viewed as possible indicators of rapid and catastrophic deposition. Triple dating secures Australian record Science Frontiers No. 115, Jan-Feb 97, p. 5, Earthwatch Magazine May/June 97, p. 5 Those hugely old dates of up to 175,000 years from the Jinmium site have been queried because ____the thermoluminescence technique used for dating is full of pitfalls. A geochronologist has suggested that they are in fact only 10,000 years old. However another site in Northern Queensland has been assessed by three

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
The Impact of Impact! Notes on the implications and the reception of "IMPACT! The Threat of Comets and Asteroids" by Gerrit Verschuur [SIS C&C Review]
... with devastating effects. It is, therefore, not far-fetched to hypothesise that super-Tunguskas (i.e. massive high level explosions and widespread atmospheric and/or oceanic impacts of fireballs over different parts of the globe) are capable of triggering ecological crises on a continental or even global scale and may occur every 2,000, 3,000 or 5,000 years. The foundation of this astronomical hypothesis was developed by Victor Clube and Bill Napier in 1978, two years before Luis Alvarez and his team verified the cosmic origi of the ((__iridium__)) found in the clay layer of the K/T boundary. Since then, a growing number of young astronomers (not to mention older ones such as Sir Fred Hoyle) have come to similar conclusions and loosely form what is known as the British school of 'coherent catastrophism'. These scholars envisage trains of cometary debris which repeatedly encounter the Earth, the largest and most dangerous representatives of which may be between one and several hundred metres in diameter. Such bodies, depending on their cometary constitution and hence their cohesive strength,

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
The Cosmic Winter by Victor Clube and Bill Napier [SIS C&C Review]
... in II Maccabees are the effects of an auroral display. High altitude 'luminous clouds' are 'sometimes seen at night near the end of June and beginning of July' [87. Other interesting cloud structures in the present century give rise to UFO reports, so uncloudlike they seem. There are also solar and lunar (atmospheric) coronas, haloes, multiple false suns and moons ... sheet lightning, ball lightning ... . h). A particularly good example of this selectivity is in the authors' attitudes to ((__iridium__)) enhancement in sediments, made famous by Alvarez in 1980 as a hint that a huge meteorite caused the Cretacious extinction [88. In this connection, understandably, they minimize the evidence, suggesting that the impact connection 'might be a gigantic red herring' [89. Briefly - though the authors do not explain this - the point is that meteorites and so presumably meteoritic dust contain relatively large amounts of ((__iridium__)) (and certain other elements) compared to crustal rocks. This is presumed to be due to the migration of elements in

[: IRIDIUM, EROSION, CONFORM]
R2. S.I.S. Workshop Volume 6 Number 2 August 1985: Contents [SIS C&C Workshop]
... From: S.I.S. Workshop Volume 6 Number 2 August 1985 Texts Home¦ SIS Workshop Home Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Workshop Volume 6 Number 2 Members' newletter SOCIETY NEWS 1 FOCUS 4 ARTICLES Volcanism and Catastrophic Mythology by Jill Abery 7 Pentecost by James E. Strickling 11 Cosmic Catastrophe in PARADISE LOST by Bernard Newgrosh 13
_FORUM: Questions and Answers on the Chronology of Rohl& James 21 VIEWS IN BRIEF 27 MONITOR:* Thera Theories* Demise of Nemesis?* Another Iridium Extinction* Slow Death for Dinosaurs* Life on Mars?* Volte Face by Gould* Reverse Plate Tectonics?* Oldest Shipwreck* Geological Unconformities* Erosion of Another Geological Dogma?* [R2]____Continental Drift Measured* Frozen Evidence Rocks Kenyan Cradle* New Evidence from Stonehenge* Hapgood Supported* Comet Records* Recent Mammoth Extinction?* Mysterious Mummies* Respectability Does Not Earn Credit* Knock for Natural Selection* Arctic Warmth? 29 LETTERS from George R. Harvey, Derek Shelley-Pearce, C. Leroy Ellenberger, Walter Warshawsky, W. G. Shannon and Edgar A. Ostrander 37 Copyright (

[: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Velikovsky Symposium - Florida, July 12 [SIS Internet Digest]
... Date: Fri 05 Jul 1996 13:32:50 -0600 The amount of physical evidence that any catastrophic comet impact would leave would be enormous. Given the extent that geomorphologists, Quaternary geologists, archaeological geologists, oceanographers, and climatologists have studied the geological record of the last 21,000 years, some unmistakable evidence of such impacts should been found, even if comets were involved. This evidence would include A large crater (to young to have been subducted) Ejecta Layer Impact melts and breccias Tektites, microtektites and impact glasses Iridium anomaly (for a large meteorite) Tsunami deposits (if ocean/ sea impact) Abrupt changes in regional fauna flora (which would be detectable in the Holocene and Late Pleistocene) These types of evidence are discussed by: earth.agu.org/revgeophys/claeys00/claeys00.html When the sky Fell on our heads: Identification and interpretation of impact products in the sedimentary record by Nikos Drakos, CBLU, University of Leeds U.S. National Report to IUGG, 1991-1994, Rev. Geophys. Vol. 33 Suppl.,

[: IRIDIUM, FOSSIL]
>Opening the Floodgates [SIS C&C Workshop]
... considering some of the main impact craters on the Earth's surface, quoting their estimated dates, and then writes about cryptoexplosion structures which may also have been derived from impacts. After this he looks at mass extinction episodes, when according to the fossil record many species became extinct at much the same time, and briefly considers controversies concerning a possible periodicity of extinctions (see C& C Review X, pp. 57-64). He reviews the Alvarez impact hypothesis for the mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous period, looking at ((__iridium__)) anomalies and other evidence, and discusses in some detail the demise of the dinosaurs at this time. Then he considers alternative hypotheses, both catastrophic and gradualistic, which have been advanced to account for mass extinctions. Eventually he finishes as Huggett begins, with a discussion of the confusion over terminology, arguing, "Thus the Lyellian maxim that the present is the key to the past requires qualification. No one questions the proposition that the known natural laws respecting matter and energy must be assumed to have operated in the past.

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
y.On the Disproportion between Geological Time and Historical Time. Part Two - of Earth, Fire and Water [SIS C&C Review]
... was much more mobile, those impacts are also likely to have had geological repercussions world-wide. Nonetheless, in comparison with the cataclysm which left its testimony in the rocks of the Palaeozoic they are scarcely significant, and there is no possibility that orthodox science will recognise that catastrophe. Despite the theory of evolution, a leopard cannot change its spots, and to the extent that it is a priesthood, science will never allow the great antiquity of the Earth to be questioned. The present 'neocatastrophism', which concentrates on the abundance of ((__iridium__)) in a few centimetres of clay at the K-T boundary, is simply uniformitarianism with a new set of blinkers.
_Notes and References
1. Many scientists have considered the possibility that the speed of light may have changed over time (T. Wilkie: in New Scientist 27.10.83, pp. 258-63). In 1931 M. E. J. Gheury de Bray asked: 'If the velocity of light is constant, how is it that, INVARIABLY, new determinations give values which are lower than the last one obtained?.

[IR @worldwide LAYER: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
>Geological Genesis [SIS C&C Workshop]
... polar ice-caps. The remnants of surviving flora and fauna, possibly already undergoing massive mutation due to radiation effects, would explosively adapt to a whole range of entire new conditions. Evidence: The geological boundary between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary periods marks a radical change in conditions on Earth. Massive extinctions of life took place, including entire major groups and an estimated 70% of species total. The boundary is marked physically by __(IR)__a world-wide thin layer of clay which chemical analysis has shown to be considerable enriched in several elements, notably ((__iridium__)), over and above the levels normally found on Earth. The obvious explanation for the presence of the elements is that they were derived from an extra-terrestrial source. Although the extinction of life was massive and general, it is possible to ____discern a few trends in preferential survival. ____In the sea the surface living species, including plankton and the large marine reptiles, suffered more devastation than the deep water species. ____Shallow water marine life, particularly that of the tropical reefs, was also greatly affected, all of which would be

[IR @italy: IRIDIUM, SEDIMENT]
Bookshelf [SIS C&C Review]
... swimming reptiles. Over thirty years ago Velikovsky came to the conclusion that "the revolution which marks the finale of the Cretaceous period was caused by one of the interplanetary contacts". At the recent Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, evidence supporting an extra-terrestrial solution to the mystery was presented by Walter Alvarez of the University of California. Whilst researching into sedimentation rates at a site __(IR)__in Gubbio, Italy, his team discovered that the sedimentary rock marking the boundary of the Cretaceous period contained 25 times the expected quantity of the element ((__iridium__)). The likely source for this element is extraterrestrial, orthodox candidates being meteorites, massive solar flares and supernovae - the last of these being the favourite in recent years, though Stanford Woosely of the Lick Observatory is reported as stating that "the exploding star would have had to be much closer to earth than experts believe is probable" to account for the observed effects. Alvarez also, on the basis of further investigations, stated that it "kinda looks like it's not" a supernova, and that "the mystery is

[: IRIDIUM, CLAY, FOSSIL]
Letters [SIS C&C Workshop]
... scale. How else can we explain countless millions of fossilised bone fragments in billions of tons of chalk? Is this not the work of a giant tidal wave, hundreds if not thousands of feet to its crest, smashing all life in its course? The neo-catastrophist school would have us believe that such an event may have happened once in Earth's history. Their biggest concession is their thinking in regard to the conclusion of the Cretaceous epoch. Alvarez et al. have devoted much effort to the elucidation of the real implications of increased ((__iridium__)) content of a few inches of clay closing the Cretaceous and associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Whipple believes that the impact by an asteroid or large meteor with one of the oceans of Earth may have summoned the demise of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is an implicit conclusion that the hundred or more feet of chalk deposited immediately below the Cretaceous boundary clay arose in a standard uniformitarian manner requiring a supposed time-scale of tens of millions of years. Is not the fracture of so many bones by a colossus of a tsunami the work

[IR @worldwide LAYER: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Geological Genesis [SIS C&C Workshop]
... temperature. The remnants of surviving flora and fauna, possibly already undergoing massive mutation due to radiation effects, would explosively adapt to a whole range of entire new conditions. Observations The geological boundary between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary periods marks a radical change in conditions on Earth. Massive extinctions of life took place, including entire major groups and an estimated 70% of total species [39. The boundary is marked physically by __(IR)__a world-wide thin layer of clay which chemical analysis has shown to be considerably enriched in several elements, notably ((__iridium__)), over and above the levels normally found on Earth. The obvious explanation for the presence of the elements is that they were derived from an extra-terrestrial source [40. The upheaval of the catastrophe caused widespread elimination of many species and the decimation of many lifeforms. The apparent increase in 'gravity' had a disastrous effect on the larger lifeforms, causing the extinction of many surviving species. On land, giant trees, and few animals weighing more than about 2,500 kilograms survived [41. The huge flying reptiles disappeared

[IR @italy APENNINES, DENMARK SEA CLIFF, NEW ZEALAND, CENTRAL PACIFIC OCEAN, NEW MEXICO BASIN: IRIDIUM, CLAY]
Catastrophism and Evolution [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Review Vol VII Part A (1985) Home¦ Issue Contents Catastrophism and Evolution Trevor Palmer
_Dr. Palmer graduated from Cambridge University in 1966 and obtained a Ph.D. from London University in 1973 for research in the field of inborn errors of metabolism. This work stimulated his interest in the origin and evolutionary consequence of genetic mutations. He is the author of Understanding Enzymes (1981) and of over thirty research papers concerned with inherited disorders. Currently, he is Principal Lecturer in Biochemistry at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham.
_Although it remains probable that natural selection is a major evolutionary mechanism, it no longer seems likely that evolution proceeds in an even-paced manner. Species tend to appear rapidly, by geological standards, and may eventually disappear equally abruptly, showing few morphological changes in between. On occasions, mass extinctions of species have taken place, to be followed by the rapid appearances of new species to fill vacant ecological niches. Astronomical evidence suggests that at least some mass extinctions are likely to have resulted from the impacts of comets or asteroids upon
... as did the large sea-reptiles, the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. Here then, if anywhere, the possibility of a catastrophic explanation for mass extinctions has to be considered seriously. In fact, proposed mechanisms for the C-T extinctions have included the impact of a large meteorite [25, of an asteroid of about 10 km diameter [69], or of a comet [24, 67]. Moreover, there is evidence in the C-T boundary clay that an impact with an extra-terrestrial body took place at this time. High concentrations of ((__iridium__)) and other noble metals have been found at the C-T boundary __(IR)__in uplifted marine sedimentary rocks at Gubbio in the Umbrian Apennines of Italy [69], at the Stevns Klint sea cliff in Denmark [69, 70, 71], at Woodside Creek, New Zealand [69] and at Caravaca in Spain [66]. Similar findings have also been made __(IR)__in a core from Deep Sea Drilling Project Leg 62 hole 465A in the Central Pacific [71 and __(IR)__in sedimentary rocks laid down under freshwater swamp conditions in the Raton Basin of New Mexico

[IR @libya CRATER: IRIDIUM]
Libya's Kebira Crater [Thunderbolts Website]
... then explosively hurled outward, solidifying and fracturing into shards, as depicted here. Although the glass is most likely a result of Kebira, the method by which it was created is open to question. 1. The glass is too pure – some of the purest natural silica glass ever found. If the glass shards are tektites (melted slag from volcanoes or meteor impacts), they should include the presence of other minerals. 2. The glass does exhibit small internal bubbles that include other elements. One of those elements is ((__iridium__)), the presence of which indicates an extra-terrestrial origin, according to prevailing theories (see Alvarez, Luis W., et al. "Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction: Experimental Results and Theoretical Interpretation." Science 208 (1980) 1095-1108). However, the glass reveals no evidence of other minerals found in the region, such as halite and alumina. 3. Another area where this type of glass may be found is atomic test sites. If the explosion of a solid object, like a meteor, did

[: IRIDIUM]
>Society News (AGM 2000) [SIS C&C Review]
... catastrophic destruction of London during World War II. Han opened his talk by showing a picture of the classic visual trick of two facial silhouettes which can alternatively be seen as a single wine glass. He suggested that many people suffered from 'paradigm blindness', when they see only the one image and in their confrontations with those who can see the other image forget their notions of fair play. His interest in catastrophism had been rekindled by Alvarez's book about the death of the dinosaurs, in particular the observation that ____in addition to the ((__iridium__)) layer there was a carbon layer, indicating that there had been a catastrophic fire storm. It reminded Han of ____another carbon layer found across northern Europe. Ager had mentioned in his 1973 book The Nature of the Stratigraphic Record that along shores and steepsided valleys in southern England there was a clear carbon layer followed by a snail layer dating from the end of the last Ice Age. Although Ager had suggested that this could be taken as an indication of a universal conflagration, when ____Han tackled him about it, asking if there were

[IR @haiti & 14 GLOBAL SITES: IRIDIUM]
Society News [SIS C&C Workshop]
... the RAS for 150 years. Benny's office is next to that of Mark Bailey, whose article on the Damocles asteroid he had seen, and Mark had told him of the RAS meeting. Dr I. Gilmore (Open University) spoke on 'Carbon geochemistry of the K/T boundary'. The analysis of 13-14 global sites of this 65 Myr ago event shows 3 destruction layers, varying from 50cm to 9m thick. The bottom layer consists of ejecta, melted glass and shocked minerals; the middle layer is rich in black ((__iridium__)); the top layer is organic dust. __(IR)__In Haiti the thickness is 50m. The carbon content is so huge as to indicate extra-terrestrial origin. Carbon diamonds have been found which must have been caused by impact, or are extra-terrestrial. This suggests a comet or an asteroid (the nucleus of a comet?) and the effects would have included impact craters, tsunamis, mutagenesis, ozone depletion, greenhouse effects etc. Dr M. Wallis and Prof. N.C. Wickramasinghe (Cardiff) spoke on 'The cometary hypothesis of the

[: IRIDIUM]
The Cautious Revolutionary [SIS C&C Review]
... as inherently plausible but rooting strongly against them. For what good is a theory, even a correct theory, that can generate no confirming evidence? The asteroid theory has changed all that." [14 This essay appeared in response to a paper in Science in which Luis Alvarez and some of his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, proposed that the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period has been caused by the impact of an asteroid [15. Further, they produced evidence in the form of high ((__iridium__)) concentrations at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary at several sites. Although ((__iridium__)) is present in cosmic material, it is normally virtually absent from the Earth's crust, presumably because it has accumulated in the molten core. Hence the finding of a relative abundance near the surface is evidence of the fall of cosmic material or of release from the Earth's core by vulcanism. To find a relative abundance in the same layer at sites scattered around the world is evidence of a large impact or of widespread vulcanism. The Alvarez paper suddenly made theories of extraterrestrial

[: IRIDIUM]
The Cosmic Serpent by Victor Clube and Bill Napier [Kronos]
... welcome with open arms, even though it does not endorse all of Velikovsky's ideas. The authors are highly respectable professional astronomers, both working at the Scottish Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, and for years they have been developing an interest in the interaction of the Earth with fragments of cosmic debris, meteors and comets. Their paper in Nature [282 (29 November 1979), pp. 455-459 suggesting that such cosmic encounters could explain the death of the dinosaurs appeared in print before the Alvarez team announced their discovery of the now famous ((__iridium__)) anomaly in strata 65 million years old. Somehow the popular press missed the point that the Alvarez' discovery provided a classic example of a successful scientific prediction - - the ultimate test of any theory. The first half of this book is a comparatively low-key discussion of the Earth's place in the Galaxy, the nature of comets, and the ____possible role of cometary impacts in causing mass extinctions of life on Earth, triggering ice ages, and producing geological changes such as reversals of the Earth's magnetic field. But having established their

[: IRIDIUM]
The Reality of Extinctions [Aeon Journal]
... people; they filled the seas like the spawn of fish ... " This is humanity witnessing Armageddon. This is a near extinction event. Which brings us back to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the suggestion that they left the stage because of a large meteorite impact. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, recent geological work reveals that the connection just does not hold up. Evidence presented at a conference of global catastrophes (GSA Special paper 247) showed that the extinction which included most of the dinosaurs came not at the high ((__iridium__)) horizon which is taken to indicate the meteorite impact, but half a million years before. (7) There was also another extinction event a similar time after that. The high ((__iridium__)) horizon was not associated with extinctions. (8) This is not to deny that large impacts from space are a normal part of Earth history and that one day we might get another really good thump. But not all large impacts need be extinction events. For instance, a respectably sized meteorite, 100 km across, is still only

[: IRIDIUM]
>Letters [SIS C&C Workshop]
... as he adduces new ideas/sources, he reinforces my criticism: Clube and Napier failed to give the best available scientific evidence. Insofar as he disputes my data, he gives relatively obscure sources (not cited in Winter, in any case) more credence than the major works I referred to. Insofar as he disputes my arguments, he often misses their point (e.g.(2) and (3) below) and in places ____his arguments are potentially contrary to the Winter thesis (e.g. in re-emphasising the KT ((__iridium__)) anomaly). Some of his points do, however, open up areas which could have been covered if time and space had allowed. 1) 'Atkinson ... is ignorant of our ancestors' belief ... [that] ____geographical features ... [were] in one-to-one correspondence with features in the celestial vault.' Certainly ____I dispute this geographical notion - take a look at Dendera 'Zodiac' for example: the sky was full of gods. There was, however, a Nile in the sky, ie the

[: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... arose from later rationalisations. Among his reasons for a later invasion are: Late Bronze II and Early Iron I materials are much the same, that no destruction levels can be found dated from shortly before 1200 B.C., and that the Israelites couldn't have been cursed by any king of Moab since there wasn't a Moabite kingdom in the 13th century B.C. It is noted (p.69) that the prophet Balaam, called by the Moabite king to curse the Israelites, lived in the 8th and not the 13th century!
_"THE IRIDIUM CONNECTION" - Scientific American Aug. 80 p.77
_This short piece in the "Science and the Citizen" section mentions the recent rise of catastrophist theories to account for the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and the agents most likely to have caused the catastrophe - supernova or meteorite. The work of Smit& Hertogen and that of Hsu (see WORKSHOP 3:1 p.18-19) are mentioned. To this evidence is added that of Alvarez et al in a review article in Science: deep-sea limestones exposed in Italy, Denmark and New Zealand "

[IR @eocene-OLIGOCENE BOUNDARY, VENEZUELA BASIN, CARIBBEAN SEA BED: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... not considered. Perhaps the advantage of the teeth was offset by the primitive characteristics of the jaw, they surmise. Why then, we wonder, did the lizards survive with primitive jaws and teeth? Terminal Eocene Event source: New Scientist 3.6.82, p. 647 We have reported previously on a ____"terminal Eocene event" in Workshop's 3:3 and 4:2. Now evidence has come to light that __(IR)__the Eocene-Oligocene boundary is not only ____marked with microtektites and the extinction of species but is associated with anomalously high concentrations of ((__iridium__)) - just as at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (see Workshops 3:1, 3:2, 3:4, 4:2, 4:4). R. Ganapathy has investigated the Eocene-Oligocene boundary stratum from a core drilled __(IR)__in the Venezuelan Basin and found high ((__iridium__)) levels. A separate team under Walter Alvarez has found high ((__iridium__)) __(IR)__in similar cores from the Caribbean sea bed. These two sets of results further strengthen the case for an extra-terrestrial cause involving meteorites for the extinctions at the end of the Eocene Period.

[: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... with the excess CO 2 remaining in the atmosphere for 10,000 years. The search for the land site of the impact of the object that might have caused the late Cretaceous extinctions continues. The Des Moines Register tells of a possible candidate near Manson, Iowa, a crater with a diameter of about 22 miles and dating from about 66 million years ago. This is a smaller crater than theoretically expected, but at least it is promising. The site is now being investigated to see if there are "fingerprints" of ((__iridium__)) etc, shocked quartz grains, a melt sheet, and reversed geomagnetic field - criteria which would strongly identify this crater as a causative agent. And if too small to have done the destruction by itself, it could have been one of multiple impacts at that time. Thank You to our Monitor correspondents K. L. Thompson, D. A. Parry, L. J. Mitcham, P. McIlmoyle, B. Liesching, C. O. Jonsson, G. Harvey, C. L. Ellenberger and

[IR @granite: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... some __(IR)__smelly black sludge from the middle of granite! The material consists of magnetite, hydrocarbons and biomarkers almost identical to those found in nearby surface oil seeps. Gold thinks it is evidence for his theory (see Workshop 6:3, p. 21; 1986:2, p. 24; 1987:2, p. 29). The smell is thought to indicate recent bacterial activity and Gold sees a similarity with the sort of bacterial activity found at deep ocean vents. The black stuff also contains high levels of ((__iridium__)): this may be indicative of meteoritic material which may have contributed hydrocarbons to the young Earth. Critics suggest that biological marker molecules 'somehow' leached down the drill hole, but there is also helium present which could only have come from the deep earth.
_Crater hunting source: New Scientist 8.9.88, p. 38
_The Manson structure in Iowa has been put forward as the impact site for the C-T event - it dates at 66 million years. However, this area was only shallow sea at the time and therefore unlikely to

[: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... Scientist 15.1.87, p.19; Daily Mail 23.2.87; Ta Kung Pao (Hong Kong) 12.3.87 The discovery is announced of a 70km diameter impact crater in China. The crater at Duolun, on the border of Hei province and Inner Mongolia, was previously not known to science - so one wonders just how many more there are. It is similar in size and features to Manicouagan crater in Quebec, and dates from 136 Myrs ago, which is the Jurassic/Cretaceous extinction boundary. No high concentrations of the rare earth metals (((__iridium__)) etc) have been found at/near such large craters, so if they were present they must have been vaporised at impact. Double Dawn Explained source: New Scientist 15.1.87, p.21 "Scientists in the US have explained a bizarre reference in an ancient Chinese text to two dawns in one day". They have used a computer program to retrocalculate total eclipses of the Sun, and they reckon that at a place called Zheng on 21 April 899 BC there would have been a total eclipse just after dawn. Following the

[: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... that a large area of south-eastern England, from which much of Roman influence seems to have completely disappeared after their departure in 410, was the strike site of the comet, which he believes was Biela, which was near the Earth in 441. In 1846 Biela's comet split into two, and the two comets showed wild changes in brightness, but after their return in 1852 both comets disappeared, leaving only a meteor shower to indicate their orbit each year as Earth crosses it. Dr Clube thinks his theory would be confirmed if ((__iridium__)) should be found in soil around Dark Age settlements and reminds sceptics of the Tunguska event in 1908. Chaos Reigns source: New Scientist 21.10.89, pp. 42-47 In an overview of the implications of the new science of chaos, Ian Percival shows that the theory touches all disciplines and that the traditional approach of scientists in trying to find simple answers to the world around us with deterministic theories and confident extrapolation cannot no longer be accepted. Newton's laws of motion are the classical example of determinism, in which the future is uniquely

[IR @egypt SAHARA & TUTANKHAMUN TOMB: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... Scientist 10.7.99, pp. 42-45, 7.8.99, supplement p. 11, Scientific American Nov. 98, pp. 36-43, Connecticut Post 7.3.99 Now it is the accepted thing: signs of past catastrophic impacts of bodies from space continue to be found everywhere. __(IR)__In the Egyptian Sahara is an large area scattered with tonnes of the purest natural silica glass ever found. Its melting point is over 500 degrees higher than other glasses and it has been dated to nearly 30 Myrs ago. Some dark inclusions have proved to be high in ((__iridium__)), indicating contact with space material, but there is no sign of an actual impact zone. It has therefore been suggested that a bolide exploded before contact, just as it is thought happened at Tunguska. Whatever the explanation, a tremendous amount of heat must have been produced. The glass was obviously discovered and used by prehistoric people almost 100,000 years ago and a green scarab found __(IR)__in Tutankhamun's tomb has proved to be of the same material, although the site is 700 km into the desert. In southern Australia

[IR @florida OCEAN FLOOR: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
... decades earlier than the destruction of Minoan Crete but the eruption had been shown to be smaller than previously thought. It did not create the present crater but merely enlarged a previous one and any tsunami would have been too small to have done any major damage on Crete.
_C-T event again New Scientist 6.9.97, p. 49, Astronomy Now April 97, p. 3
_ __(IR)__The ocean floor off the coast of Florida has revealed a layer of green glass-like pebbles, which could be impact ejecta, followed by a rusty brown layer containing ((__iridium__)) and then a dead layer with no fossils which is supposed to have lasted for 5000 years (but see under DATING). It is suggested that the impact vaporised millions of tons of sulphur and water, which would have formed a deadly aerosol layer. Tunguska again Channel 4 Equinox, 17.11/97, Science Frontiers No. 111, May-Jun 97, p. 3 Two interesting points came out of a detailed assessment of all that is known about this famous 'impact' event. The blast effects took the form of a

[IR @wales SILURIAN-DEVONIAN BOUNDARY: IRIDIUM]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... to simply theorize or run computer programmes but has gathered together the evidence in a book. Analysis of the age structure of the remains of elephant kills and natural die offs in Africa, compared to similar analysis of the mammoths undoubtedly butchered by Clovis people in North America leads to the conclusion that these people were scavenging natural die offs. 'The rapid spread of the Clovis culture over the hemisphere was not the cause of mammoth extinction but rather more the effect of it.' More impact clues New Scientist 8.8.92, p. 15 An ((__iridium__)) anomaly has been __(IR)__found in Wales at the Silurian-Devonian border, 410 Myrs ago. Microtektites have been found in Belgium at another boundary within the Upper Devonian. Work on the C-T boundary in Montana indicates that although the majority of land animals became extinct, far fewer fresh water animals disappeared. The latter would have survived on organic debris while photosynthesis ceased on land due to impact debris in the atmosphere. The hotter, the brighter New Scientist 13.6.92, p. 16 The hotter the Earth's temperature, the more lightning activity there is

[: IRIDIUM]
International Workshop Tunguska96 [SIS Internet Digest]
... The Tunguska event: what we know today and what we hope to learn soon. W. H. Fast (Tomsk Univ.) G. Longo (Bologna Univ.) The testimony of the surviving Tunguska trees. V. D. Nesvetajlo (Tomsk Univ.) Consequences of the Tunguska catastrophe: dendrochronologic inferences. E. M. Kolesnikov (Moscow Univ.) Chemical and isotopic investigation of peat and spherules from the Tunguska region. R. Rocchia (CFR, CEA/CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France) Search for Iridium and extraterrestrial particles in polar snow and on the Tunguska site. G. V. Andreev (Tomsk Univ.) Tunguska eyewitness recollections of local effects and of worldwide atmospheric effects. Session 2: Comet or asteroid? A comparison between recent American and Russian mathematical models for the Tunguska explosion. Invited talks: Z. Sekanina (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena) Evidence for an asteroidal origin of the Tunguska body. S. S. Grigorian (Russian Academy of Sciences) The cometary nature of the Tunguska meteorite. On the

[IR @siberia TUNGUSKA: IRIDIUM]
Proceedings of the 1997 Tunguska Workshop [SIS Internet Digest]
... Today; V. D. Goldine, Search for the Local Centres of the Tunguska Explosions; V. D. Nesvetajlo, Consequences of the Tunguska Catastrophe: Dendrochronoindication Inferences; E. M. Kolesnikov, N. V. Kolesnikova, T Boettger, Isotopic Anomaly in Peat Nitrogen is a Probable Trace of Acid Rains Caused by 1908 Tunguska Bolide; V. A. Alekseev, New Aspects of the Tunguska Meteorite Problem; Q. L. Huo, P. X. Ma, E. M. Kolesnikov, __(IR)__Discovery of Iridium and Other Element Anomalies Near the 1908 Explosion Site; Z. Sekanina, Evidence for asteroidal origin of the Tunguska object; D. J. Asher and D. I. Steel, On the possible Relation Between the Tunguska Bolide and Comet Encke; S. S. Grigorian, The Cometary Nature of the Tunguska Meteorite. On the Predictive Possibilities of Mathematical Models; J. G. Hills and M. P. Goda, Damage from the impacts of small asteroids; V. P. Korobeinikov, L. V.

[IR @moon: IRIDIUM]
Collision Split Earth, Moon [SIS Internet Digest]
... by the Earth's gravity. Based on information first gathered during the Apollo era, scientists suggested that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized body hit the Earth during its earliest history. "This impact occurred after the Earth's iron core had formed, ejecting rocky, iron-poor material from the outer shell into orbit," Binder explained. "It was this material that collected to form the Moon. "Further analysis of Lunar Prospector data to refine the exact size of the lunar core and the amounts of elements like gold, platinum and ((__iridium__)) __(IR)__in lunar rocks - - all of which are concentrated with metallic iron - - is required," Binder added. "This will do much to pin down for good if the 'giant impact' model of the formation of the Moon is correct, or if the Moon formed in a different manner." The current data come from gravity measurements conducted by Dr. Alex Konopliv of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. His results indicate that the Moon's core radius is between 140 and 280 miles (220 and 450

[: IRIDIUM]
Perilous Planet Earth [SIS Internet Digest]
... evolution; 12. Heretical catastrophists; 13. Atlantis: rational and irrational theories of a 'lost' civilisation; 14. Evolutionary mass extinctions and neocatastrophism; 15. Punctuated equilibrium: a new evolutionary perspective; 16. Human evolution: gradual or punctuational?; Section C. From 1980 to the present day: Catastrophism strikes back: 17. Evolution evolving; 18. Into the new millennium: evolution today; 19. Chaos in the Solar System; 20. Catastrophes on Earth; 21. The death of the dinosaurs: ((__iridium__)) and the K-T extinctions; 22. The continuing K-T debate; 23. Mass extinctions and the course of evolution; Part II. Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth: 24. Extinctions large and small; 25. Cyclic processes and mass extinctions; 26. The uncertain origins of humankind; 27. Ice ages in the Pleistocene epoch; 28. Modern views of Atlantis; 29. Natural catastrophes and the rise and fall of civilisations; 30. Conclusions; References; Index.

[: IRIDIUM]
S.I.S Review Vol. VII PART A: Contents [SIS C&C Review]
... Freud, Stekel and Velikovsky 7 Showers of Glass 8 Forum: Dr Earl Milton: Celestial Dynamics and "Worlds in Collision" 24 Leroy Ellenberger: Wild Motions, Angular Momentum and Other Problems 26 Dr Eva Danelius: An Appendix to my Articles on Hatshepsut and Thutmose III 29 Dr John Bimson: On Dayton and Dating - with a reply by John Dayton 31 Jill Abery: The Domestication of Cattle: Interdisciplinary Evidence for Catastrophism - with a comment from Dr Bernard Newgrosh 33 Briefings: René Gallant: A Pioneer of Modern Catastrophism 3 Iridium and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs 17 Velikovsky and Egyptology 30 Back Issues: Full Listings back cover Back cover Bookshelf: Brian Moore reviews The Cosmic Heretics by Alfred de Grazia 35 Letters: from Eric Crew, Professor Archie Roy and Dr William Stiebing 36 This issue is dedicated to the memory of René Gallant (see pp. 2-3) Cover illustration - Imaginative depiction of an awesome sword-shaped comet seen in 1527: 16th-century English woodcut. Copyright (c) Society for Interdisciplinary Studies 1985 ISSN 0308-3276 Editorial Address: c/o Brian

[: IRIDIUM]
Science News [SIS C&C Workshop]
... a massive object through the Neptunian system caused the disruption". The idea was tested by computer with satisfactory results thus confirming the possibility. Our member, Mr. Fisher, writes: "It is interesting to note that Velikovskian principles are allowed to operate and receive reasonably serious consideration providing they operate afar and do not impinge on our uniformitarian world!" We thank Mr. J. M. John Peet of Guildford for sending us a page from New Scientist dated 7th June 1979 (p.798) concerning a piece titled "An Iridium clue to the dinosaurs' demise". The subject matter concerned will be considered in the next issue of the REVIEW. \cdrom\pubs\journals\workshop\vol0202\08news.htm

[: IRIDIUM]
Focus [SIS C&C Workshop]
... be passed off in the pages of a journal which, not so long ago, referred to the biological speculation of Sheldrake as "a book for burning".(9) Hallam remarks that "as long ago as 1950" increased cosmic radiation was suggested to be a cause of one major extinction, and "a number of other extraterrestrial hypotheses were put forward in the following years". None were taken seriously however, as followers of Velikovsky well know, until publication of the hard facts of the Alvarez work on the ((__iridium__)) enrichment at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. Once catastrophism began to look respectable in the geological and palaeontological disciplines then the astronomers apparently felt free to jump on the bandwagon. But has anything really changed? The now acceptable geological catastrophes are dated in millions of years - not thousands - and the astronomers have repeatedly given free reign to their imaginations in the form of black holes, big bangs and new theories for each new fact. The truth is that ____the astronomical stranglehold on uniformitarian thinking has not relaxed one iota. The resistance

[: IRIDIUM]
S.I.S. Workshop Vol. 3 No. 2 OCTOBER 1980: Contents [SIS C&C Workshop]
... : S.I.S. Workshop Vol. 3 No. 2 OCTOBER 1980 Texts Home¦ SIS Workshop Home Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Workshop Members' newletter Vol. 3 No. 2 OCTOBER 1980 EDITORIAL RUNNING RINGS ROUND THE GIANTS by R. M. Lowery 1 SOME NOTES ON THE REVISED CHRONOLOGY by Lester J. Mitcham 2 EAST IS EAST? by Brian Moore 5 ANKYLOSIS IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF RECONSTRUCTED HISTORY? by Christoph Marx 6 THE FATHER OF THE GODS? by Martin Sieff 8 MONITOR: The Surface of Venus - Chronological Chaos - The Iridium Connection - Primordial Dragon - Moon, Mercury and Comets - Nature Views - Not Scientific? - Bahamian Atlantis Reconsidered - Lizard in Amber - Intellectual Censorship - Jupiter's X-Rays - Relativity Rules, O.K.? 16 SOCIETY NEWS 23 FOCUS: The 'New Scientist' and Velikovsky 27 CONTACT 32 LETTERS: On Circe and Atlantis - On Myth and Logos - More Thoughts on Velikovsky's Reconstruction - Sea Route to Syria - Sagan ... Clutching at Straws - Slipping Shell and Tippe-Tops 33 Copyright (C) 1980 Society for Interdisciplinary Studies THE

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C&C Workshop 1986, Number 2: Contents [SIS C&C Workshop]
... & CATASTROPHISM WORKSHOP 1986, Number 2 SOCIETY NEWS 1 ARTICLES Abraham in Egypt by E.J.Sweeney 3 The Land(s) of Punt by Daniel Kline 7 Rehabilitation of Censorinus by G.W. Oosterhout 11 Computed Planetary Orbits and the Babylonian Observations of Venus by Eric W.Crew 14 MONITOR:* Venus Volcanism?* Santorini and Darkness over Egypt* Halley, Another Surprise* Tilts at Uranus* Unstable Antarctica* Saturn's Recent Rings* "Badly Misdated"* Missing Tectonic Heat?* Magnetic Flipping?* Earthquake Electrics?* Meteorites from Mars* Iridium Connection* Ammonite King Rediscovered* Shell Slipping and Polar Wandering* Gold on Petroleum* Indomitable Maverick* A Catastrophe, 10,000 BC?* Mammoth Extinction 21 BOOKSHELF: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind* Het Ontstaan van Israel: De Geschiedenis van het Oude Testament 26 HORIZONS:* notes on CSIS Seminar 34 LETTERS from, E.J. Sweeney, R. Forshufvud, H. Crosthwaite, G.R. Harvey, L.J. Mitcham, M. Mandelkehr, B. Liesching and J.Abery 38 Copyright

[IR @greenland & ANTARCTICA ICE CORES: IRIDIUM]
The Velikovskian Vol. III. Nos. 2-3 [SIS Internet Digest]
... with hundreds of footnotes. For example, in the field of radiocarbon dating of extinction, research has never dealt with the phenomenon of the Seuss Effect, which introduced so much additional Carbon 12 and 13 to the atmosphere in those ancient times, that all dates pertaining to the extinction, derived by this method, should no longer be accepted. As another example, ice core research carried out __(IR)__in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as in Devil's Hole, Nevada, thoroughly discredits the Milankovitch theory as an explanation of Ice Ages. Iridium and other materials have been found in these ice cores that defy uniformitarian expectations. As Walter Broecker of the Lamont-Doherty Oceanographic Observatory states: "Climate Modelers should start preparing themselves for a world without Milankovitch." Contents 1. The Problem of the Extinction. 2. The Age of Man in America. 3. The Hunting or Blitzkreig Theory. 4. The Climate Hypothesis. 5. Arctic Tundra: Mammoth Steppe or Velikovskian Poleshift? 6. The Environment and Preservation of the Mammoth. 7. Radiocarbon Dating the Extinction.

[IR @s.E. PACIFIC OCEAN PLIOCENE: IRIDIUM]
The Erratic Descent of Man [SIS C&C Review]
... Kyte and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, have recently produced evidence to show that the impact of a large asteroid (at least 0.5 km diameter) occurred at the same time as the drop in temperature 2 Myr ago which seems to have presaged the spread of the ice [123. The impact was into a deep ocean basin in the southeast Pacific, and spread debris over 600 km of ocean floor. Analysis of this debris has indicated that the missile was a low-metal mesosiderite meteorite, not a comet. Iridium abundance anomalies were demonstrated in several deep-sea cores from the region, magnetic stratigraphy giving an age of 2.3 Myr for the impact, unresolvable from the temperature drop as indicated by oxygen isotope ratios. The Late Pliocene ((__iridium__)) concentration in one of the cores was similar to that found in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer [123. Impacts of comparable size also occurred 1.1 Myr ago, producing the 10 km diameter Lake Bosumtwi crater and the Ivory Coast tektites; 0.8 Myr ago, creating the Australasian tektites; and about 0.75 Myr ago producing the

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Catastrophism and the Mammoths - I (Vox Populi) [Kronos]
... and the successors will generate further discussion. What follows is my reply to Messrs. Thompson, Carroll, Ginenthal, and Forshufvud plus an update to the material in the first two parts of "Still Facing.. .". Mr. Thompson raises points regarding cometary impacts, a "universal" flood, Hapgood's polar migrations, and Velikovsky's advance claims. An air blast, such as that at Tunguska in 1908, would not necessarily produce the same kind of signal in the ice caps as volcanism. For example, an ((__iridium__)) peak was found in Antarctic ice at the 1908 level [R. Ganapathy, Science 220, 10 June 1983, pp. 1158-61] and ((__iridium__)) is now being sought in Greenland ice [Ganapathy to Ellenberger, Sept. 17, 1984. The 1000 megaton blasts discussed by Clube and mentioned by Thompson are 83 times more powerful than Tunguska's 12 megatons [A. Chaikin, Sky& Tel., Jan. 1984, pp. 18-21. As a clarification, since the publication of Z. Sekanina's analysis in late 1983,

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Pot Pourri [SIS C&C Review]
... Ware' culture of Cyprus, the 'Early Geometric' culture of Greece, or the 'Villanova' culture of Italy [28. The irresistible force of dendrochronology is still encountering the immovable object of the Dark Age anomalies. Both Baillie and Keys consider the relative likelihood of volcanoes and comets as agents behind the events. Keys dismisses the meteorite option, as the effects of a strike on land or sea would have been visible to contemporaries and to ourselves; on TV (though not in the book) he also noted the absence of ((__iridium__)), adding that ordinary dust raised from a land strike would fall out of the sky too quickly to generate the medium - and longer-term effects. Keys claims a 4-mile diameter comet would be required to generate the inferred effects and only volcanoes can generate 'sufficient sulphuric-acid aerosols, capable of staying aloft and directly changing the weather for several years' [29; he tentatively identifies Krakatoa as the culprit. Baillie, on the other hand, claims that no volcano yet known can produce anything like the required volume of gases to create the

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Origins: Today's Science, Tomorrow's Myth, by James E. Strickling [SIS C&C Review]
... have been put forward as possible mechanisms for catastrophes on Earth. Even more surprisingly, apart from a single paragraph on the Alvarez theory about the late-Cretaceous death of the dinosaurs, there is no acknowledgement of the potential catastrophic effects of asteroid and comet impacts, a topic which has received enormous coverage over the last 15 years. Whilst not all catastrophes could have been caused by these, some undoubtedly were: even today we see asteroids and comets in Earth-threatening orbits and on the surface of the Earth, associated with extraterrestrial materials such as ((__iridium__)), there are impact craters whose formation must have released energy millions of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. Yet, to Strickling, the only alternative to 'The Great Lie' and 'The Great Mistake' is planetary catastrophism, as proposed by Velikovsky on the basis of ancient myths and legends and subsequently developed by himself and others. Readers of the C&C Review will hardly need reminding that in Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky argued that Venus is only a few thousand years old, having been ejected from the core of Jupiter

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>Late Pleistocene Extinctions: No Evidence for Plato's Atlantis [SIS C&C Workshop]
... a series of oval water-filled depressions widespread from Maryland to northern Florida along the Atlantic coastal plain, to be craters caused by the impact of fragments of the asteroid he thought had struck the Atlantic Ocean and destroyed Atlantis [6. Peat from the features has been shown by carbon-14 dating to have originated during the Pleistocene epoch. However, whilst an impact origin remains a possibility, it is generally thought that the 'bays' resulted from the effects of winds on former deserts in that region [7. Perhaps crucially, no microtektite or ((__iridium__)) abundance anomaly has been detected to indicate a major impact at the end of the Pleistocene. Nevertheless, earlier impacts may have set in motion some of the environmental changes then taking place. Fred Hoyle has argued that the impact of a stone meteorite may bring about an ice age, by injecting fine particles of reflective rock into the atmosphere. On the other hand, the impact of an iron meteorite could bring to a close an ice age, since fine particles of iron could absorb sunlight, helping to heat up the upper

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Solar System Studies [Aeon Journal]
... or more. Still fewer go it alone. The Sun appears to be a loner. In recent years it has been postulated that the Sun, after all, may have its partner too, which would necessarily be a very small star, not seen as yet by astronomers. Nemesis is posited to be in an extremely elliptical orbit, approaching the Sun every 26 million years, its last encounter coming about 13 million years ago. This equates to a possible prior visitation 65 million years ago, coinciding with a vast deposition of ((__iridium__)) and a major extinction of biota. Thus, the search for Nemesis is on, and if it is out there, it will be found ... A stronger likelihood, perhaps, is that Nemesis does not exist and will not be found. Nemesis would now be near its aphelion and, over an incredibly long moment arm, should exert a detectable tug on the Sun. No news is no news. But another possibility is also worth considering. If in the past there was a Nemesis and it is no

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A Personal Report on, and Irreverent Look at, the World Conference 'Planetary Violence in Human History' Portland, Oregon, January 3-5, 1997 [SIS C&C Review]
... ; Edmund Halley recanted his link between a comet and the Biblical Flood. He cited a number of books on floods, Bretz's theory of the flood, Ager's The New Catastrophism, Duncan Steel's Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets and said, 'If you want to get money from the government, you've got to create a panic'. He referred to geologist, Derek Ager, who cautions: 'it is too easy to find what one hopes and expects to find' - e.g. an unusual but gradual influx of meteorites may explain the Iridium peak at the K-T boundary just as well as a single large impact. Rand Flem-Ath: 'Atlantis & Earth Crust Displacement'. Flem-Ath said he was the researcher and his wife, Rose, was the writer of the team. Their book sounded like déja vu: a German acquaintance published something identical about ten years ago. Graham Hancock subscribes to the thesis. I would prefer people to talk about a culture in Antarctica and not call it Atlantis, because Atlantis existed in Plato's head alone. If nothing else, Herodotus would

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The Continuing Evolution of Evolution [SIS C&C Review]
... global climate change or asteroid impact - mass extinctions elect as their victims species with characteristics having nothing to do with everyday success or failure." The Natural History of Evolution is divided into four main sections, of which the first three could almost have come from a 1970s book, dealing with life on Earth throughout the ages, evolutionary mechanisms and adaptations, respectively. It is the final section, entitled 'New Perspectives' which is the most interesting. This highlights, albeit in simple fashion, some more recent findings (e.g. ((__iridium__)) anomalies, jumping genes and developmental control genes) which have caused various traditional aspects of evolutionary theory to be brought into question or modified. For example, there has hitherto been great emphasis on gradualism, but Whitfield writes: "The developmental genes can, at a stroke, produce massive potential alterations with enormous adaptive significance. Natural selection can, via these genetic agents, shape the simple buttercup or fashion the dazzling complexities of an orchid." So, although the two coffee-table books show contemporary evolution remaining within a Darwinian framework

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On the Orientation of Ancient Temples and Other Anomalies [Aeon Journal]
... person, or educational foundation, will fund such a study. The paucity of defensible hypotheses points to a glaring deficiency in our current understanding of geological and cosmic phenomena. The scientific community ignores valid observations of physical phenomena at the risk of overlooking something of critical importance in our understanding of the world around us. In recent years the role of extra-terrestrial bodies, from tektites to large meteors, has become recognized as the cause of many earthly phenomena, from a possible source of life (spores arriving from outer space) to the ((__iridium__)) layer that seems to mark the extinction of many life forms. Inasmuch as the data cited here is empirical and no explanation seems possible based on known geologic forces, I am forced to turn to celestial bodies as a possible cause of the results that have been observed. Let us postulate a planetary-sized body that, for some period of time that might be as much as 2000 years, approached the earth periodically. The gravitational, electrical and magnetic forces associated with such fly-bys could speed up the normal movement of tectonic plates,

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Book Shelf [Aeon Journal]
... ), but require some 2-1/2 seconds, as light travels 186,282 miles per second and the Moon averages about 239,000 miles distance from Earth. Also, it's stated that we've yet to find an element in space that we don't already have terrestrially (p. 145), which isn't strictly true since, inter alia, technetium had been discovered in the spectra of certain stars before its relatively short half-life isotopes were artificially prepared in a cyclotron. Technetium hasn't been found naturally occurring on Earth. Moreover, ((__iridium__)) at 22.42 g/cm 3 is not the densest metal known (p. 155). The honor goes to osmium by virtue of its 22.48 g/cm^3 - - admittedly a very minor point. Next, Neil Armstrong was not the astronaut who dropped a feather and hammer on the Moon to demonstrate the Galilean experiment of objects falling at the same rate in a vacuum (p. 346). That experiment was performed by astronaut David Scott during the Apollo 15 lunar landing. Lederman's most serious boo-boo comes with

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Ice Cores and Common Sense (Part II) [Catastrophism & Ancient History Journal]
... on Earth; but major cosmic catastrophes, such as changes of Earth's tilt, rotation or orbit or the addition or subtraction of large bodies within the Solar System are as remote from consideration as they ever were. The intellectual climate may now favour catastrophism - - but only the whimper of Earthbound squibs, not the real bang of celestial rockets. 52 It seem to me that this commentator got it backwards: Whatever happened 65 million years ago, it caused mass extinctions and left a layer of soot, shocked quartz grains, and ((__iridium__)) all around the Earth. If the Velikovskians are now to claim that far more violent catastrophes took place ten thousand times more recently without leaving a trace in the sensitive ice-core record, they render the phrase "cosmic catastrophe" utterly meaningless. If the only effect of a Velikovskian-style planetary catastrophe is an outpouring of obscure mythico-religious tracts, that is a feeble whimper indeed, and we should have nothing to fear from such a catastrophe, were one to strike tomorrow. Unless they want to be taken for men playing an elaborate game of

[IR @austria CRATER, WORLD MANY PLACES: IRIDIUM]
New Scenarios for Solar System Evolution [SIS Internet Digest]
... on its own ground (ancient testimony). We will propose some simple groundrules permitting researchers to test the hypothesis and draw reliable conclusions. Alexander Tollmann, University of Vienna, Austria: the Deluge in the Peoples Traditions and Geological Evidence In 1992 the geologists Edith and Alexander Tollmann published a monograph which claimed that ____the Noachian Deluge was the consequence of a cometary impact about 9500 years ago. A series of geological facts supported the claim, together with a critical analysis of mankind traditions. ____Geological proofs of the impact include a crater with ((__iridium__)), shatter cones, stress lamination of minerals, radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, a peak of acid in the Greenland ice, etc. Over a thousand worldwide traditions describe moreover every detail of the catastrophe following the impact and the spiritual consequences on the human mind. In our present communication we will add new proofs of the impact. They include analysis of __(IR)__the Koefels crater in Tyrol and new radiocerbon dating. The hiatus of settlements for this time is recorded from many places in the world, both from villages and caves. The

[IR @sahara? DESERT: IRIDIUM]
Thoth Vol. III, No. 10 July 30, 1999 [Thoth Website]
... may have formed at the bottom of a warm volcanic lake. But there were no hydroxide ions usually found in such glass and "geologists dated the glass at 28.5 million years old [while] the dried-up remains of the ancient lakes ... near the site turned out to be far too young-just 9000 years old." Another idea is that it may be volcanic but the whitish inclusions are minerals that form at much higher temperatures than are present in a volcano. And to cap it all, the dark samples are rich in ((__iridium__)), typical of meteorites. So the only explanation seems to be that the glass was formed upon impact of a meteorite into the desert. Certainly, some of the silica contains shocked quartz crystals which bolsters the impact theory but it does not explain the purity of the glass. Also, it must be remembered that impacts cause little melting and there is no impact crater in the vicinity. Any heating of the meteorite itself in the atmosphere causes mere superficial melting. I believe the best explanation, given the purity of the glass

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Letters [SIS C&C Workshop]
... ' radiant from the daytime June Taurids (p. 54) but from the autumn nighttime Taurids, as is clear from Cosmic Winter, pp. 197-203. The fact that the June Taurids were not seen does not nullify their effect on climate by increasing the opacity of the atmosphere when they were active. Evidence is mounting that ____the culprit for the terminal Cretaceous event was cometary, not asteroidal (Clube & Napier, 'Catastrophism Now', Astronomy Now, August 1991, pp. 46-49), so that the source of the ((__iridium__)) is less a theoretical one (p. 57) and more an observational one. The formation of hot spots (p. 57) may be aided by impact, though not by direct penetration of the mantle, considering that the Deccan hot-spot is antipodal to the K-T impact site in Yucatan. Noting that Worlds in Collision has often been criticised for its lack of quantitative argument and its clashing with the scientific status quo on many issues, Atkinson exhibits both irony and chutzpah in defending Velikovsky against Clube& Napier by suggesting that

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Catastrophism and Evolution [SIS Internet Digest]
... : Hutton and his legacy. 2.5 Natural theology and diluvialism in early nineteenth century Britain. 2.6 The catastrophism-uniformitarianism debate in the 1830s and beyond. 2.7 Lamarck, Darwin and evolution. 2.8 From Darwinism to neo-Darwinism: short, slow steps to a gradualistic evolutionary synthesis. Chapter 3 - Gradualism under Challenge. 3.1 The birth of neocatastrophism. 3.2 Eustasy, impacts and mass extinctions. 3.3 Phyletic gradualism and quantum evolution. 3.4 Punctuated equilibrium and species selection. 3.5 Gould's view of life. Chapter 4 - Nemesis for Evolutionary Gradualism? 4.1 Iridium, tektites and the death of the dinosaurs. 4.2 From Snowbird I to Snowbird II: conflicting ideas about the K-T transition. 4.3 A periodicity in extinctions? 4.4 Continuing arguments: rock hounds, stargazers and the high-tech people 4.5 Current views on mass extinctions. Chapter 5 - The Erratic Descent of Man. 5.1 Early scenarios of human evolution: slow, continuous progress towards more advanced forms. 5.2 Gradualism sustained: developments in paleoanthropology from 1959 to 1979. 5.3 The molecular revolution. 5.4 From dinosaurs to hominoids. 5.5 Hominids

- - - - -

[FROZEN FOSSILS: CLAY]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
From: SIS Workshop Vol 3 No 4 (Apr 1981) Home¦ Issue Contents Monitor "THE DROWNED FOREST OF BRAY" - Aer Lingus Young Scientist of the Year Competition 1980 Christopher Ryder, Mark Brett and Thomas Rolfs, three 12 yr old schoolboys from Aravon School, Bray, Ireland, submitted a project of outstanding maturity to this Competition in 1980. Their subject was the nearby drowned forest of Bray, a forest whose remains are gradually submerging under the encroaching Irish Sea. The enterprising Jill Abery, on seeing a report of this project on the BBC, wrote off to the authors and was well rewarded with some interesting correspondence and a copy of the project. Oddly enough, the ____drowned forest has been known to geologists since the last century, but had never been properly investigated. The visible remains of the forest at low tide were stumps and boughs; these were embedded in peat. The peat contained branches, roots and cones of the Scotch Fir. The remains disappeared to the south under a bed of fine blue clay containing sea shells and to the north it overlay a coarse sand containing fragments of granite. In a superb investigation, these young scientists proceeded to survey the area, to take samples, to drill cores (for estimation of the depth of the forest layer and for analysis of its contents) and to perform some simple but clear laboratory experiments to test hypotheses. Their results showed two forest layers marked by pine cones 7m apart and separated by blue clay. They concluded that the forests had been drowned by the sea on two occasions. A radiocarbon date for forest material was performed by Prof. Mitchell of Trinity College Dublin and gave a result of ____4800 BC. In a delightful observation, they recorded how ____one of the pine cones brought back from the forest, washed and scrubbed and left alone on a school bench happened to open out some weeks later. This was never explained by them, but was found very stimulating. As Jill Abery indicated, this must mean the pine cone was still fairly fresh and young at time of burial. It tells against any gradual dying of the trees in an inundation by slowly rising salt water. Instead, it is more ____indicative of a sudden inundation with burial and preservation, or even of tidal waves depositing the remains en masse. ALVAREZ THEORY GAINS SUPPORT - SCIENCE 209 22/8/80, p.921-3 NATURE 288 18-25/12/80, p.651-6 SCIENCE 210 31/10/80, p.514-7 We have reported the renewed interest in the cause of the extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous Period (when the dinosaurs died off) in WORKSHOP 2:4 and successive issues since. One theory seems to be gaining widespread support, the catastrophist ideas of Alvarez et al that 65 million years ago Earth was struck by a giant meteor/asteroid. In SCIENCE 22/8/80 there was a paper by R. Ganapathy giving his results of chemical analyses on the "fish-clay" from Denmark which marks the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. The elements Ir Os Au Pt Re

[RAPID GEOLOGY: CLAY]
Overnight Valley Formation in São Nicolau [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 1 No. 2 (Dec 1976) Home¦ Issue Contents The following news item is summarised from newspaper clippings kindly sent to me by Mr.Flamarion Gulart Oliveira from Porto Alegre. Reference: Folha da Tarde, 5-VIII1974, pages 30, 31, 32 and 33. Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Overnight Valley Formation in São Nicolau Johan B. Kloosterman Rio de Janeiro
_On the night of Saturday the 8th of June 1974 something unusual happened at the farm 'Guarapaca' in the municipality of Sao Nicolau, Rio Grande do Sul, about 18 kms from the Rio Uruguai, which forms there the boundary with Argentina. A steady drizzle, interrupted once by a heavy shower, had been falling since the afternoon. At midnight, settlers on the farm were suddenly awakened by what they took to be thunderclaps, by a trembling of the earth, and by sudden gusts of wind. "It seemed as if the house were coming down", people related afterwards. They were thinking of fleeing, but two minutes
...
plowed field; strange balls of a dark material of low density had moved down with the soil material. A waterpump from the upper part of the gully was discovered after much searching some 20 days later about 200 metres from its original position. For months to come, people from the surrounding farms and villages came to see the newly formed valley and to discuss the possible causes. When journalists arrived nearly three months afterward, rainwater action had already changed some of the original features, smoothing the angles of chunks of soil and depositing clay and sand between them.

[ANCIENT ATMOSPHERE: CLAY, FOSSIL]
>A Comprehensive Theory on Aging, Gigantism and Longevity [Catastrophism & Ancient History Journal]
_From: Catastrophism and Ancient History II:1 (Aug 1979) Home¦ Issue Contents A Comprehensive Theory on Aging, Gigantism and Longevity Donald W. Patten and Phllip A. Patten
_INTRODUCTION
_Why does one find a global record of gigantism in the late - and post-ice age fossil record? Why, in literally hundreds of species, are there giant antecedents to modern forms which have suddenly, and simultaneously, and continuously become reduced in size? 1 As a third and seemingly unrelated question, are the ancients' claims of longevity on the order of 900 years to be taken seriously rather than considered as mythology? Is there a biological mechanism resulting in ancient gigantism or longevity? The theme of this work consists of heterodox, but defensible answers to these and similar questions. It is fairly well known that the fossil record contains 10-foot ostriches, 20-foot ground sloths, 12-foot armadillos, 14-foot turtles, beavers as large as contemporary bears, and so forth. The orthodox thesis is that the diminution in size from ancient giants to present species is due to massive
...
An examination of Mesozoic and lower Cenozoic (recall that these strata are interpreted as Flood-deposited) boreal botany reveals a rather lush collage of vegetation. Edward W. Berry has made an in-depth analysis of the past climate of the north polar regions. 30 He reports a majority of cool, temperate flora such as conifers, willows, alders, birch, and hazel in Iceland, Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Alaska. However, also present are tropical and subtropical forms such as ginkos, cycads, and tree ferns, indicating a rather moist climate. Clearly, ____the arctic regions have in the past enjoyed a rather warm climate, being capable of supporting diverse vegetation that has left its telltale mark. A quantitative determination of the exact annual average temperature is not easily inferred: Berry, however, quotes Heer as deriving ____an annual average temperature of 53.6 degrees F. for Greenland. The present authors are comfortable with values in this range. We now move to an examination of the former climate in the southern British Isles. The description and interpretation of the London clay flora of southern England by Reid and Chandler (1933) are a classic case in paleobotany. A great deal of fossil fauna and flora has been derived from a stiff, brown clay up to 500 feet thick. The clay has been identified as a shallow-water marine deposit laid down beyond the mouth of a large river. Its flora is made up almost entirely of fossil fruits and seeds of which thousands of specimens are known, mostly preserved as pyrite casts. 31 These are lower Cenozoic (Flood) strata. The flora is indicative of a rather tropical climate. All of the London clay organic materials belong to living families which occur within the tropics: 11 percent exclusively tropical, 32 percent mainly tropical, 11 percent mainly extra-tropical, and the remaining 40 percent equally at home in either tropical or extra-tropical forests. Reid and Chandler conclude on a basis of several lines of reasoning that ____the London clay flora represent a tropical rain forest of Indo-Malayan aspect which reached northwestern Europe along the lowlands bordering the northern shores of the Tethys Sea. It is supposed that ____Europe had frostless winters and a mean annual temperature of about 70 degrees F., which is slightly cooler than the contemporary Singapore. Evidence from associated fossil fishes and mollusks supports the conclusion that this was an epoch of subtropical to tropical warm-water faunas in southern England. 32 The authors envision a pre-Flood/pre-ice age climate with an annual average temperature gradient across the latitudes of perhaps 20 degrees (circa 60 degrees F. at the poles to circa 80 degrees F. at the Equator). This compares with the current latitudinal temperature gradient of about 90 degrees (circa - - 10 degrees F. at the poles to 80 degrees F. at the Equator). This particular climate will have many important effects. The first we mention is that ____atmospheric circulation will be greatly reduced. Since wind systems are generated by temperature differentials, moderate or minimal temperature differences across the latitudes will produce only moderate breezes. 33 The other major change will be thoroughly warmed ocean, from bottom to top. Today the average temperature of all sea water is a chilly 38 degrees F. 34 It is expected that the pre-ice age ocean had an average temperature in the vicinity of 60 degrees F. The importance of these differences will be seen shortly, for we are now prepared to discuss radical changes in the composition of the atmosphere subsequent to an extra-terrestrial ice dump. 35
_Nitrogen
_We shall begin by dismissing those variables which can be eliminated on the basis of geochemical data. The first is an

[SEA LEVELS: CLAY]
44. Sea Level Changes [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Chronology& Catastrophism Review 1997:2 (Apr 1998) Home¦ Issue Contents Sea Level Changes Phillip Clapham
_Lakes expand and contract with changes in temperature and the level of rainfall [1. This would explain the rise in the level of Lough Neagh in Ireland in the 6th century AD (cf. Baillie [2). Sea levels are not static: seashores are covered and uncovered twice a day as the tide ebbs and flows due to the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon. During the Ice Ages a greater amount of moisture was evaporated from the seas and is thought to have been stored up as ice. ____Sea levels are thought to have fallen by 560 feet during the last advance but there is only enough water in the current polar ice caps and in glaciers to raise sea levels by 200 feet - which implies that an enormous ice sheet covered a large part of the globe during the Ice Ages. However, sea level changes may not have been so great if other factors are taken into account such as tectonic uplift and land subsidence. Plate movement is another factor. For example, ____if Europe is moving away from North America, this may have involved episodes of enhanced or rapid spread, in contrast to the uniformitarian idea of continuous slow [R3]____drift. Plate movement not only buckled hills and mountains and raised shorelines but caused the subsidence of land in some regions, as a result of stretched plates. This has historically affected the North Sea basin and may lie at the root of the sea level rises which occurred in the late Roman period. The geology of NW Europe since the end of the Ice Ages is intriguing. The North Sea basin is thought to have been dry land that was flooded as sea levels have changed. This idea would demand a universal increase in the amount of water in the oceans - but where would the water have come from? ____Around 6,000BC Britain was wrenched from the continent in what appears to have been a cataclysmic event, ripping apart the chalk downs and creating the white cliffs that are such a notable landscape feature in Kent and Sussex and NE France. In Egypt, between 10,000 and 6,000BC, hunter-gatherers occupied the Nile valley. In the 6th millennium, climatic changes were followed by the introduction of agriculture, generally considered to be a result of the arrival of newcomers from somewhere in the Near East, possibly in response to a crisis. As the Sahara began to turn from grassy savanna into desert, the Nile valley became important as a food producing area and came to support a large sedentary population with advantages over the surrounding semi-nomadic groups which still practised transhumance. The spread of farming after climatic change is also a feature of European prehistory. It was adopted as a means of controlling food resources, it has been argued, in desperate times. The shoots of grasses and cereals were the first thing to emerge in a fire blackened landscape - and important if game had suddenly become scarce. The severing of Britain from the continent is glossed over in most textbooks: an inundation of the sea is usually blamed - but where did all the water come from? A similar plate movement separated Britain from Ireland - the numerous islands around the N and NW of Scotland and W of Ireland are evidence of this pulling or stretching motion, pieces that have become detached and left behind. It is estimated that Scotland north of the Great Glen will eventually break away and become a separate island - but why? What is or was the force exerted on the crust to cause the plates to slide apart and tear the land asunder? This is catastrophism captured in a broken mould, mute testimony of paroxysms in nature - but is it evidence of internal pressures in the earth, or is there a cosmic dimension? A piece of comet hitting one part of the earth could have caused volcanism and earthquakes in other parts and possibly even crustal movements. In other words, worms and dragons (comets and meteors) may have influenced plate movements as recently as the 6th century AD. Rising sea level in the North Sea, originally the flood plain of the river Rhine and its tributaries, has affected all sides of the basin. In the Netherlands for instance, land reclamation and sea defence systems are important, as more than a quarter of the country is below current sea levels. Sea levels rose dramatically in the Dark Ages [3] but there is evidence they had started to rise as early as the 3rd century AD. In the 5th century the Romano-British, in a letter to the Roman consul in Gaul, complained of rising sea levels, as well as Saxon raids. In the 6th century the sea level rises were a catalyst for the mass migration of people from what is now the Netherlands, NW Germany and Denmark into eastern England. Sands that had been heaped up in some great convulsion formed a belt of dunes along the coastline from the Netherlands to Denmark, protecting in particular the Frisian islands and creating a lagoon in the delta of the Meuse, Rhine and Schelde rivers. In the 5th or 6th centuries these dunes were breached and swept aside and the deep inlet of the Wadden Sea was formed [4. The islands of the Frisians were left unprotected, stranded and periodically breached by high tides. For a few hundred years they were content to build settlements on clay mounds where they were less liable to flooding. After a while they began to build clay walls which developed into elaborate sea defence systems and dikes and drainage ditches to take the water back into the sea. In the 12th century the windmill made it possible to pump water from marshland and lake and land reclamation began in earnest. Dutch hydraulic engineers were imported into Tudor Britain to drain the Fenlands and reclaim farm land that had been worked during the Roman period. Why at that moment in time, coinciding with a major frost signature in tree rings and evidence of a dust veil event,= the 530s AD, did sea levels rise? Baillie has isolated an earlier frost signature, in the 3rd century AD. This coincides remarkably with the beginnings of the Great Migrations when large numbers of people from Scandinavia and the Baltic zone moved southwards into central Europe and threatened the Roman empire, as a result of a series of cold summers and crop failures etc. Could an impact have been responsible, somewhere on the earth - large enough to cause crustal displacement and the movement of plates, a sort of shock wave [5]? An actual real rise in sea levels, the water content of the
...

[ANCIENT EGYPT: CLAY]
The Valley of Colours [SIS C&C Review]
_ From: SIS Chronology& Catastrophism Review 2001:2 (Jan 2002) Home¦ Issue Contents The Valley of Colours Nesta Caiger
_In the mid-1990s, Betty and Jim Dunn, Alastair Fox and Nesta Caiger travelled yet again to Egypt and when in Luxor contacted their familiar and regular guide, Mr Mohammed Ishnmil, who lives with his family on the West Bank and amongst the Tombs of the Nobles. Then during the week, the small party did the usual visits to not only the famous Egyptological sites but to other rather remote places of antiquity, many of which are never visited by general tourists groups, so are therefore mostly unknown to other visitors. Whilst on a regular trip to the famous, ancient town of Deir el Medina, Jim Dunn and Alastair Fox went on a somewhat hard-going exploration across very rough ground in order to take photographs of various sites of antiquity and obtain excellent pictorial views. They were guided across a particularly interesting but unknown area which Mohammed said was 'Wadi ael Laon'. This means 'Valley of Colours' and he was rather surprised to see the fascination and excitement shown by the two men he was escorting. He explained that the site was ancient and though it was within walkable distance and could really be regarded as being 'near' to Deir el Medina, it was virtually unknown to foreign visitors. Alastair Fox inspected and picked up various pieces of 'rock' and discovered three different types of colours. In some cases all three colours were enclosed in the specimens
...
to England Nesta Caiger had pieces of rock in her care and they were taken, firstly to the Geological Museum, Kensington, for analysis and later to the Natural History Museum, Kensington. The following (edited) report by Dr A.M. Clark was received after the analysis had taken place: 'The rock from the Valley of Colours in Egypt has been studied in detail and the reddish material is hematite, FeO, the buff coloured material is illite (with some quartz). Illite is a rather common but chemically complex micaceous clay mineral. It is quite feasible that both these compounds were used as pigments.' At a later date Alastair Fox, accompanied by his daughter, Heather, then took another trip to Egypt and visited the site several times. They made a rough measurement and estimated that the area was about four to five acres. They photographed parts of the site and also a couple of the hutment foundations where workers may have resided. On another trip, in another year, when all four of these original visitors, plus Mohammed,

[: CLAY, FOSSIL]
Senmut's Ceiling and the Earth as Tippe Top (Forum) [Kronos]
... 24-25. From his study of fossil corals, Ma deduced that ____the position of the equator with respect to the crust had changed from one geological age to another in a manner that could not be explained by continental drift alone. According to Hapgood, by 1949, Ma was forced by the accumulated evidence "to adopt a theory of total displacements of all the outer shells of the earth over the liquid core" down to a depth of several hundred miles.(15) Later, Ma hypothesized that ____Globigerina ooze alternating with red clay results from the repeated sudden displacements of the solid Earth. "When the solid earth shell is displaced the depth of the ocean floor shifted from lower to higher latitudes would be suddenly reduced so that a region for red clay rises into the level for accumulation of Globigerina ooze and a lamina of Globigerina ooze is laid on until it gradually sinks back to below 4,000 meters depth with resumption to normal depth and the deposition of red clay continues."(16) Ma, it should be noted, dealt with crustal

y.[ESKERS FROM FLOOD, NOT GLACIATION: SEDIMENT, CLAY, EROSION]
>y.The Flood [The Velikovskian]
>>SEE F: FIRESTORM
>>ADDED TO FUNDAY EVIDENCE

[RAISED BEACHES: CLAY]
>A Quantitative Test for Catastrophic Theories [Pensee]
_From: Pensée Vol. 3 No 1: (Winter 1973) "Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered III" Home¦ Issue Contents A Quantitative Test for Catastrophic Theories Euan W. MacKie Radiocarbon Dating and Catastrophism
_Dr. MacKie is assistant keeper, Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. Antiquity (December, 1971) published a paper by him entitled "Some Thoughts on Radiocarbon Dating." The paper published here was first read at the Velikovsky Symposium, Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon), August 17, 1972.
_When assessing and testing theories which are as revolutionary and wide-ranging in their content and implications as those of Dr. Velikovsky, it is most important to define the exact relevance of each piece of evidence concerned. Otherwise there is a danger - - which faces equally adherents and opponents - - that the whole of a theory, or a major part of one, will be thought to have been confirmed or disproved by a piece of evidence which is in fact wholly unable to bear either of these weighty conclusions by itself. An essential preliminary to such analyses of
...
high sea estuary. The flooding of the Forth valley occurred at about 6200 B.C. and is part of the major change dateable to that time mentioned earlier and which seems finally to have isolated Britain from the Continent of Europe (6). At least part of the estuary was drained again in the middle of the 4th millennium B.C. (fig. 2). However, systematic studies during the 1960's show that the history of the sea level in the Forth valley was much more complex (7). Below the coarse clay, and thus pre-dating about 6000 B.C., are three Buried Beaches - - the High, Middle and Low - - reflecting earlier post-glacial ocean level changes. Then came the high sea level which laid down the coarse clay which covered these features and this later diminished in four stages which are witnessed by four Raised Beaches cut into the clay. One of these may have been formed about 3500 B.C. as mentioned above, but at least two of the others are later. Recent work has suggested that one raised beach may have been elevated above the

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[: SEDIMENT, EROSION, CONFORM]
Society News [SIS C&C Workshop]
... dating on rock layers indicates that the lower layers of the British Isles built up faster than the upper layers - at a rate of .1mm/yr compared to the 'astronomically slow' rate of .03mm/yr. Garton pointed out that this would be insufficient to preserve even a medium sized tadpole and proposed that radiometric dating should only be used for relative dating, giving the lower layers a rate of deposition of 'extremely fast' and the upper 'fast'. One major type of geological formation that geologists have had to explain is the unconformity, where horizontal sedimentary layers lie over vertical ones. The usual explanation is that the vertical layers are the remains of very ancient formations which gradually became buckled and arched up to form mountains, the tops of which were, over millions of years, eroded flat and then new sedimentary layers began to form over them. We were shown slides of examples of unconformities, where the level between vertical and horizontal was absolutely flat as though planed off, and these were contrasted with pictures of modern erosion of upthrust strata, which are

[: EROSION]
Society News [SIS C&C Workshop]
... written upon its surface. Mr. Garton welcomed the recent swing back towards catastrophism but indicated that the basic problem of timescale was still with us. Ever since Lyell had proposed that the gradual geological processes we see today were the key to the past, and Darwin's evolution by natural selection seemed to require aeons of time for slow evolutionary change, the timescale had been ridiculously inflated and these preconceived ideas moulded how geologists saw things. Where rates of today's processes can be measured, such as the formation of the Dungeness headland and the erosion of the cliffs at Dover, geologists dictate conditions in the past by assuming the same constant rates. These two examples actually lead back only about 4000 years even so and a recent paper shows that the Dover-Calais gap, from which erosion could subsequently take place, was breached by a catastrophic flow lasting only weeks or months. Even if some of the evidence conflicted with the received wisdom, Garton had found that there was fierce opposition if it were suggested that the evidence was viewed differently. Coal formation near Edinburgh is explained on

[: SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... :3, 4:2 and 5:1.) Problems in Glacial Chronology source: Nature Vol. 301, 20.1.83, p.199 Recent work on raised beaches and the pollen and foraminifera content of deep-sea cores has led some to postulate that the last interglacial period was not followed immediately by a glaciation, but should be extended by 40,000 years during which "the world was in neither a full glacial nor a full interglacial mode". Such interpretations can of course only be made on the basis of slow, uniform sedimentation rates and sea-level changes; assumption of sudden catastrophes involving rapid sedimentation and pole shifts would make interpretation of the evidence in terms of climate and chronology exceedingly difficult. The uniformitarian difficulties arise later as a result of their constructions of the chronology of the glacial periods. In this case they have greatly extended the period in which Neanderthal man is believed to have lived, to the point that some consider it was long enough for neanderthalensis to evolve directly into sapiens in Europe. However, the Mousterian industries with which the Neanderthals are associated

[: SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... the mountain indicate that it bore glaciers when it shouldn't have. Surprise bore hole results Science Frontiers No.90, Nov-Dec 1993, p. 3 The second deepest bore hole in the world, in Germany, has produced a picture of a subterranean world very different from that inferred from studies of the surface and seismic and electrical probing. How many tectonic theories are based on such erroneous remote data? Geological gaps New Scientist,17.7.93, p. 39 For all types of sedimentary rocks there is an inverse correlation between the inferred rate of sedimentation and the duration of the time interval considered. This implies that there are numerous undetected gaps in the sedimentary sequence. Antipodal phenomena Science Frontiers No.88, Jul-Aug 1993, p. 3 Hotspots on Earth's surface where there are large upwellings of basalt often appear to be in antipodal pairs. This could be explained if the seismic energy from large body impacts became focused, causing antipodal melting. Interestingly, magnetic concentrations on the Moon seem to be located diametrically opposite large lunar impact basins. Unstable ice New Scientist,10.4.93, p.

[: SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... our present oceans, with a large temperature gradient between equator and glaciated pole, is only a "recent" state. Most of the Earth's history indicates warmer oceans with temperate poles. The change has been tied in with changes in major currents due to the movement of continents. However, changes in climate and ocean have not been gradual, as would be expected if due to slow tectonic plate movements, but have been "abrupt and stepwise". Also there were more abrupt changes than tectonic theory would suggest. and the sedimentation record for the ocean floor has proved to be disrupted as that on land. Van Andel suggests that there is cause to doubt the chemical constancy of sea water, which has been a tenet of long standing - though supported by little evidence. The discovery of circulation of water through fissures at mid-oceanic ridges leads to the deduction that the composition of sea water may be altered rapidly by "speeding up or slowing down the rate of plate movement ... " and that, therefore, "life may not have evolved in

Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... Gold on Petroleum? sources: New York Times 22.3.87; New Scientist 24.9.87, p.26; idem 15.10.87, p.66 The hint of success for Professor Thomas Gold and his theory of an extra-terrestrial origin for Earth's deposits of methane and oil (Workshops 6:3, p.21; 1986:2, p.24) was gleaned from early reports from the Swedish drill hole. The drill had encountered much less dense rock at a depth of just under 20,000 feet. The Soviets, with their Kola borehole, had encountered the less dense rock strata and had found carbon dioxide and methane in these levels. But they believed the gases to be at leastly partly of biologic origin - from the micro-fossils obtained at these levels. New Scientist carried the news of the abandonment of the drill project. Although gases had been discovered, these were in small quantities and their recovery was not commercially viable. Gold was reported as saying that the drilling should continue and his theory would be vindicated. He was granted a long letter on October 15th in which he stated: "Far

Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... NATURE, the Italian paper cites Cronin as stating that his team's work has confirmed Darwin and Huxley in their theory of gradual evolution and that it is possible to show from fossil evidence such evolution at work' Variations in G source: NATURE 16/7/81, p. 230-2 A piece titled "Geophysical evidence for non-newtonian gravity" tells of a series of determinations of the gravitational constant G in mines, bore-holes and marine surveys. The knowledge of the variation of G with depth permits the calculation of the density of intervening rock strata. However, when the density of such rocks has been accurately measured then calculations can be performed to check the constancy of G. Precisely this was done: all the cited estimates of G are greater than the laboratory-determined ones. This provides "strong circumstantial evidence" for the failure of Newton's Law of Gravity (The Inverse Square Law) at short range. Mountains Come from Sea Bed? source: THE TIMES (London) 23/7/81 We have been sent a very hopeful 'Science Report' from the

[: SEDIMENT]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... every 27 to 30 years, in synchrony with the planet's orbital period, though astronomers have no idea why there should be such a synchronism. Frankly speaking New Scientist 17.11.90, p. 56 Louis Frank, the space physicist who believes that countless small comets enter Earth's atmosphere every day and are the source of Earth's water, has written a book about his theory and the resulting ostracism by orthodox science. 'Science is a savage little game'. Unexpected oil New Scientist 12.1.91, pp. 44-7 Oil does not only occur in the geological strata in which it is expected. This survey reports on various places throughout Britain where it unexpectedly seeps or bubbles. A word of caution is urged for those who "favour theories that petroleum comes not from ancient underwater life, but rather from the Earth's mantle, or even outer space." Where the source of the oil appears to be, most unorthodoxly, in granite, it can be conventionally explained away by the folding of sedimentary strata which were subsequently heated by intruding molten granite. High speed solar storms New Scientist

[: EROSION, FOSSIL]
Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
... mean man's history goes back 150 million years! William A. Clemens, professor of palaeontology at the University of California at Berkeley, does not believe that the dinosaurs were eliminated in a sudden catastrophic event. His evidence is another fossil find from the Bug Creek fossil site in Montana (see WORKSHOP 4:4, pp.19-20) in which he claims ____dinosaur bones are mixed with those of mammals. The mammals include ancestors of horses, goats, cows and sheep. His analysis has shown that the mixing is not a result of erosion or any other process, but represents a true deposition. Clemens argues that the dinosaurs died out slowly, some of them after the end of the Cretaceous period. To put the later find into perspective, ____Creationists (and others) have long claimed that the Morrison formation of the eastern Rockies, extending from Alberta into Montana and Colorado contains fossil deposits in which dinosaur and mammal bones are intermixed. Orthodox science has, up to now, refused to accept these findings; their acceptance (and use) by as distinguished a

[FLOOD AS TIDAL WAVE: FOSSIL]
>The Flood [The Velikovskian]
... which they lay. The soil has not turned to stone and contains innumerable oyster shell beds, along with mammoth remains, which indicates that the mammoths and the shells were deposited together recently - - most likely by a gigantic tidal wave sweeping up from the Gulf of Mexico. In Cuba, according to Horworth, the remains of a giant sloth, giant extinct rodents, a crocodile and a tortoise, Testudo cubensis, were found together with the relic of a mastodon. (12) In 1984, William R. Corliss stated that a bone bed had been discovered south of Tampa, Florida, with paleontologists declaring it one of the United States' richest fossil deposits. This bone bed yielded bones of more than 70 species of animals, birds and aquatic creatures. About 80% of the bones belong to plains animals, such as camels, horses, mammoths, etc. Bears, wolves, large cats and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan [were also represented. Mixed in with all the land animals are sharks' teeth, turtle shells, and the

SEDIMENTARY ROCK

[FOSSILS OF CATACLYSMS]
>The Signature of Catastrophe (Reinterpreting the Geological Record) [Aeon Journal]
_From: Aeon I:2 (Feb 1988) Home¦ Issue Contents The Signature of Catastrophe (Reinterpreting the Geological Record) James E. Strickling
_FOREWORD
_Our geology and anthropology textbooks today boldly declare the credo of uniformitarianism: "The present is the key to the past." In most scientific forums today the rule is that no theory will be entertained that does not rest on this principle. And the credo is not restricted to terrestrial science: Dwardu Cardona comments that "modern astronomers, who should know better, also look up at the sky and what they do not see there, they believe could never have existed. What doesn't happen now, they have the audacity to preach, could not have happened then." (1) Yet this declaration of uniformitarian philosophy is set against a growing interest in global catastrophism-the belief that our planet has undergone stupendous devastation in the past, even in historical times. To many, scientists and laymen alike, the evidence for repeated cataclysms can no longer be denied. At stake are fundamental philosophical differences.
...
We have learned not to expect otherwise. To encounter another body the size of the earth would be unthinkable, a horror unimaginable. "Science" assures us that it has never happened. Beneath our feet in the crust of the earth is another world-the world of the ancient past. There we find locked in place, seemingly outside of time, the lithified remains and traces of many creatures that no longer walk the world's surface or swim in its waters or fly in its atmosphere. They are packed in layer upon layer of sedimentary rock. There they remain until disturbed by forces of nature, and more recently by the forces of man. How did they come to such a fate, and when? Orthodox science tells us that their burial and accumulation was a slow process, spanning many millions of years, many millions of years ago. We hear that many of these fossiliferous beds were deposited in shallow seas that once extended over large areas of the present continents, and that those now above sea level reflect a subsequent vertical shift of the earth's crust

[ARCTIC GEOLOGY]
Discussion & Questions From the Floor [Aeon Journal]
... and volcanism would be unleashed through tensional features. A blanket of volcanic debris and/or lava should overlie chaotic structural rearrangements of formerly ordered rock sequences. What is actually to be found in near-polar terrains to show whether any such occurrence might have happened? In Greenland a stable surface of pre-Cambrian rocks comprise northern Peary Land, with some Eocene (33 my) volcanics bordering the Arctic Ocean within 10 of the pole. There is no recently-imposed structural chaos and no very young volcanics to attest recent extrusion. Spitzbergen exhibits Mesozoic and younger sedimentary rock mainly. Northern Russia is either young sedimentary basins or as on the Kola Peninsula and northern Siberia, crystalline rocks as in north Greenland. Northern Alaska is a well-known petroleum-bearing sedimentary shelf. None of these has recently-imposed disruptive tectonics or volcanic ejecta blankets. And, perhaps even more convincing as to the quiescence of those sites are the undisturbed giant oil and gas fields. Under many thousands of pounds per square inch, these reservoirs would have escaped their natural entrapments with the first breach of their caprocks. Earth's arctic terrains show

[CYCLOTHEMS FORMED RAPIDLY: CLAY, SHALE, EROSION]
Reconsidering Velikovsky [SIS C&C Workshop]
_From: SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop 1990 No 2 (Dec 1990) Home¦ Issue Contents HORIZONS Reconsidering Velikovsky
_August 17-19th, 1990 at the University of Toronto, Canada We were among the participants in this exhilarating conference organised by Milton Zysman. Zysman had obtained the use of several rooms on the campus of the University which made it convenient for everyone to meet and discuss events. He also produced a volume of source materials with the title 'Catastrophism 2000', edited by himself and Clark Whelton, with contributions from David Birkan, Victor Clube, Richard Grieve, Gunnar Heinsohn, Ralph Juergens, Benny Peiser, Roger Wescott, as well as the editors. Some of the articles were reprints from Pensee and some non-catastrophist publications, some are more or less the same as the lectures detailed below, and some were specially produced for this publication. Copies will be obtainable from the SIS Book Service which will be able to supply the proceedings of the conference when they are published. The talks were attended by 40 or 50 people in most cases and 80 at
...
cratering over a long period of time, and the fact that erosion would have reduced them considerably if such impacts had been taking place over the postulated long periods of time. He mentioned the limit to the electric charge sustainable by a body, and concluded by saying that craters on planetary bodies and their satellites have been shaped by volcanic and electrical forces as well as impacts. Saturday morning Milton Zysman and Peter von Bitter: Cyclothems Frank Wallace read a paper by Milton Zysman presenting the idea that ____cyclothems (complex, repetitive layers of sedimentary rock and coal belonging to the Carboniferous Era) are the result of annual depositions of melting water and particulate debris produced by retreating dirty continental ice sheets. Zysman claimed that each sedimentary cycle, usually composed of sandstone, clay, coal and shale (in ascending order), occurring in as much as 100 similar cycles, took one year to form per cycle, ____reducing the ages of these formations as much as 60 Myrs. ____He questioned whether these could have formed over a long period by sea or glacier; whether coal

- - - - -

SHALE
[: SHALE]
Coldwater Carbonate Sedimentation [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 2 (Dec 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Coldwater Carbonate Sedimentation C. Prasada Rao Dep. of Geology, University of Tasmania Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
_In sedimentology exists a 'warm water carbonate paradigm', which incorporates the convictions 1) that shallow marine carbonates were only formed in tropical to subtropical warm surface waters supersaturated in CaC03, by analogy with Recent carbonate formation on the Great Bahama Bank, the Great Barrier Reef, in the Persian Gulf and in Shark Bay; 2) that most carbonate sediments are eventually destroyed in cold seas; 3) that the predominance of low-Mg calcite in ancient limestones results from the transformation of metastable warm-water aragonite and Mg-calcite to low-Mg calcite, involving the action of fresh phreatic and vadose waters. ____Contrary to these concepts, carbonate can presently be observed forming in shallow cold seas in many areas (Chave, 1967; Lees and Buller, 1972; Lees, 1973, 1975). Extensive cold-water (7-15 C) bryozoan carbonates are forming on the continental shelf of southern Australia (about three times the area of the Great Bahama Bank) where cold, nutrient-rich Antarctic water wells up over the margin of that shelf (Connolly and von der Borch, 1967). In Tasmania, bryozoan forests are presently thriving in shallow (120-150m) offshore regions where bottom temperatures average about 3 C (Wass et al., 1970). Here bryozoan sand is also mixed with Pre-Holocene glacial bryozoan carbonates (Marshall and Davies, 1978). Few ancient cold-water limestones have been recognized because of the present warmwater carbonate paradigm and because of insufficient data on recent shallow glaciomarine carbonate sediments, which have not been studied well enough to allow recognition of ancient ones. In this paper, various criteria - field-, petrographic, diagenetic and geochemical -are enumerated for the recognition of cold-water carbonates; ____these criteria individually contribute to and collectively illustrate a glacio-marine origin of the Lower Permian Berriedale Limestone near Hobart, Tasmania (Clarke and Banks, 1975). This limestone formation, a sequence of alternating limestone and calcareous shale, is associated with glacial marine sediments and had a paleomagnetic latitude of about 80oS (Embleton, 1973). Both the fauna (mostly bryozoans, brachiopods and pelecypods) and the allochems (only intraclasts) in the limestone reveal less diversity than those of modern warm marine carbonates but match those of cold shallow marine carbonates (Lees, 1975). Despite extensive search, no blue-green algae, richthofenid brachiopods, fusulinids, goniatites or conodonts have been found. Lonestones (erratic fragments), ranging in size from a few microns to 26 cm, are abundant and vary widely in composition, reflecting derivation from distal source areas containing metamorphic, sedimentary, plutonic and volcanic rocks. ____Coarser lonestones (dropstones) disrupt laminae, as they were dropped before compaction of the sediment took place (Rao, 1979 b). ____Their predominantly pentagonal 'flatiron' and triangular pyramidal shapes are typical of glacially derived sediments (Reineck and Singh, 1975). Furthermore, study of sandsize quartz grains by scanning electron microscope reveal the presence of glacial surface textures

[COAL AND FOSSILS]
>Chapter VII: The Earth [The Age of Velikovsky] [Books]
... found an extensive work by Nilsson published a short time earlier. Nilsson was a professor of botany at Lund University when he published the two volume work entitled Synthetische Aribildung. He discussed results of various botanical studies of certain coal from Germany. The dominant species were tropical plants that do not even grow in the subtropics. Less abundant species were from almost every other section of the earth. Exceptionally well preserved insects were found; some of these species still survive in Africa, East Asia, and America. The coal was also a graveyard for reptiles, birds, and mammals from diverse climates. Apes, crocodiles, marsupials, an Indo-Australian bird, an American condor, tropical giant snakes, and East Asian salamanders were among the creatures who donated their remains to the German coal deposit. The state of preservation of the various remains indicated that unusual conditions caused their burial, if not their demise. In some cases chlorophyll is preserved in the leaves. Billions of leaves from different parts of the world form one stratum. Some of their fine structure is preserved, although

[: FOSSIL]
Anomalous Occurrence of Crocodilia in Eocene Polar Forests [SIS C&C Review]
... regulatory body of the Government of Canada. A professional economist since 1982, most of his work has centred around oil and gas supply economics. He attended the McMaster three day symposium on Velikovsky in 1974 and has written for Chiron, SIS Workshop, CSIS Newsletter, Aeon and Catastrophism and Ancient History. He features, along with Prof Tom Henighan, on two 30-minute TV programmes on Velikovsky which were broadcast on Carleton University's Instructional Television Network as part of a credit course and have been repeated several times, as recently as 1991. Fossil discoveries in the 1970s and 1980s by Canadian and American scientists confirmed late nineteenth century discoveries that a semi-tropical ecosystem once flourished well north of the Arctic Circle. Fossil forests have been located on Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Identification of flora and fauna, and regional geological studies indicate an Eocene age and a polar latitude for these ancient forests. Field work from the summer of 1976 onwards led to the recognition of alligator and crocodile bones in the Canadian Arctic Islands. Crocodilians are a test of the

[: FOSSIL]
Basinger's Lecture on the Eocene Forests of the Canadian High Arctic [SIS C&C Workshop]
... From: SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop 1989 No 2 (Feb 1990) Home¦ Issue Contents HORIZONS Basinger's Lecture on the Eocene Forests of the Canadian High Arctic The Logan Club and the National Museum of Natural Sciences sponsored a talk by Dr. Basinger of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatoon, Canada. Basinger spoke on the topic, 'Early Tertiary Fossil Flora of the Eureka Sound Group, Canadian High Arctic' at Alice Wilson Hall in Ottawa on April 14, 1987. The lecture notice referred to coal-bearing sediments of the Eureka Sound Group that are found scattered throughout much of the Arctic Archipelago and which have been known for over a century to contain fossil leaves, stumps and logs. Palaeocene plants from the Fosheim Peninsula of Ellesmere Island closely resemble Palaeocene floras of Western Canada's interior, proving the existence of a 'cosmopolitan temperate flora' at this time. Eocene sediments on northeastern Axel Heiberg Island contain fossil forests of in situ stumps; these fossil forests aid in understanding the response of biological communities to a mild polar environment. Field work in

[: FOSSIL]
Focus [SIS C&C Workshop]
... From: SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop 1989 No 1 (May 1989) Home¦ Issue Contents Focus The Eocene Climate Puzzle In Eocene times, the Canadian High Arctic region appears to have enjoyed a tropical climate, as evidenced by the fossil remains. The conventional explanations for such a warm climate so near to the North Pole have always been at best problematical and at worst unbelievable (see Workshop 1988:1, p. 28). In Workshop 1988:2, p. 23, we mentioned reports of further finds in the Canadian High Arctic and asked members to find out if these related to the same time period as the earlier finds. Ian C. Johnson of Ottawa has kindly sent us a detailed survey of this evidence. He has also written an excellent short article on the subject, relating the High Arctic finds to similar Antarctic evidence for the same time period, and we understand this is to be published shortly in Aeon (issue number 7). Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands lie within the Arctic Circle, on the same latitude

[: FOSSIL]
Evidence for the Marine Deposition of Coal [SIS C&C Review]
... these by Professor Derek Ager, Head of the Department of Geology, University College, Swansea, and the champion of "neo-catastrophism" in geology, in his seminal work, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (Macmillan 1973, reviewed by Professor Jan Terasmae in SISR I:4). " ... we do from time to time find evidence, in all parts of the stratigraphic column, of very rapid and very spasmodic deposition in the most harmless of sediments. In the late Carboniferous Coal Measures of Lancashire, a fossil tree has been found, 38 feet high and still standing in its living position. Sedimentation must therefore have been fast enough to bury the tree and solidify before the tree had time to rot." (p. 41) Surprising implications for the study of coal formation have come from the application of some radiometric dating techniques. The main period of coal deposition (Upper Carboniferous /Pennsylvanian) is thought to have ended 280 million years ago. Yet fossilised wood and coal from a Carboniferous deposit in Spain were subjected to radiocarbon

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SEDIMENTATION

Flow Slips, Ocean Bottom Currents and Subaqueous Dunes [Catastrophism Geology]
... From: Catastrophist Geology Year 2 No. 1 (June 1977) Home¦ Issue Contents Flow Slips, Ocean Bottom Currents and Subaqueous Dunes Gerrit van der Lingen Sedimentation Laboratory, N.Z. Geological Survey University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand With much interest I read in your December 1976 issue the paper by Tazieff on horizontal landslides during the 1960 Chile earthquake. I would like to make some comments regarding three items mentioned in his paper. I. Horizontal displacements of material over considerable distances during earthquakes are not uncommon and have been reported in other publications. For instance Marshall (1933), who is well remembered for his 'Marshall Line' or 'Andesite Line', reported similar types of displacement caused by the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake (also known as the Napier earthquake) in New Zealand. Parts of coastal cliffs along Hawke's Bay, north of Napier, collapsed and the material moved horizontally over the shallow floor of the bay. The surface of the moved material was irregular and did not rise towards the cliff. Actually, the displaced material was thinner near

Catastrophist Geology [Catastrophism Geology]
... operated then at the same intensity and rate as now. When they consider this definition thoughtfully, many geologists realize that they do not really agree with it. Too many events in the Earth's history do not fit a uniformitarian system - enormous calderas, plateau basalts, ice ages, alpine nappes, bone breccias, the sudden appearance of diversified life at the close of the Precambrian, the abrupt extinction of dinosaurs and ammonites, and so on. In a uniformitarian system the sedimentological and paleontological records are contradictory; if we assume uninterrupted sedimentation, we have to accept catastrophes in evolution; if we do not accept catastrophes in evolution we have to postulate major gaps in the sedimentary record. We can of course, by retrograde extrapolation over millions of years, relate geological features to the cumulative effects of now active small-scale agents such as the raindrop and the sandgrain. Without this method of research geology cannot exist. But to state that it is the only one we are allowed to use without becoming "unscientific" is clearly reductionism, a nineteenth-century spook haunting geology just

[: EROSION]
Continuous Versus Discontinuous and Self-Perpetuating Versus Self-Terminating Processes [Catastrophism Geology]
... prominent a place in the geological thinking as they deserve. Table 1 lists a number of discontinuous and continuous processes in geology. No claim is laid that the list is in any way complete but discussion of some of these events will convey the spirit of the argument. Also the table represents the current state of assessment. It is most likely that in the future a number of those processes listed here as continuous will have to be reclassified as discontinuous. TABLE 1 DISCONTINUOUS CONTINUOUS Faulting Folding Collapse Compaction Flashflood River Erosion Storm Action Deep-Marine Sedimentation Intrusive Heating Conductive Heating Magnetic Reversals Sea-Floor Spreading Meteorite Impact Uplift Turbidity Currents Subsidence. Earthquakes Terrestrial Heat Flow Landslides Reef Growth Collapse versus Compaction Compaction, the volume reduction most sediments undergo when buried under additional load, has been described by many authors (Athy, 1930, Hedberg, 1936; Weller, 1959, Gretener and Labute, 1969). This process is generally a continuous one. However, under certain conditions this volume reduction may take the form of collapse, i.e. occur suddenly (O'Connor and Gretener, 1974a,

[: SHALE]
Late Paleozoic Tornadoes and Synsedimentary Brecciation of Chert Nodules [Catastrophism Geology]
... Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, USA. Fig. 1. Location map of investigated locality (a). Abstract A well-exposed section of crinoidal calcarenites of the Lower Burlington near Hannibal, Missouri, USA, displays an unusual occurrence of chert nodules penecontemporaneously brecciated by a short-lived and localized high-energy event interpreted as the touch-down of a tornado system. This example of tempestite demonstrates the syngenetic generation of completely indurated and fragile chert nodules within an unconsolidated carbonate sediment and stresses the fact that only events of catastrophic nature and penecontemporaneous with sedimentation can provide such a demonstration. Other instances of similar conditions are reviewed and compared with the investigated example. The early origin of cherts is more widespread than generally assumed and a complete reconsideration of the problem of chertification is required. General description of outcrop Along Missouri Highway 79, 2.4 kilometers south of the Hannibal city limits (SE, SE., Sec. 28, T. 57 N., R. 4W., Marion County), a section of Burlington Limestone overlying directly Hannibal Shale is exposed in vertical cliffs

[: EROSION]
Instantaneous Polar Shifts [Aeon Journal]
... , hours - - just enough time for one side of Earth to "recognize" that a mass has been added on the other side (or, in other words, just enough time for the mechanical action of the colliding body to propagate to the entire Earth). It is simply impossible for a freely rotating body to start rotating around a different axis unless there is some disturbing torque. The repositioning of the poles immediately follows whatever shift of material transpires on Earth's surface due, for example, to erosion and/or sedimentation processes, the [R5]____drift of continents, and so on. Thompson may perhaps know that the sudden displacement of mass due to a major earthquake is immediately registered by the pole's position, with a jump in the order of meters - - see, here, L. Mansinha& D. E. Smylie, Earthquake Displacement Fields and the Rotation of the Earth (N. Y., 1970), or consult the International Polar Motion Service (Ukian, Ca.). Notes [1 N. W. Harris&

Showers of Glass [SIS C&C Review]
... cosmic ray tracks would have been found. More recently, following a paper by Shaw and Wasserburg (Earth planet. Sci. Lett. 60, p. 155) the balance has swung dramatically in favour of the impact melting hypothesis. Here is where things get sophisticated and technical, for Shaw and Wasserburg have performed radio-isotope studies on tektites, comparing the "ages" given by the K-Ar Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd methods. Theory predicts that the K-Ar should give a date when the material was last molten, Rb-Sr a date for the sedimentation, and Sm-Nd a date of formulation of the parent material. The combination of the three gives a kind of "signature" by which to compare tektites and terrestrial rocks of a similar chemical composition. One conclusion was that tektites were formed from Precambrian crust material. Further, there is evidence that the European tektites (e.g. moldavites of Czechoslovakia) were formed by the same impacting body that gave rise to the Ries Crater, since the rocks around this crater have a similar composition and isotopic signature. Consequently since the tektites

Poster Presentations Abstracts [SIS Internet Digest]
... of heating as indicated by the very frequent occurrence of unusually large fireplaces with heating stones imbedded in charcoal (Larsson and Franzen, in press). The sediments deposited indicate severe ground frost in an initial phase, i.e. large balls of loose dune sand, imbedded in the lower part of the stratigraphies, objects which could only have been transported in a frozen form. In spite of being found in a 5 m thick sediment sequence the fire places have the same apparent age according to 14 C-datings, indicating an extreme rate of sedimentation. The playa investigated, Chott Nejla, is normally dried out However, after heavy floods, it is a fresh water lake, with a maximum depth of 15 m, if filled up to the thresholds. At the natural playa outlet during pluvial periods, from an archaeological point of view, a very rich site was found with signs of a perhaps continuous settlement from 9000 B.C. to Roman times, uncommon for the Capisien culture (Balout, 1955; Larsson and Franzen, in press). The sediment sequence at

The Celestial Clock [SIS Internet Digest]
... From: SIS Internet Digest 2002:2 (Dec 2002) Home¦ Issue Contents The Celestial Clock www.celestialclock.com The Celestial Clock employs a unified theory of natural cyclicity, which reaches apocalyptic proportions in every 11,500 - 23,000 years. The book reveals the sacred symbology of the Seven Stars of Pleiades, serpents, dragons, scorpions, lamb and bull along with indisputable scientific proof that the Mayan Calendar is based on the 23,000 year ice volume collapse cycles recently discovered in ocean sedimentation and ice core drill down studies from Greenland and Antarctica. It is the dominant cycle of the "100,000" year Milankovitch ice age theory. The ancient prophets, seers, shamans, and medicine men knew about these natural apocalyptic cycles and tried their best to warn us through using animal symbology constructed from star constellations to teach us a cosmic size lesson using the Earth as the hand of a clock and the sky as the face of the clock. It is no coincidence that Revelation of the Bible talks about "red fiery dragon" and the

[: EROSION, FOSSIL, CONFORM]
The Signature of Catastrophe (Reinterpreting the Geological Record) [Aeon Journal]
... distinguish in the geological record two conceptually different kinds of units. Rock-stratigraphic units describe different types of rocks that constitute a mappable entity. Time-stratigraphic units, on the other hand, contain rocks believed to have been formed during a particular period of geologic time, without regard to the rock types involved. Boundaries of time stratigraphic units are inferred, from fossils or other evidence. This is true even when disconformities exist between systems. (A disconformity is an erosional surface overlain by another bed of rock, a real physical disruption in the sedimentation process.) No time-stratigraphic units occur universally. Known as geologic systems, they are defined based on selected sedimentary sequences in type-areas. (A type area is usually the first representation of a particular sedimentary sequence to be discovered.) The geological period (a pure time term, necessarily universal) is inferred to have occurred based on the existence of a geological system. The system itself might appear in only a single place on the earth. Periods are grouped into larger time groups called eras. The earliest recognized era is

[: FOSSIL]
The Great Debate [Catastrophism & Ancient History Journal]
... to explain fossilization. In fact, the explanation offered by the proponents of uniformity is contradictory to the fundamental principle of that doctrine. According to the long-accepted theory, dead plants and animals become buried in sediments of ocean bottoms and lake beds, where they eventually become fossilized. But in order for a plant or animal to become entombed before its remains disintegrate or before being devoured by scavengers, it must be buried rapidly, which is diametrically opposed to the slow process defined by uniformity. Furthermore, in normal conditions the rate of sedimentation in deep seas varies from a few millimeters to a few centimeters per millennium; in shallow water this rate may be as high as ten centimeters per century, or one millimeter per year. In either case the rate of sedimentation is not nearly enough to cause fossilization. This strongly implies that no fossils are currently being formed, thus tolling the death knell on uniformity, whose disciples religiously maintain that nothing took place in the past that is not taking place in the present. Catastrophism, on the other hand, readily accounts

[: EROSION]
Cratonic Stability and Rapid Erosion Events [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 2 (Dec 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Cratonic Stability and Rapid Erosion Events Charles W. Finkl Jr
_Ocean Sciences Center, Nova University Port Everglades, USA.
_Abstract
_On the basis of denudation rates and erosional unconformities, conclusions are drawn regarding the relative importance of periods of slow weathering and of rapid stripping events in cratonic regions. In such regions, long periods (on the order of 1000 Me) of stable biostatic conditions alternate with comparatively short unstable rhexistatic phases (a few million years or less). The stripping of cratonic regoliths can effectively lower shield surfaces by many metres in a few million years. In the long run, however, overall cratonic denudation rate is exceedingly small. On the Yilgarn Block in Western Australia, prior to a recent unstable phase in the later Tertiary and Quaternary, the bedrock surface had not been effectively lowered for about 1500 Ma.
_Introduction
_The short duration of many geological catastrophes is well known, perhaps in part because of the sharp contrast with their impressive and lasting results.
...
zones, and (c) increasing tectonism creating the present maximal relief. Complicating factors leading to excessively high estimates are due to the fact that many rates are calculated from studies of humid, middle latitude rivers in densely populated countries with a high man-induced soil erosion (Douglas, 1967; Rice, 1977; Linden, 1978). Rivers in such countries have regimes and loads quite different from those draining tundra, desert, or lowlying equatorial rainforests which are largely ignored in many rate calculations.
_The Cratonic Regime
_Uncoriformities - breaks in sedimentation with the intervention of erosion represent gaps in the record of geologic time, and are thus evidence of changes in physical conditions that may have involved climatic changes, eustatic oscillations, or crustal disturbances. Some unconformities represent a relatively large period of 'missing' geologic time and may span great expanses of territory, a million square kilometres or more (Geikie, 1905; Harbaugh, 1969), especially on stable platforms. On the West Australian shield (Yilgarn Block), for example, erosional unconformities and associated stacked veneers of sedimentary
...
time, and are thus evidence of changes in physical conditions that may have involved climatic changes, eustatic oscillations, or crustal disturbances. Some unconformities represent a relatively large period of 'missing' geologic time and may span great expanses of territory, a million square kilometres or more (Geikie, 1905; Harbaugh, 1969), especially on stable platforms. On the West Australian shield (Yilgarn Block), for example, erosional unconformities and associated stacked veneers of sedimentary cover are closely comparable in attitude and altitude. The oldest nearly horizontal unconformity is Early Proterozoic and subsequent unconformities tend to conform to this original planation surface (Finkl and Fairbridge, 1971). Most cratonic areas have been subject to repeated exhumations and reburials. This geodynamic pattern has been called the cratonic regime by Fairbridge and Finkl (1979), in a similar conceptual framework as a chelogenic cycle, thus in long-term sedimentation and tectonic patterns (orogenic regime, [R6]____rifted plate-margin regime, subducted plate-margin regime). The 'standard cratonic regime' is related to a eustatic succession of transgressive-regressive sequences (Vail et al, 1977
... to 20 rm per million years, practically nil on a human time scale. The stable biostatic state was interrupted and the rhexistatic condition began to affect the cratonic interior in the later Tertiary when surfaces of low relief were progressively developed, exploiting deep regoliths which had been forming since the Permian (the'last' iceagefor the Australian craton). During the catastrophic erosive phase, initiated some 30-35 Ma ago, as much as 35m of regolith was stripped from the northern margins of the Yilgarn Block (Finkl, 1979). This represents an erosion rate about five to ten times the mean rate of Australian cratonic lowering as calculated by Fairbridge and Finkl (1978). Such accelerated and pervasive erosion was associated with and in part due to environmental changes that involved a progressive lowering of sea level that began abruptly in the latest Eocene or Early Oligocene, a concurrent fall in the ground water table with loss of protective forest vegetation, and an increasing aridity. A comparison can be made with the Brazilian craton, where the eastern margin was uplifted following [R7]____plate rifting in Early Cretaceous

Geological Genesis [SIS C&C Workshop]
... light. The Earth was dominated by the large single super-continent Pangaea, with the World Mountain at its epicentre, and surrounded by a fresh-water shallow Sea. Only a non-rotating synchronous orbit, with the super-continent locked into and facing proto-Saturn, would account for this stability. The climate was sub-tropical with high humidity. The synchronous (syn-, chronous: 'together with Saturn'?) orbit meant constant light and heat, and hence no variation in temperature. There were no tidal forces in the large shallow Sea, and hence no sedimentation. There were no seasons and hence minimal tree rings. Birds, mammals and our ancestors inhabited the planet during the Mesozoic and coexisted with the dinosaurs [55. In much the same ways as our diversity exists today, cultures varied from the sophisticated, who lived towards the World Mountain, to the primitive who lived towards the edges of the super-continent. Giantism was common in this era of reduced gravitation and size and bulk were no disadvantage. The Earth and original satellites of proto-Saturn separated some 15,000-20,000 years

Geology [Alternative Science Website]
... because it dates the sedimentary rocks by inference alone through their relationship to the rare samples of igneous or primary rocks that are being dated. For further information Click Here Exhibit 3. Old or Young? Sedimentary rocks laid down during the Earth's history are found in clear-cut strata, one on top of another like a pile of carpets. The classic uniformitarian interpretation of this finding is that the layers are successive episodes in sequence, that each layer is younger than those underneath it and that the cracks or joints between layers represent pauses in sedimentation. This has been the central belief of the Earth sciences since it was enunciated by Charles Lyell in 1833. Since 1985 French geologist Guy Berthault has carried out a series of laboratory experiments involving pouring sediments into large tanks of moving water to study the internal structure of the strata, and how lamination takes place. Samples of laminated rocks were crumbled to reduce them to their original constituent particles of varying size. The particles were sorted (and colored to make them easier to identify). They were then mixed together again and

[: FOSSIL]
homepage • e-mail [Mythopedia Website]
... : contra uniformitarianism If the geological column takes millions of years to form, why do we find trees, forty feet tall, in the vertical position of growth in coal-seams? A fossilised tree, in position of growth, was found in the coal measures at Blackrod in Lancashire. The original tree must have been surrounded and buried by sediment which was compacted before the bulk of the tree decomposed, so that the cavity vacated by the trunk could be occupied by new sediment which formed the cast. This implies a rapid rate of sedimentation around the original tree. [1 There are 'graveyards' of millions of land-dwelling creatures who suffered death simultaneously, indicating that many fossils were formed during catastrophes. [2 The best evidence that pressure rather than time is the cause of coalification comes from examining the rank of coal in relation to the depth of its deposit. [3 There is a substantial body of evidence pointing to rapid mountain-building occurring in the recent past, thousands rather than millions of years ago. [4 Remains of human habitation at extraordinary heights, such

[: CLAY]
Catastrophism and Evolution [SIS C&C Review]
... extinctions Of all the major stratigraphic boundaries, only the Cretaceous-Tertiary (C-T) boundary does not become diffuse when studied in detail throughout the world [66. The boundary is commonly marked by a thin clay layer, and its age is generally accepted to be about 65 million years. The abundant calcareous marine plankton which gave the Cretaceous Period its name (creta being Latin for chalk) are severely depleted over a few millimetres, with some groups, especially the planktonic foraminifers and nannoplankton, being virtually wiped out. On the basis of sedimentation rates and other evidence, it has been estimated that this extinction took place over a period of 200 years or less [66, 67. At about the same time, the dinosaurs, who had been dominant over the land for over 100 million years, were suddenly and completely exterminated, no species of terrestrial vertebrate of weight greater than 25 kg surviving through to the Tertiary (Figure 2) [68. In the oceans, the surviving ammonites all died out, as did the large sea-reptiles, the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs

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UNCONFORMITY

James Hutton: A Non-inductive, Theological Catastrophist [The Velikovskian]
... ." (22) Simple chronology, says Gould, is evidence enough. Hutton had observed granite at only one uninformative location in the field by the time of his presentation. He presented his theory of the Earth before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on March 7 and April 4, 1785, publishing an abstract later that year which described the theory essentially in its final form. That summer, he visited several better field sites, including the outcrop at Glen Tilt, where he made a key observation. Hutton saw his first unconformity at Loch Ranza, then another at the Tweed Basin, in 1787, two years after he first presented his theory. In 1788, at Siccar Point, he found what became his most famous unconformity. That same year, the first, full, written version of Hutton's theory appeared in volume I of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The two-volume Theory of the Earth with Proofs and Illustrations folowed in 1795. Gould concurs with G. L. Davies, who wrote The Earth in Decay: A History

[: CONFORM]
The Origins of Modern Geological Theory [Kronos]
... a great treat to have taught our section-hunting quarry men, that two thick volumes may be written on geology without once using the word "stratum," Scrope wrote to Lyell on September 29, 1832, after Lyell's second volume appeared. "If anyone had said so five years back, how he would have been scoffed at." Just as the conservatives had refused a hearing to the Huttonian camp earlier, now the liberals pulled the same tactics when they got into power. The stronghold of catastrophism lay in a stratigraphy where unconformity and nonconformities, to say nothing of massive conglomerates, told of wide-ranging geological disasters in the past. Lyell, like Scrope before him, simply suppressed the evidence which did not fit in with his doctrines, and once he was voted into power, the catastrophists found it increasingly difficult to publish their research. The liberal takeover of the geological society and the suppression of evidence favoring the catastrophist position did not come about over-night. Rather there was a slow assimilation of catastrophist data until there was virtually nothing left to the theory as

Could an Explosive Volcanic Eruption be Produced by the Nearby Passage of a Cosmic Body? [SIS C&C Review]
... of its passage only in the stresses it produces within Earth's crust. We have such descriptions in the Bible: 'The Earth trembled ... the mountains melted' [Judges 5:4-5. This is highly suggestive of earthquakes and lava flows. A more graphic simile is found in Psalm 114:1-7: 'The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.' This suggests a seismic disturbance rather than conversion of elevated heights to volcanoes. When interpreting poetic descriptions of natural cataclysms it is often assumed that established rock strata can suddenly be raised by subterranean pressures to become volcanoes (see below: 'Genesis of a volcano'), but this is geologically impossible. Volcanoes Every material body seeks equilibrium, externally and internally. In consequence, the material comprising the interior of even a 'solid' planet will flow like a fluid given sufficient time. As gas, dust, debris, and meteors of stone and iron composition came together to form proto-Earth, the young planet became heated from the kinetic energy of collisions, its compression due to gravity
...
,000 tons per day - in addition to 100,000 tons of lava" [8. Though Paracutin enabled the birth of a new volcano to be observed from the surface, what was going on below ground is not known for sure and can only be surmised. We know that subterranean instability has to be relieved by the most practical physical means. It is likely that hot magma, driven by expansion of its own volatiles and the pressure of the overburden, will follow weaknesses caused by faulting and ruptures in the underlying geological strata, and literally melt its way to the surface. We do not know what triggered the eruption of Paracutin in February 1943; but we can be certain that the probability of a substantial cosmic body happening to pass near Paracutin in January or February 1943 was small (there was no known impact). Correspondingly, the chance that a significant cosmic body on a rare collision or near-collision course would find a volcano almost ready to erupt explosively near its path - and would trigger an explosive eruption - is remote. Mountains that

[: FOSSIL]
homepage • e-mail [Mythopedia Website]
... uniformitarian'. [13 internal contradictions The various methods of dating commonly produce discordant ages for the same rock deposit. Where this occurs, a 'harmonisation' of discordant dates is carried out – in other words, the figures are adjusted until they seem right. [14 If the first surface waters formed 3,800 million years ago and the first microorganisms came into existence 3,800 million years ago, then there was zero time available for the spontaneous appearance of life [15 wrong objects dated The entire geological column of sedimentary rock strata is dated not by radioactive decay or any other method of direct measurement, but by relative methods. These methods include principally the dating of intrusions of primary volcanic rock and ash (often by the potassium-argon method of Hawaiian fame) and estimates based on assumptions concerning rates of sedimentation and rates of evolution of fossil species. [16 The geological column consists of sedimentary rocks, rocks formed from sediments laid down on the beds of ancient seas and composed of particles of the primary, volcanic rocks. Radioactive dating techniques can only

[: FOSSIL]
Radioactive Fossil Bones (Comments) [Catastrophism Geology]
... which seem to coincide with mountain-building epochs. Some bones, mainly dinosaurs and dinocerats from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary line, show exceptioinally strong radioactivity. In order to find out what happened, more data are needed. We ask all the enthusiasts of nature, both in the Soviet Union and abroad, to check the radioactivity of fossils in museums and private collections, and at excavation sites. This can be done by using modern measuring equipment which is simple and everywhere available to inquisitive young investigators and students. It is important to describe the rock strata which contain the bones, the types and families of animals, and the quantity of radioactivity. It is recommended to determine also the type of radiation. V.Bogoslovsky, engineer (translated by Marçal Barros, and editorially shortend. All this looks certainly suggestive, but at closer inspection the evidence is rather inconclusive. For instance, nowhere mention is made of a continuous profile, with non-radioactive remains below and ahove the Upper Cretaceous beds. Unfortunately, my queries to Moscow for details remained without an answer. Judging from the

Analogous Mountain Building [SIS C&C Workshop]
... that some mountains are thought to have been built by the folding of upper sedimentary layers. Luckily this does not require the complicated technical facilities of an expensive laboratory, but relies for its effect upon something which we all must have observed at some time or other - the ruckling of a rug on a floor. Whoever thought of the analogy(1) hit upon such a simple picture requiring so little application of the imagination that a physical check would seem unnecessary; the similarity between the humps of a folded rug and the folded geological strata to be seen in most parts of any countryside was seemingly accepted in toto, without anyone thinking it necessary to question the cause that effects the ruckling, or considering how ruckling comes about, or why. (Since this contribution was submitted, it has been pointed out by Workshop editors that models comparing wax with plate tectonics are nowadays thought to be more exact; but as this contribution is mainly concerned with the folding of the upper layers of the 30,000-50,000-foot-thick sedimentary deposits atop the continents, the author

Michael Cremo: Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race [SIS Internet Digest]
... From: SIS Internet Digest 2000:2 (Dec 2000) Home¦ Issue Contents Michael Cremo: Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race Michael is the co-author of Forbidden Archaeology, a book of extraordinary merit which appeared for the first time in 1993. It argues persuasively that human beings, little different to you or I, have been around for at least 300 million years. This evidence comes from human remains and sophisticated artefacts found in geological strata that predate the conventionally-held time-scale of anatomically modern humans. Some isolated pieces of evidence push the date of our presence back even further, to as much as 2 billion years ago. Michael spoke, for instance, of finds made during the California According to a book from 1880 entitled The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, written by California state geologist Dr J. D. Whitney, miners tunnelling in Tuolumne Table Mountain often came across human remains and stone tools. They even uncovered stone pestle and mortars of a design similar to that used through till modern times. The problem, however

The Exo-Synchronous Molecular Evolutionary Clock [SIS C&C Workshop]
... and used both to propose some details as to the nature of evolution and also to show that the fundamental upheavals proposed by Velikovsky might have occurred with clocklike regularity. If this clock concept is found to be valid, then these should be only two of its applications. This is because the DNA molecules would have written on them a record since life began of the thousands of Earth's larger catastrophes, and this to a degree unsurpassed for a combination of precision and long term continuity as compared with any other known source such as the geological strata. Thus a study of the molecules should open a new avenue for study of Earth's and the Solar System's past. Notes and References 1. E. Zuckerkandl, L. Pauling: 'Evolutionary Divergence and Convergence In Proteins', in V. Bryson, H. J. Vogel (eds): Evolving Genes and Proteins, (Academic Press, New York,1965), pp. 97-165 2. H. Ochman, A. Wilson: 'Evolution in Bacteria: Evidence for a Universal Substitution Rate in Cellular Genomes

Confessions of a Cenoist [Aeon Journal]
... benign throughout historic times, and so I face a dilemma: Do I go along with scientific authority, or do I believe my eyes? For example, I see that moons and planets are scarred with marks that appear fresh but astronomers insist these features are old, likely millions of years old. They claim dating measurements furnish incontrovertible proof. Scientists have developed hundreds of techniques that confirm the hoary age of whatever the scientific mainstream alleges is stable or ancient. They firmly date the development of the Solar System, the time-frames of geological strata, the end of the dinosaurs, Egyptian civilization - - although these epochs are obscured by the haze that envelops the distant past. If their histories were packaged in storybooks rather than scientific tomes, their stories would begin with the words: "Once upon a time, long, long ago." The urge of scientists and people overall to push things back in time can be a source of amusement. Classicist Bill Mullen and I once sipped a glass of wine as we savored a common human foible - - the

First Dynasty - pre-Flood or post-Flood [SIS Internet Digest]
... tell ed-Daba and its environs. The stratigraphy at this locality has since caused some confusion, and some difference of opinions, among Egyptologists. The final verdict is not yet in. From: Ev Cochrane, ev.cochrane@ames.net Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 09:31:09 +0000 As for Roger's question about dating the Flood, all that can be said for "certain" is that it was prehistoric in nature. In my opinion, there are two ways to approach the Flood-traditions. One can explore the various geological strata for evidence of a universal flood. Here all attempts have failed to find any evidence for a flood of the magnitude of the Biblical and Sumerian accounts. Secondly, one can compare the various traditions of a deluge from different cultures around the world. This is the approach I have taken. That there was a catastrophic event remembered as the "Great Flood", witnessed by various peoples around the globe, I have no doubt. How to understand those events is the another question entirely and still under investigation. As

[: FOSSIL]
Were All Dinosaurs Reptiles? [Kronos]
... .)***** BRONTOSAURUS WAS A MAMMAL Millions of years are required for a piece of wood to become a piece of coal. But to make of it a piece of coal when ablaze, only a few hours are needed. When footprints of pre-historic animals are found in the coal surface of quarries, it is not necessary to assume that millions of years must be involved in the calculations. Continents appeared and disappeared; mountains rose and fell; rivers lost their beds; and deep within the Earth, all geological strata boiled and turned over. An animal fled upon the ground to save itself, or hid in a cave. The woods burned; the air high above was in flames; the ground became soft from the inside. The animal perished, but before perishing it left its mark - - its footprints. The antiquity of the geological strata in which fossils are found is measured by tens and hundreds of millions of years. However, all conclusions of geology must be revised in a very definite manner. It is possible that

The Case for Catastrophe in Historical Times [Kronos]
... to be accounted for are the venom or poison deposited on the land, and the blood in the rivers. This writer is of the opinion that these phenomena are related, in that the venom caused "vegetation to cease" and the blood caused the waters to become undrinkable. They can both be explained in terms of a sky-borne pollutant, which, because the rivers turned bloody, would have to have been a deep red colour. This is not an unreasonable assumption: high concentrations of rare earth metals are found in the geological strata associated with presumed impacts of meteorites or comets. Readily explained in terms of this hypothesis also are the two general points raised at the beginning of the Discussion section. If Enheduanna witnessed the encounter between Earth and a large meteor or comet, we have a potent stimulus for her vivid recording. Although she was the high priestess of the moon god, Nanna, we should not be surprised if she changed her allegiance to the more "active" astral body, Inanna: nor should we be surprised at complaints of Nanna's

Enheduanna and the Goddess Inanna [SIS C&C Review]
... and evil winds she brought, the apparition of the dragon in the skies, why fire 'rained' from heaven, and why she was so feared. The venom or poison deposited on the land and the blood in the rivers would then be related phenomena: the venom caused the 'vegetation to cease' and the blood caused the waters to become undrinkable. They can be explained in terms of a sky-borne pollutant with a red colour. This is not an unreasonable assumption: high concentrations of rare earth metals are to be found in geological strata associated with presumed impacts of meteorites or comets [39. The vivid nature of Enheduanna's description is most readily explained by the 'cosmic missile hypothesis'. A number of significant details are accounted for, including why Enheduanna complains that the moon god Nanna is indifferent and ineffective in coming to her aid, and why she prefers the more 'active' astral body, Inanna. Figure 3: detail from the 'Warka Vase' (Uruk, level III, early 3rd millennium BC). 'These polelike objects are the gatepost emblems of

A Quantitative Test for Catastrophic Theories [Pensee]
... the reduction of the weight of ice on land masses allowed them to rise slowly, and vice versa. If Velikovsky's First General Theory is, correct, then the numerous radiocarbon dates which have been obtained for fossil shorelines in Europe must cluster at specific points, because the theory demands that ocean levels altered relatively suddenly at certain dates in the past. Moreover the C-14 dates of some, if not all the tilted raised shorelines should also cluster at these points. This is particularly important because the First General Theory must also assume that geological strata were violently disturbed at the same time as the ocean levels altered. The theory of Uniformity however, while it obviously allows simultaneous, though presumably slow, eustatic sea level changes because of the shrinkage and expansion of the polar caps, cannot automatically assume that the circumpolar land masses - - in their individual isostatic adjustments - - would act in concert with these. Thus isostatic shoreline changes should be scattered more or less at random between general eustatic changes if a Uniformitarian explanation is correct, but most of both should coincide if a Catastrophic view is

Evolution,evolution theory,darwinism,neo-darwinism,natural selection,genetic mutation,survival of the fittest,economic darwinism,julian huxley,struggle for survival, [Alternative Science Website]
... that become progressively larger and more highly adapted through the ages. The originator of this sequence as a popular illustration, George Simpson of Harvard, asserts that, for instance, the species Archaeohippus is a descendant of the ancestral Mesohippus from the earlier Oligocene period. Yet the chief characteristic of the more recent Archaeohippus is that it is a dwarf or pygmy horse, a major reversal of the previous trend toward steadily increasing size. This example can be multiplied a hundredfold. Highly ornate extinct shellfish such as ammonites are succeeded in more recent geological strata by simpler and less ornate forms. Many later forms of dinosaur were less ornate in their anatomy than their ancestors. Turning to the extended meaning of evolution, outside of biology, an often-quoted example is the evolution of chemical elements in the nuclear processes in the interior of stars. The energy radiated by stars comes from the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium, helium into carbon and so on, until heavier and heavier elements such as iron are finally produced. At the end of their lives, many stars detonate in

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RATE OF EROSION

[: EROSION]
Mars in Upheaval [Aeon Journal]
... erosion is a dominant feature of Mars and apparently is so intense in some areas as to have completely eroded away pre-existing volcanos on Mars. The edge of the largest volcano on Mars, Nix Olympus, is apparently being rapidly eaten away, exposing a 1 to 2 kilometer cliff around its base." (37) The absurdity of assuming that the surface of Mars is ancient is stated by Hal Masursky thus: "'Crater counts in old volcanic terrain indicates ages of 3 billion years,' Masursky said. 'So if this [calculated rate of erosion were extrapolated over an assumed Mars' age, the same as the 4-4.5 billion years of existence of the Earth and moon, Mars would now be about the size of Phobos, one of its two [tiny moons,' he said." (38) It is abundantly clear that with such a powerful erosion rate the amount of dust produced would be enormous. Of course, this material would not have been blown off into space, but would settle on the planet's surface. Based on these uniformitarian calculations

[: EROSION]
Continuous Versus Discontinuous and Self-Perpetuating Versus Self-Terminating Processes [Catastrophism Geology]
... process that proceeds in spurts with virtually no change (standstill) in the intervening time spans. Processes of this type are: erosion by flashflooding or landsliding, movements on faults, and others. Curve V shows a similar process which, however, is reversible. One might think of long-term movements on major faults when the state of stress has been suitably altered. Curve V shows singularities that result merely in an abrupt change in the rate of change (discontinuity of the first derivative). One might .envisage a situation where the rate of erosion is suddenly increased, either due to rapid uplift or to a climatic change reducing the vegetation cover. Figure 1. Continuous geological processes, a plot of change versus geological time. Curve 'a': linear change Curve 'b': accelerating change. Curve 'c': decelerating change. Curve 'd': variable rate of change. Figure 2. Discontinuous geological processes, a plot of change versus geological time. Curve 'a': process proceeds in spurts with intervening periods of quiescence. Curve 'b': same

[: EROSION]
Thoth Vol. I, No. 3 February 18, 1997 [Thoth Website]
... earth's magnetic field has been carefully measured and recorded for some centuries now. The curve of the decay when projected back just 2000 years gives a value that is 3 times as great. In "geologic" time scales this is an incredibly huge rate of decay, and if projected back some 30,000 years gives values that are unacceptably high. Other crude yet simple indicators that there was a major upheaval within the last 10,000 years are the salinity increase rate for the Dead Sea (about 5000-6000 years), the rate of erosion for the Niagara Falls escarpment (5000-6000 years), the rate of erosion of the sandstone bluff along the shipping channel crack at South Whidbey island, etc., etc. The point is that essentially all cosmologists have proposed some kind of astral catastrophism, but generally insist that these catastrophes happened eons ago, buttressing their position with questionable dating methods, and counting on inertia to hold their world view together. But if major upheavals happened within human memory, it is now time to listen with an open mind to

[: EROSION]
A Life's Work? [SIS C&C Review]
... application of fracture mechanics analysis to the Earth's physical features is based on his 1991 C& C Review paper and includes his latest thinking about the reconstructed shape of Pangaea and the role of water from below the ice caps acting as a lubricant for the rocks involved in massive overthrusts. He develops the ideas further, illustrating them with diagrams and also photographs from laboratory experiments, the Grand Canyon and glaciers in the Himalayas. Although he does not discuss the formation of the Grand Canyon at length, the obvious sharp fracture surfaces and extraordinary rate of erosion seen in the photographs speak volumes about its probable recent and catastrophic origins. Chapter VIII considers evidence of fluid pressure in wells, a subject of crucial importance to catastrophists. As Cook notes, 'Abnormal and abnormally high pressures are common, particularly in new oil fields' (p. 167), yet these cannot be convincingly explained by orthodox theories of gradual formation and accumulation of oil and gas in permeable rocks. In chapters IX and X, it is argued that oil, gas and coal have been formed by

[: EROSION]
Reviews [SIS C&C Workshop]
... related to things other than the passage of time is subversive, plausible and attractive). A fascinating time calculation for the Grand Canyon is unfortunately marred by a printing or arithmetical error: the Colorado River's flow is quoted as 10^3 g/s, carrying on average 3% sediments. The total volume of the Canyon is quoted as 3000km^3. From these figures, Cook calculates an age of 300,000 years although I make it only 3,000. years. Either way, it is a remarkable rate of erosion (explained by the shattering of rocks under catastrophic conditions) but it would be helpful if the correct figures could be confirmed Coal, Oil and Gas The formation of coal explained by the compression in sudden deep burial or in overthrusts of wood and other vegetable matter. This is shown to make sense in chemical, physical, and geological terms. The formation of oil and gas is explained by the sudden deep burial of marine plant life and vegetable and other organic matter. Relevant points are: - radiocarbon ages obtained

EROSION RATE

[: EROSION]
Mars in Upheaval [Aeon Journal]
... place, causing changes that could be seen on the surface." (33) What is quite apparent from this description is that dust storms on Mars are more destructive to its surface than dust storms on the Earth. This is so because the dust particles which are the same size as dust particles on the Earth are moving at greater velocities than on Earth. Furthermore, these storms occur periodically and last from three to six months. Space scientists and geophysicists were thus able to use well-known, experimentally-proven erosion equations to deduce the erosion rate on Mars. In a 1973 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology, for example, we find that, "Using Mariner 9 wind data, Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University calculated erosion rates assuming a dust storm peak wind (velocity) of 110 mph blowing 10 percent of the time. This would mean erosion of 10 km (6.2 miles) of surface in 100 million years." (34) Based on this calculation, in 300 thousand years 98.2 feet of the Martian surface - about the height

[: EROSION]
CHZ and Solar System Stability [The Velikovskian]
... its assumption of early warm planets still does not match with what is found on Mars and on the Earth. Again, I challenge critics to resolve this problem for Mars and the Earth and to resolve the problem of erosion on Mars. Based on the clear evidence of erosion, Mars had to have had water on its surface within the last few thousand years. Wind erosion would have removed its river system topography long ago. This evidence is so clear-cut that no one has come forth to explain how Mars, given its present erosion rate, could still have clearly discernible river system topography on its surface. Erosion on Mars, with respect to craters and river systems, is another dilemma. Scientists tell us that, based on the crater counts on Mars' surface, we are looking at a surface that is 3 to 4 billion years old. (21) We have also been told that the river systems on Mars are 3 to 4 billion years old. (22) However, any analysis based on uniformitarian erosional processes fails to correlate the ancient

[: EROSION]
CHZ and Solar System Stability [The Velikovskian]
... effect; Earth's early oceans stayed warm enough to allow for water until the CHZ moved outward to the Earth; and Mars, a small planet, lost its heat more rapidly and then lost its atmosphere and water, which escaped into space. What the scientists have done is to shift their paradigm for the birth of planets as cold bodies to warm ones in order to make the planetary water history fit the evidence. But the paradigm still does not work. If Mars had lost its water 3 or 4 billion years ago, erosion would still have removed all evidence for river systems. The scientists categorically refuse to face up to the obvious fact that erosion on Mars would have turned the entire planet surface to sand, erasing all evidence of river systems. Therefore, this paradigm shift cannot be used to explain Mars' surface features. Now, if the paradigm shift fails to account for water on Mars, it cannot be used for the Earth and Venus. What is required, then, to save the warm planet theory is to have the much smaller

[: EROSION, CONFORM]
Cratonic Stability and Rapid Erosion Events [Catastrophism Geology]
... From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 2 (Dec 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Cratonic Stability and Rapid Erosion Events Charles W. Finkl Jr Ocean Sciences Center, Nova University Port Everglades, USA. Abstract On the basis of denudation rates and erosional unconformities, conclusions are drawn regarding the relative importance of periods of slow weathering and of rapid stripping events in cratonic regions. In such regions, long periods (on the order of 1000 Me) of stable biostatic conditions alternate with comparatively short unstable rhexistatic phases (a few million years or less). The stripping of cratonic regoliths can effectively lower shield surfaces by many metres in a few million years. In the long run, however, overaH cratonic denudation rate isexceedingly small. On the Yilgarn Block in Western Australia, prior to a recent unstable phase in the later Tertiary and Quaternary, the bedrock surface had not been effectively lowered for about 1500 Ma. Introduction The short duration of many geological catastrophes is well known, perhaps in part because of the sharp contrast with their impressive and lasting results.

[: EROSION]
William H. Stiebing, Jr., and Immanuel Velikovsky [The Velikovskian]
... , but this erosion could not be going on for billions, or even millions of years, because it would have eroded all the martian features away. We are, in fact, informed that [u sing Mariner 0 wind data, Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University calculated erosion rates assuming a dust storm peak wind of 100 mph [miles per hour blowing [10% of the time. This would mean erosion of 10 km [kilometers [6.2 miles of surface in 100 million years. (102) Using Sagan's erosion rate, in 300,000 years, some 100 feet of the martian surface would be eroded away. When erosion was tested for Mars, by NASA, at Ames Research Center, which simulated erosive conditions on Mars in a wind tunnel based on wind patterns derived from Viking lander information, Ronald Greeley and his co-investigators found that Mars should be eroded at rates of up to 2 centimeters [0.8 inches per century. But if this were the case, they note the craters visible at the Viking sites (which are hundreds

EROSION

SEDIMENT

[: SEDIMENT]
Flow Slips, Ocean Bottom Currents and Subaqueous Dunes [Catastrophism Geology]
... of mass movement thus appear to have been ideal. II. Tazieff's mention of objections to the turbidity current hypothesis (pp. 27, 31, 32) almost seems like 'kicking in an open door', In the sixties this was necessary (e. g. Hubert, 1964; van der Lingen, 1969), but the dominant position once occupied by turbidity currents in seclimentological thinking has since diminished considerably. In the early 'turbidite days', turbidity current's (and slumps) were considered to be the only mechanism for sediment transport to and along the deeper parts of the marine realm whereas at present they are regarded as but one of several types of subaqueous gravity flow (e.g. Hampton, 1975, van der Lingen, 1975). Collective terms presently used to describe these processes include 'sediment gravity flow' and 'mass flow' (Middleton and Hampton, 1973). Apart from turbidity currents, there are 'grain flows',' fluidized sediment flows' and 'debris flows'. Each type of flow is supposed to deposit strata with diagnostic characteristics ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Apophoreta - 3 [Catastrophism Geology]
... valley they would be preserved as they are seen here, complete and almost undamaged, yet all the bones separate and disarticulated." I wonder whether the inventor of this mechanism has done his best to find an actualistic example of quicksand sucking up animals (with a lesser density than itself) in such a selective manner. Or is this another example of a gradualistic mechanism being preferred at all costs, even if it violates actualistic principles and physical laws? Has the possibiity of a herd suddenly buried by a landslide or a liquefied sediment been considered? Are the properties of the overlying sediment compatible with this hypothesis? If so, it would be interesting to investigate this possibility also for other bone breccias and to find out whether such breccias are more common from certain periods of Earth history than from others. Han Kloosterman ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Horizontal Landslides During the 1960 Chile Earthquake [Catastrophism Geology]
... can cover considerable horizontal distances, but these are strictly proportional to the velocity. acquired during the initial fall. Material which is saturated with water or has become plasticised, can certainly travel relatively far on a horizontal surface, but only if there is an agency that continues to drive it forward - such as gravitation acting upon the upstream, higher-level 'tail' of the horizontally moving mass; such movements are always relatively slow. Figure 2. (1,2) Slides of tuf at Neltume; (3) Slide of fluvio-lacustrine sediment at Riñhue.On the other hand, in Chile we observe that: The velocity acquired in the steep section of the trajectory is relatively low the masses breaking away from altitudes of 20 or 50 metres only. The horizontal movement has been very rapid (in contrast to that of plastic flow of wet material it was fast enough to take hundreds of people unawares and to bury them The horizontal component of the trajectory is several times the vertical component (up to 10 times). We are thus confronted with a fundamentally different ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Bone Breccias (Comments on Apophoreta-3) [Catastrophism Geology]
... the bottom of the pool (see reference on Ink Pots springs). While this is not uncommon, there is no evidence (e.g. sorting of the sandy matrix of the bone breccia) presented for this. Again referring to my Ink Pots paper it is clear that density differences between quicksand and "trapped" animals do present a problem. The animals may have died from exhaustion, but they would not have been "sucked in". Lacking further evidence for the quicksand hypothesis, I think the mud flow (liquefied sediment slide) solution is more likely. The only way to solve this question is to collect all the evidence, including grain size distribution throughout the deposit, and detailed description of all "foreign matter" in the sediment. Robert O.van Everdingery Hydrology Research Div., Environment Canada Calgary, Canada Ref.: Van Everdingery R.O., 1969: The Ink Pots - - a group of karst springs in the Rocky Mountains near Banff, Alberta. Can.J.Earth Sci. 6/4: 545-554.*** The problem here ...

[: SEDIMENT, EROSION]
Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism [Catastrophism Geology]
... study area is believed to represent closely past conditions in another area as to studies interpreting the landforms of the study area itself. It is important to distinguish between the erosional and. the tectonic aspects of this problem, as the latter kill influence rates of erosion and deposition. The present discussion is confined to the problem of whether in a relatively stable tectonic area the present is typical of the past, and whether areas at present involving tectonic movement are typical of similar areas in the past. Strakhov suggests that the average rate of sediment accumulation in basins of the geological past and the limits of variation of that rate generally fit very well within the norm of present-day sedimentation, but due to man's influence on land, present erosion rates may be on average twice that of rates prior to the advent of man (Douglas. 1967). In certain localities, like highlands in the humid tropics, man's interference was sufficient to produce chronic disequilibrium. Man's interference is not just restricted to the widespread ploughing of' recent decades, and the difficulties of calculating erosion rates ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Apophoreta 2 [Catastrophism Geology]
... gifts, APOPHORETA - 'things to be carried off', to take home. On this page a column is published in which provocative hypotheses are presented. They may serve to stimulate thought and research - and the correspondence for the 'Comments' column of this journal, In their investigation of core samples from the Gulf of Mexico, Emiliani et al (Science 1975, 189:1083-88) discovered a section nearly two meters in thickness thatyielded radiocarbon ages of about 25,000 years B.P. The section is overlain by 3.5 metres of sediment deposited in the subsequent period until the present. The section of interest contains samples with increased 0-18 concentration in foraminiferal shells, which according to Emiliani et al "may represent an excess of evaporation in the Gulf of Mexico". The dper part of the section revealed ..a temporary, drastic decrease in the abundance of Globorotalia Inflata. Although this could be due to a very short episode of high temperature, we are more inclined to assign it to a temporary non-linear behavior of the species in question. Examples of such behavior are ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Geophysical Time Series and Catastrophism [Catastrophism Geology]
... random processes but also for all the common types of stationary stochastic processes. It was therefore expected that for large n the plot log E (Rn/Sn) versus log n (let us call it the 'range plot') of empirical time series should have an asymptote with slope equal to 0.5. It thus came as a great surprise to theoreticians when Hurst showed that the range plot of the Roda gauge data as well as range plots of long series of precipitation, river discharges, annual temperatures, and pressures, annual sediment deposits (varves) in lakes, and tree ring thicknesses exhibited a relationship E[ R n~ n h S n where h was close to 0.7. Similar empirical findings were later made with regard to economic and other historic time series. The failure of the exponent h to accord with theory underlying eq. (1) has been labelled the Hurst phenomenon. It has long resisted an adequate theoretical explanation and geophysicists and mathematicians still have not reached agreemeht as to its cause. One theoretical model that accounts for the Hurst ...

[: SEDIMENT]
An Allerød Conflagration? [Catastrophism Geology]
... south again. I cannot remember seeing any roots below the band, which is contained within a fairly pure white mud derived as hill-wash from the neighbouring chalk hills. The absence of any sizeable fragments of wood or charcoal confirms the evidence from the snails that this was heath or scrub-land rather than forest. I doubt if such plants would leave much in the way of root traces, but in any case I am thinking of something like Macbeth's "blasted heath" with dry dusty material blowing backwards and forwards, without any accumulation of sediment, over hundreds of years. The sheer abundance of the snails at this level compared with those in equivalent thicknesses above and below suggests to me that deposition was extremely slow. Derek V. Ager*** We should be careful here not to prefer a gradual mechanism over a sudden one on purely emotional grounds. There lingers a deep distrust of the religious establishment, which is, I think, very understandable and historically justified. But such a distrust is directed against a powerful and repressive religious establishment as it was over ...

[: SEDIMENT, SHALE]
Coldwater Carbonate Sedimentation [Catastrophism Geology]
... less diversity than those of modern warm marine carbonates but match those of cold shallow marine carbonates (Lees, 1975). Despite extensive search, no blue-green algae, richthofenid brachiopods, fusulinids, goniatites or conodonts have been found. Lonestones (erratic fragments), ranging in size from a few microns to 26 cm, are abundant and vary widely in composition, reflecting derivation from distal source areas containing metamorphic, sedimentary, plutonic and volcanic rocks. Coarser lonestones (dropstones) disrupt laminae, as they were dropped before compaction of the sediment took place (Rao, 1979 b). Their predominantly pentagonal 'flatiron' and triangular pyramidal shapes are typical of glacially derived sediments (Reineck and Singh, 1975). Furthermore, study of sandsize quartz grains by scanning electron microscope reveal the presence of glacial surface textures such as striations, extreme angularity, high relief, and a series of semi-parallel steps and arcs (Rao, 1979 b). Fig. 1. Vertical variations in shale-limestone-shale sequences. MSL=mean sea level I.R.=insoluble residue A.I.R. (absolute ...

[MISSOURI ANCIENT WINDS: SEDIMENT]
>Late Paleozoic Tornadoes and Synsedimentary Brecciation of Chert Nodules [Catastrophism Geology]
... Tornadoes and Synsedimentary Brecciation of Chert Nodules Albert V.Carozzi and Murry S.Gerber Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, USA.
_Fig. 1. Location map of investigated locality (a).
_Abstract
_A well-exposed section of ____crinoidal calcarenites of the Lower Burlington near Hannibal, Missouri, USA, displays an unusual occurrence of chert nodules penecontemporaneously brecciated by a short-lived and localized high-energy event interpreted as the touch-down of a tornado system. This example of ____tempestite demonstrates the syngenetic generation of completely indurated and fragile chert nodules within an unconsolidated carbonate sediment and stresses the fact that ____only events of catastrophic nature and penecontemporaneous with sedimentation can provide such a demonstration. Other instances of similar conditions are reviewed and compared with the investigated example. The early origin of cherts is more widespread than generally assumed and a complete reconsideration of the problem of chertification is required. General description of outcrop Along Missouri Highway 79, 2.4 kilometers south of the Hannibal city limits (SE, SE., Sec. 28, T. 57 N., R. 4W., Marion County), ...

[: SEDIMENT, EROSION]
Cratonic Stability and Rapid Erosion Events [Catastrophism Geology]
... continental denudation are commonly estimated for a specific time interval by measuring the average dissolved, suspended, and bed loads of rivers, and by calculating the volume of sediments deposited on continental margins and in oceanic basins (abyssal plains). Sedimentary volume is then converted to depth of material removed per time unit (e.g. centimetres per thousand years) for a particular catchment area or geomorphic surface (e.g. Reesman and Godfrey, 1972). The mean world rate of denudation, based on an estimate of some 12 krn 3 of sediment supplied to the ocean basins annually (Kuenen, 1950) lies somewhere in the vicinity of 8-10 cm per thousand years off the entire land surface. Consideration of specific physiographic or morphotectonic regions, however, results in estimates that are more realistic when compared to the kind and intensity of operative processes than those provided by homogenized global rates or averaged continental rates. Judson and Ritter (11964), using fluvial discharge methods for various drainage basins, calculated rates of 1.2 to 16 cm per thousand years. Based on measurements of suspended ...

[: SEDIMENT, SHALE]
Continuous Versus Discontinuous and Self-Perpetuating Versus Self-Terminating Processes [Catastrophism Geology]
... the form of individual spurts. A plausible theoretical explanation for such behaviour is at present lacking. Needless to say that the distinction between 'smooth' and 'irregular' growth is important for many academic and economic aspects of diapirism. The literature on salt diapirism is vast and for further reference one may consult Braunstein and O'Brien (1968) or Halbouty (1967). Although salt domes are the features that come most readily to mind when discussing diapirism one must not forget that this phenomenon occurs on all scales from centimetres in the case of sediment deformations to kilometres in the case of large batholiths. Also, whereas salt figures prominently in our thinking, it is not the only diapiric material of importance. Shales, particularly when geopressured and/or gas cut will act in this fashion (Hedberg, 1974). Only in the last decade or so has shale diapirism caught the attention of geologists, but the literature on the subject is already extensive and growing rapidly. Acidic and basic magmas rising through the crust are governed by the same mechanical concept and on the largest ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Actualism in Geology and in Geography [Catastrophism Geology]
... , but we still know very little of its less spectacular effects on vegetation, on weathering, on radiation, though London and Los Angeles offer warning examples. Urbanization affects run off, and thereby infiltration. Consumptive water use, the difference between precipitation and run off (including infiltration) in urban areas is not necessarily less than in agricultural areas. Most of these processes only affect limited areas, but even now they are not confined to the built over area itself: sedimentation in Lake Zurich shows a change from white calcareous lake sediment to black anaerobic mud since the beginning of this century, due to pollution (and fertilization) of the surface waters which has led to a sharp rise in plankton production. And with the spreading of urbanization such processes may be expected to spread to ever wider areas. KENNETH HARE recently called for a renewed interest of physical geographers in the natural environment (9, p. 109). I would like to endorse this plea and to extend it to the physical geography of an environment that is becoming 'natural' for an ...

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FOSSIL

[: SEDIMENT, SHALE, FOSSIL]
Fossil Radioactive Bones [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 1 (June 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Fossil Radioactive Bones Comments on Apophoreta-4, ctd. J. Saxon Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (Northern Division) Thurso, Caithness, Great Britain The bones of a number of Devonian fishes from the Orcadian cuvette have been checked for radioactivity by myself and my colleagues. All seven specimens of the genus Homostius so far checked were highly radioactive, due in one case mainly to uranium and its daughter products (Diggle& Saxon, 1965) and in others to thorium and its daughter products (see eg Bowie& Atkin, 1956). Other cenera from the same deposits (the dipnoan Dipterus and the crossopterygi an Thursius) showed no detectable radioactivity. Under my direction a student from Thames Polytechnic School of Chemistry, London, investigated this phenomenon (Bray, 1974), and noted that not only were the bones of Homostius radioactive but also the surrounding sedimentary matrix. From this it was assumed that the animal probably ingested and concentrated the uranium and thorium during its lifetime as the end product of its food chain. After death these elements remained fixed in the bone and the remainder, in the soft tissue, passed via the adipocere into the surrounding sediment. Homostius was probably a bottom feeder, sucking up mud and entrained food particles. Curley oil shales, probably resulting from the accumulation of drifted and decaying plant remains, formed substantial local deposits in the Orcadian cuvette. These shales have a measurably higher radioactivity than the background. Once ingested the uranium would pass via transferring to bone precursors and become fixed in the bone. The remainder would attach itself to various tissues and organs and would eventually find its way into the liver where its residence time would probably be high. It ...

[: FOSSIL]
Knowledge and Entropy - an Evolutionary Outlook [Catastrophism Geology]
... accumulation and about fluctuations of the whole reservoir (see, for instance, Brancazio and Cameron, 1964; Fischer, 1972, as cited in Glaessner, 1974; Schidlowski et al., 1975; Schidlowski, 1976; Tappan, 1968, 1971, 1973; Vologdin, 1962, as cited in Schopf. 1969). However. it is generally agreed that a durable living system tends on the whole towards energy storage, and that if the latter is exceeded by energy consumption the system will thin out and finally collapse. Fossil organic stocks indicate that production surpluses were repeatedly realized during the past, and known reserves of coal, oil and natural gas (cf. Gabor and Colombo, 1976; Hubbert 1977) amount to several times the early production of dry organic matter in the biosphere (cf. Lieth, 1975). But the very point to be borne in mind, is that life stores energy without causing energetic decay elsewhere: life rather checks energy dispersal by solar radiation which would be at work anyhow. The entropy concept is also dealt ...

[: FOSSIL]
Untitled [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 2 No. 2 (Dec 1977) Home¦ Issue Contents Apophoreta - 4 Johan Kloosterman To explain the discontinuous nature of the fossil record - which is characterised not only by sudden massive disappearances but even more by sudden massive appearances, occasional bursts of radiation have been proposed independently by several students of Earth history (Schindpwolf, 1950, Velikovsky, 1955; Salop, this issue). Anomalous high radioactivity has been detected in Homosteus, a fish from the same Ol Red Sandstone beds in which the Pterichthyodes occur, fishes often invoked by catastrophists of different persuasions (Hugh Miller, George McCready Price. Immanuel Velikovsky) as bearing witness to a sudden, violent and massive burial. Hugh Miler wrote in 1841: "The River Pullhead, when attacked by an enemy, or immediately as it feels the hook in its jaws, erects its two spines at nearly riqht angles with the plates of the head, as if to render itself as difficult of being swallowed as possible. The attitude is one of danqer and alarm; and ...

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Fossil cemeteries [Catastrophism Geology]
... From: Catastrophist Geology Year 2 No. 2 (Dec 1977) Home¦ Issue Contents Fossil cemeteries V. A. Obruchev From: V.A.Obruchev, 1959: Fundamentals of geology. Moscow. P. 321-326. The history of life on the Earth really shows that during certain periods of time some genera, families, orders and classes of animals and plants came into being, attained their greatest development and distribution and then died out or considerably diminished.( ... ) The leading part was played by climatic changes connected with *he transgressions and regressions of the sea, the epochs of mountainbuilding and glacial phases. But in addition to these slow transformations of the fauna and flora connected with climatic changes, which can be regarded as catastrophes only with the aforementioned reservations, we find in the annals of the Earth proofs of real catastrophes which in a short time exterminated large numbers of animals and plants. Their remains form whole strata of the earth's crust and may be called fossil cemeteries or fields of corpses. ( ... .) Cemeteries of ...

[: EROSION, FOSSIL]
Apophoreta [Catastrophism Geology]
... for these observations seemed aeolic precipitation on a barren, moist surface. As I had only a vaguely remembered textbook knowledge, I started, back in Rio, a literature search on ferralitic soils (laterite, bauxite, terra rossa). I found that in the pages of Economic Geology a lively discussion on bauxite formation had been in progress for several years, between proponents of the residual theory, the alluvial theory, and the volcanic ash theory. I also discovered, from the official geological literature, that: 1 - many fossil bauxite deposits were formed during a few (three or four) short periods in the Cretaceous; 2 - in the Tertiary, a fossil ferralitic soil, including important bauxite depo sits, formed probably during only one short period, in the early Eocene; 3 - 'Modern' ferralitic soils are not developing any more. Hematite which gives the red colour to these soils all over the tropics, is not formed at soil temperatures in humid surroundings. Erosion of these soils has been underway for about 10,000 or 12, ...

[: SEDIMENT, FOSSIL]
Radioactive Fossil Bones (Comments) [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 1 (June 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Radioactive Fossil Bones Comments on Apophoreta-4 Coordinated by Johan B.Kloosterman with contributions from Jaime E.Powell, V.Bogoslovsky, Kristian Koren, Manfred Warth and Dale A.Russell (with special thanks to Llewellyn I. Price and Marçal Barros) Mongolia. In the December '77 issue of this journal (212) much space was devoted to the discussion of discontinuities in the fossil record and their possible causal connection with radiation bursts from Supernovae. On page 39, Salop mentioned the possibility of a primary enrichment in uranium of dinosaur bones, found in Mongolia and dated from the end of the Cretaceous, as opposed to the generally accepted mode of formation of radioactive bone occurrences by secondary enrichment. There would be migration and adsorption alriqht, but these might be superposed on an originally irregular distribution of radioactive elements throughout the geological column. Such a distribution could even have been much more irregular than could be found out today, with sharp maxima, which subsequently would have been flattened or obfuscated by redistribution of elements
...
are carried out in low background facilities. Kristian Koren State Institute of Radiation Hygiene Österås, Norway In Germany, radioactivity of fossil bones is well known from the "Stubensandstein" (Middle Triassic) and from the "Suesswasser-Molasse" (Oligocene), and has been described in: Kirchheimer F., 1973: Weitere Mitteilungen Ober das Vorkommen radioaktiver Substanzen in Süddeutschland. Jahresh.d.Geol.Landesamtes Baden-Wbrtt., 15: 33-125. But radioactivity of fossil bones is considered to be a secondary phenomenon, depending on originally finely dispersed radioactive minerals in the imbedding sediment; bones play only the role of traps. I don't believe that radioactivity of fo,,sil bones is dependent on geologic time. For example, the bonebeds of the Upper Rhaetic of the Harz-region (central Germany) are highly radioactive whilst the bonebeds of the Upper Rhaetic in SW-Germany are not. Most sediments containing radioactive bones etc. are derived from mountains which enclosed ore deposits with radioactive components. The cited Stubensandstein Formation of SW-Germany, for example, represents the accumulated detritus of the socalled "Vindelician land", which ...

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Science Frontiers 1977-1978 [Catastrophism Geology]
... radioactive elements. Each type of radioactive decay has a specific half life. Thus, the patterns of radiohalos help measure the age of coalified wood. A challenge to geology arises because the radiohalos in coalified wood from Jurassic and Triassic formations, supposedly millions of years old, suggest ages of only a few thousand years. (Connor, Steven J.; "Radiohalos in Coalified Wood: New Evidence for a Young Earth", Creation Research Society Quarterly, 14:101-102, 1977). HOW REAL ARE BIOLOGICAL EXTINCTIONS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD? Much has been made by catastrophists of the apparent wholesale extinctions of many forms of life from one geological period to another. Some uniformitarians have been arguing all along that these so-called extinctions are more apparent than real. The present study supports this view with its study of world-wide records of the Triassic-Jurassic transition period. Correlation of U.S. and South African rocks imply that this key geological interface was actually a period of gradual faunal replacement rather than sudden, simultaneous extinction of life forms. (Olsen, Paul E., ...

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Catastrophist Geology [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3, No. 1 June 1978 Texts Home¦ Catastrophist Geology Home Catastrophist Geology Year 3, No. 1 June 1978 In this issue: Letters Frank B.Whiting, Manfred Warth, Eric W.Crew Radiation and the Paleontological Record - the Stroboscopic Model Peter Gretener Radioactive Fossil Bones Johan B.Kloosterman, Jaime E Powell, V. Bogoslovsky, Kristian Koren, Manfred Warth, Dale A.Russell Fossil Radioactive Bones J. Saxon References on Mass Extinctions and on Radioactivity Knowledge and Entropy - an Evolutionary Outlook Pietro Passerini Ootek's Tale Farley Mowat Plate Tectonics and Catastrophe Theory René Thom Apophoreta - 5 Axel Firsoff In forthcoming issues: Albert V.Carozzi on chert breccias and tornadoes Roger W.Wescott on anomalistics Charles W.Finkl on the stability of cratons Louis de Launay (anno 1906), the history of geological ideas Eugène Wegmann on a glacierlake spill in Greenland also forthcoming: a special issue on THE ALCHEMY OF ROCKS - on the transmutation of elements in geology, with articles by George Choubert, P.A.Korolkov, C.Louis Kervran, and others. Catastrophist Geology A magazine dedicated to the study of discontinuities ...

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Some Additional References on Mass Extinctions and on Radioactivity (especially K-T) [Catastrophism Geology]
... 326:71-72. Ganzorig Zh., at al, 1973: (Analysis by neutron activation of the content of U, Th and rare earth elements in dinosaur bones). Atom. Energ. USSR 35/5:349-351. Hall J. W., Norton N. J., 1967: Palynological evidence of floristic change across the Creteceous-Tertiary boundary in eastern Montana. Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol, Pelasoacol. 3:121-131. Hancock J. M., 1967: Some Cretaceous-Tertiary marine faunal change. In:The fossil record. Geol. Soc. London. Harker S. D., Sarjeant W.A.S., 1975: The stratigraphic distribution of organicwalled dinciflagellate cysts in the Cretaceous and Tertiary. Rev. Palaeobor. Polynoh 20/4:217-315. Jarzen D. M., 1976: Angiosperm pollen as indicators of Cretaceous-Tertiary environments. Not. Mus. Netur. Sci. Can., Syllogeus 12:39-50. Joletzky J. A., 1962: The allegedly Donlan dinosaur bearing rocks of the globe and the problem of the k4esozoicCenozoic ...

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Glaciations, Biologic Crises and Supernovae [Catastrophism Geology]
... arouse much interest now, and the Mosccow meeting was one of the symptoms of it. I thank everybody taking part in the discussion and in particular A.V.Khabakov, P.N.Kropotkin, V.P.Nekhoroshev, and V.N.Shimansky for fruitful discussion and valuable remarks. I also thank Mrs. V. Grudina for translation of this paper. 1. Glaciations and Epochs of Climatic Cooling Of the several major glaciations that are interred from the stratigraphic record, the oldest occurred during the Mesoprotozoic, about 2500-2300 MY ago (Salop, 1973). Proof of this lies in fossil moraines tillites and related formations) reported from North America (Huronian and Animikie Supergroups, Hurwitz and Libby-Creek Groups), from South Africa (Government - Reef and Griquatown Formation), from Europe (Sariolian Group of Karelia), from South Asia (Bijawar Group of India), from Western Australia (Whitewater Group) and probably also from South America (Sabara Formation), The Huronian Supergroup in the south of the Canadian Shield presents this evidence most unambiguously. Three tillite levels are reported from that region (Ramsay Lake, ...

[: FOSSIL]
Neocatastrophism? [Catastrophism Geology]
... in this connection that the resistance of insects to radioactive radiation is about ten times greater than that of human beings and other oganisms. References Beclerke E 1960: Krilische Betrachtung physikalischer Allersbesiimmungen Geol. Hosch 49: 314-319. Bergeron J 1892 La Faune clite "primordiale" est-elle la plus ancienne? Rev. génér. Sci 1891. 24pp Bowen R., 1961. Paleotemperature analyses of Mesozoic Belemnoidea from Germany and Poland J. o. Geol 69 75 93 Cloud P.E. Jr, 1948 Some problems and patterns of evolution exemplified by fossil invertebrates Evolution 2:322-350. Dyssa F M, Nesterenko P.G., Stobas M.V., Shirokov A Z., 1960 On the causes responsible for the extinction of large groups of organisms Dokl. Akad. NAUK SSSR. 131:185-187. Engl. transl. Amer Geol, Inst, 1961. Glaessner M F, 1958 New fossils from the base of the Cambrian in South Australia Trans Roy. Soc. S Austr. 81 185-188, - - , 1959: The oldest fossil faunas of South Australia. Geol ...

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Whimsical Aspects of Scientific Theory [Catastrophism Geology]
... . Russell, 1962) who point out the weaknesses in the synthetic theory concentrate upon this aspect, but they have been unsuccessful in remedying the fault." Thus he implies a duty to remedy a weakness before pointing it out, although in most cases this would shut off all discussion. Eldredge and Gould are more explicit: "If we doubt phyletic gradualism, we should not seek to 'disprove' it 'in the rocks'. We should bring a new picture from elsewhere and see if it produces a more adequate interpretation of fossil evidence." My best example comes from Mayr when he concedes that there are valid objections to his theory, but rules out these objections on the ground that their proponents have not advanced a better suggestion: " ... it is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird's feather) could be improved by random mutations. This is even more true for some of the ecological chain relationships (the famous yucca moth case, ...

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Catastrophist Geology [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 2, No. 2 Decemher 1977 Texts Home¦ Catastrophist Geology Home Catastrophist Geology Year 2, No. 2. Decemher 1977 A magazine dedicated to the study of discontinuities in Earth history In this issue: Bone Breccias Augustus Sordinas, Robert O. van Everdingen, Richard H.Tedford ... Fossil Cemeteries V.A. Obruchev USGS versus Fringe Johan B.Kloosterman Earthquake Lights USGS News Release Neocatastrophism? Otto H.Schindewolf Glaciations, Biologic Crises and Supernovae L.J. Salop Galactic Domains, G Fluctuations and Geomagnetic Reversals Harold Aspden Articles in other Magazines Meetings Apophoreta - 4 Johan B.Kloosterman Publisher: Johan R.Kloosterman, Caixa Postal 41.nol/ Santa Teresa Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL Price for four half-yearly issues is Cr$ 180, in Brazil, uss in,outside Brazil. If desired add US$3, for airmail. Please send money-orders in favour of Catastrophist Geoloqy through Panco Holandes Unido S/A, Caixa Postal 1242-7C-00, Rio de Janeiro. In forthcoming issues: René Thom on catastrophe theory and plate tectonics Pietro Passerini on knowledge and entropy George Choubert on the ...

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Letters [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 2 (Dec 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Letters More Fossil Radioactive Bonse? It is understood that in the Siwalik bone beds radioactivity was recorded in the fossils of rhinoceros. But other associated vertebrate fossils were not radioactive. This study appears to have been carried out by scientists of the Atomic Minerals Division, Department of Atomic Energy. A letter could be addressed to: Dr G.R.Udas, Director/ Atomic Minerals Division/ Dept. of Atomic Energy/ Manian's Building, 111-200 Begumpet/ Hyderabad 500 016 INDIA. B.P.Radhakrishna Geological Society of India 16/1 Ali Asker Road Bangalore 560 052 INDIA
_G Fluctuations and Planetary Orbits H. ASPDEN Southampton, Great Britain Crew, writing in Catastr. Geol. 3.1 (ref.1), states that my earlier paper (2) ignores the effect which the occasional G fluctuations would have on planetary orbits. My proposal that gravitation should lapse momentarily for interactions between matter crossing a space domain is, however, quite compatible with the eccentricities of planetary orbits, as I show below. ...

[: SEDIMENT, EROSION, FOSSIL]
Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism [Catastrophism Geology]
... past record of sediments and paleoforms as a check on his interpretations of present forms and processes. Extrapolation from the present to the past, in opposition to the reverse process of prediction has been called postdiction. From observations of present processes postdiction involves two distinct concepts. First, a calculation of present day erosion is multiplied by some time-span often 1,000 years, to gain some idea of the time that an appreciable change in landform might take. Clearly the figures are notional, like the counts of modern pollen rain needed for fossil pollen studies. Their main value is in the order of erosion indicated and whether this indicates that associated forms are being produced at present or whether very feeble erosion rates suggest that they are relict forms, Studies of hurricanes off Florida provide an example of the use of arithmetic postdiction. In the last fifty years eight storms affecting south Florida have been of hurricane intensity. Postdictions from these observations suggest that about 160 hurricanes could occur in 1000 years, and that hurricanes were commonplace in the context of Pleistocene time when 160,000 ...

[: SEDIMENT, FOSSIL]
Galactic Domains, G Fluctuations and Geomagnetic Reversals [Catastrophism Geology]
... reversals in rapid succession. Movement at an angle oblique to all three domain axes which, in our era, carries the Earth half way between the 110 orientation and the 111 orientation and passes near domain corners only in respect of its 110 component, would give a sequence of pairs of reversals with intervening single reversals. Looking for evidence of a related violent activity when the field reverses we see in Tarling and Tarling (1971) the comment: 'One of the fascinating side lights of the study of these sedimentary cores is that many fossil species were found to disappear about the time of a reversal and new species appeared shortly afterwards.' The magnetic field reversal of itself is hardly likely to explain such an event. According to the Tarling data the last geomagnetic field reversal was about 700,000 years ago. A study of the deep-sea floor of the Indian Ocean is reported to reveal tiny metallic and glass beads which, it was said (Wright, 1972): ... were fragments of some great cosmic catastrophe that caused molten articles to splash into ...

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R8. Plate Tectonics and Catastrophe Theory [Catastrophism Geology]
_From: Catastrophist Geology Year 3 No. 1 (June 1978) Home¦ Issue Contents Plate Tectonics and Catastrophe Theory René Thom
_Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies Bures-sur-Yvette, France.
_INTRODUCTION
_I would propose that in the explanation of natural forms one encounters two types of approach: the 'reductionist' and the 'Platonist' This distinction is well known in biology, where a long tradition, going back to Aristotle, he sought to explain living forms by reference to 'archetypes' of abstract nature; Lord D'Arcy Thompson has been the last and the most brilliant representative of this line of thought. The fallacious successes of molecular biology have led during the last twenty years to the elimination of this line of thought by the 'reductionist' approach, which aims at an ultimate explanation of the form as an aggregate of primitive elements having supposedly known properties. The same fundamental alternatives are to be found in geophysics, tectonics and geomorphology, there are authors who aim at a global and exhaustive explanation of the terrestrial globe, with a precise quantitative evaluation of such parameters as pressure, temperature, chemical composition of the magma, its viscosity, or geomorphologists who explain the effects of this or that erosive agent on this or that minetal by refined and complete mathematical models. Fortunately, there are also some humbler minds who bend their efforts to classify the observed morphological accidents in a comprehensive taxonomy which does not fight shy of the phenomena of convergence: the same morphological accident may be observed in the most varied substrata (for instance, the triple point between plates is observed in the polygonal flagging of soil in periglacial terrain, as well as between epithelial cells in biology). In face of these accidents of ubiquitous character it is necessary to have recourse to the analogous type of mechanisms which generate them. It will be understood that I propose to defend here the Platonist viewpoint and that this paper is an attempt to illustrate this approach, which is mathematical, but qualitative, not quantitative. The mathematician is increasingly taken to task for tackling disciplines which he has hardly had time to study. This is, no doubt, my own case in geology, but I persist in believing that the abstract, 'Platonist', mathematical viewpoint may open the door to intuitions that are beyond the capacity of the specialist riveted to his microscopes. It is up to the reader to say if I am right.
_1. PLATE TECTONICS
_In the eyes of a mathematician the recent theory of plate tectonics raises a number of problems of undeniable mathematical interest. In the first section it will be shown how the orthodox theory of rigid plates can lead, by an argument of algebraic topology, to the definition of the geoid, i.e. the 'absolute' standard of reference for the Earth's surface. In the second section will be presented all the grounds that may justify some scepticism with regard to the postulate of rigid plates, and a more flexible model will be set forth, inspired by the general scheme of the theory of elementary catastrophes. From this will be deduced, in the third section, the generic nature of the 'inter-' or intra-plate singularities, which will be briefly examined from the point of view of their kinematic stability. Finally, the fourth and last section will give a local classification to the first order of planar flows (modulo changes of the standard of reference), and present a general hypothesis on the constraints imposed to the kinematics of the Earth's surface: kinematics V that is generally conservative, but where the condition of conservation div V= 0 may no longer be observed close to the graph of distensive or compressive points; there may also be isolated singularities where the kinematics is tangential to rotation, and where the origin of 'central' vulcanism may be seen. A mathematical reminder. Let us begin by recalling a classical theorem: consider an assemblage of material points M i, of masses m i, moving at the velocity V i, in the Euclidean Space E (these points being related to the reference system Oxyz, considered fixed). The kinetic energy of the system will then be
...
terminal point Hence two types of terminal point: the end of a distensive ridge [R8]____(rift) (Fig. 7a), or the end of a compressive ridge (Fig 7b) Fig. 5 Triple points. A - distensive. B - compressive. Fig. 6 Kinematically stable triple points. In a reference frame fixed to the Earth the ridge will be seen to lengthen (8b) or contrariwise to shorten (8a). In the second case it will give rise to structures (compressive or distensive) that are fossil, i.e. inactive ... Fig. 8a. Let us also mention the theoretical possibility of the ridge of a boundary of 'transitional' type (which can then be only a ____transform fault), as the roots obtained by unfolding the singularity x 4 along the Maxwell set are of opposite signs (Fig. 7c). Fig. 7 Types of terminal points. Among the arguments adduced in support of plate tectonics the most spectacular are no doubt those connected with ____'continental drift', and more particularly with the fit ...

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Comments [Catastrophism Geology]
... Minoan civilization by volcanic processes. This is a problem for the archaeologist rather than the geologist. Personally I would rather not be tarred with a Velikovskyan brush, at least not until they are a lot more scientific in my field than they have been to date. On these grounds I would be hesitant about publishing in such a journal. Nevertheless I wish it well and hope that my doubts are unfounded. You may like to know that my presidential address to our Geologists Association in March 1976, entitled "The Nature of the Fossil Record" will treat neocatastrophist themes in palaeontology. I prefer to use the term "neocatastrophism "-like "neodarwinism"' - to distinguish it from the ideas of the Noachian deluge people (who are still around). Derek Ager*** I am sorry about your 'hesitancy about publishing in such a journal'. I have read very little on Atlantis, but I can give at least one example. The discovery of subaquatic megalithic ruins off the Bahamas is given by Atlantologists as evidence for their theses. According to them ...

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LOW PRIORITY

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Anomalistics - a New Field of Interdisciplinary Studies [Catastrophism Geology]
... For, while the anomalist may initially have been drawn to anomalous subjects by nothing more exalted than a penchant for the wild, the weird, and the wonderful, he soon finds that this penchant has unanticipated but valuable results. Of these valuable results, the one most often mentioned by anornalists is the reformulation of scientific theories as a consequence of discrepancies between them and anomalous data which seem to contradict them. An example of such reformulation is the shift from Renaissance creationism to Victorian evolutionism as a result of the increasing difficulty of fitting fossil organisms into a Biblical framework. However, since paradigm shifts often seem to have little more to do with ultimate truth than do changes in sartorial fashion with ultimate beauty, I prefer to justify my own anomalistic involvements primarily in terms of the efficacy of anomalistics in linking conventionally disparate disciplines. We have already noted the fact that some anomalies, such as fire-walking, require their investigators to involve themselves in virtually every disciplinary are 8 of research from theology to physics. It is an exceptional anomaly that permits its investigator to work exclusively ...

[: SEDIMENT]
Continuous Versus Discontinuous and Self-Perpetuating Versus Self-Terminating Processes [Catastrophism Geology]
... the Woodbend Group of Central Alberta. Bull Can Petr, Geol., 22/3: 269-304. Pavoni N., 1971: Recent and late Cenozoic movements of the Earth's crust. Bull. Roy. Soc. New Zealand, 9/1: 7 17. Rikitake T., 1959: Studies of the thermal state of the earth, Part 2 - Heat flow associated with magma intrusions. Bull. Earthqu. Res Inst. 37/2: 233-243. Sawatzky H.B., 1972: Viewfield - a producing fossil crater? J. Can Soc. Expl. Geoph., 8/11: 22-40. - - , 1974: Astroblemes in the Williston Basin. J. Can. Soc, Expl. Geoph., 10/ 1: 23-38. - - , 1976: Two probable late Cretaceous astroblemes in Western Canada - Eagle Butte, Alberta and Dumas, Saskatchewan. Geophysics, 41/6: 1261-1271. Selig F., Wallick G.C., 1966: Temperature distribution in salt domes and surrounding sediments. Geophysics, 31 ...

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- - - Catastrophism and Evolution [SIS C&C Review]
_From: SIS Internet Digest 1998:2 (Dec 1998) Home¦ Issue Contents Catastrophism and Evolution www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/controv.htm Controversy. Catastrophism and Evolution: The Ongoing Debate. A book by Trevor Palmer, Nottingham Trent University, UK.
_Controversy puts the reader at the forefront of the scientific revolution against traditional views of evolution. The champion of alternative views, Catastrophism, declares that sudden cataclysmic events, such as meteor showers, cause mass extinctions followed by rapid bursts of new species - in direct opposition to the Modern Synthesis of neo-Darwinism, the offspring of Darwinism and Genetics, which maintains that evolution is slow, imperceptible, and progressive. Professor Palmer clearly traces the interactive histories of catastrophism and Evolution from ancient times to the present, contextualizing the struggle for dominance between these fundamentally different points of view.
_Contents: Chapter 1 - The Context of Evolution: the Earth and its Surroundings. 1.1 The chaotic Solar System. 1.2 Possible causes of catastrophe on Earth. 1.3 The fall and rise of catastrophism. Chapter 2 - The
...
, Gingerich [85, Eisenberg [86, and Matthews [87). The group of therapsids, thecodonts and dinosaurs, and the rhynchosaurs, are families or sub-families; the groups of mammals are multi-family orders or sub-orders. Note in particular the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous Periods.
_The Cretaceous-Tertiary and Eocene-Oligocene extinctions
_Of all the major stratigraphic boundaries, only the Cretaceous-Tertiary (C-T) boundary does not become diffuse when studied in detail throughout the world [66. The boundary is commonly marked by a thin clay layer, and its age is generally accepted to be about 65 million years. ____The abundant calcareous marine plankton which gave the Cretaceous Period its name (creta being Latin for chalk) are severely depleted over a few millimetres, with some groups, especially the planktonic foraminifers and nannoplankton, being virtually wiped out. On the basis of sedimentation rates and other evidence, it has been esimated that this extinction took place over a period of 200 years or less [66, 67. At about the same time, the dinosaurs,

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