Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood II

WMScott Stated:quote

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P: ... diatomaceous earth and diatomite, which both contain abundant diatoms are extensively mined and used for numerous purposes, which can result in them being spread over the surface of the Earth.

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W: I have been waiting for the better part of a year for somebody to bring this up. A web site had the following information on diatomite mines and mining in the USA.

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There are currently 12 diatomite producing facilities in the United States
All of the active diatomite mines is the U.S. are freshwater lake deposits except the marine deposit at Lompoc, California.
....

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CAS – Central Authentication Service

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This is very faulty reasoning because the North American
mines discussed in this web page are not the only source
of diatomite. A person need only look at:minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/diatomite/250301.pdfThis article shows that 2,000 metric tons of diatomite were
imported from other countries. In addition, finished fertilizers
and pesticides imported from other countries would also
contain foreign diatomite in them. Thus, a person also needs
to know the composition of foreign diatomite deposits in
order to rule out a human source for your diatoms.There is another major problem with the web page at:CAS – Central Authentication ServiceThe problem is that diatomite and diatomaceous earth
are different types of sediment, as indicated in the
"Glossary of Geology" published by the American
Geological Institute. This web page only discusses the
source of diatomite, which consists of pure diatoms. It
stated nothing about the sources of diatomaceous earth,
which is a mixture of diatoms and other sediments, and
is very widely used widely in agriculture. Diatomaceous
earth is mined at different quarries then is pure diatomite.As a result, the above web page is insufficient by itself to
rule out a human origin for any alleged "marine diatoms".
I say "alleged" the quality of pictures so far shown are, in
my opinion as a geologist who has worked with microfossils,
vastly inadequate for any identification of it. In fact, for really
accurate identification of many diatoms, a person often
needs a electron microscope because of the limited
resolution of light microscopes.The comments about " The types of diatoms found in the
oceans 3.5 million years ago was considerably
different from what was present at the end of the
ice age." is not completely true. There are many
species and genera of diatoms that persist from
the Miocene until modern times.For example Asterolampra Marylandica occurs in Miocene
marine sediments described at:Core Data from the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), NOAA/NGDC/WDC for MGG Seafloor Series vol. 1Go look at: "Leg : 73
Top/Bot Interval(mm): 400/ 420
Sample Age : UPPER MIOCENE
Hole: 520 Depth Top of Core(m): 310.50
Core: 14 Depth Top Sample(m) : 310.91
Sect: 1 No. Observed Fossils: 18"and "Leg : 73
Top/Bot Interval(mm): 710/ 730
Sample Age : UPPER MIOCENE
Hole: 520 Depth Top of Core(m): 322.50
Core: 17 Depth Top Sample(m) : 324.72
Sect: 2 No. Observed Fossils: 10andCore Data from the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), NOAA/NGDC/WDC for MGG Seafloor Series vol. 1Go look at: "Leg : 50
Top/Bot Interval(mm): 580/ 600
Sample Age : MIOCENE
Hole: 415 Depth Top of Core(m): 273.50
Core: 5 Depth Top Sample(m) : 275.59
Sect: 2 No. Observed Fossils: 20""ASTEROLAMPRA MARYLANDICA (ABUNDANT/)"Yours,
Bill Birkeland.
Houston, Texas

wmscott wrote in Message 157 of 157:... duplicate article deleted...I apologize for posting the same article twice. I
don't how I managed to double post this this
post twice. Also, I don't know how I managed to
overlook the fact that I double posted the same post
until today. Way too preoccupied with current events
at this time to think straight about what I am doing.Bill[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 03-18-2003]

wmscott wrote in Message 157 of 157:"It is believed that there are over 500,000 Carolina
Bays that still exist and that the total number when
they were created was perhaps two and half million.
That is a lot of impacts and a lot of heat, if this
type of event happened on a ice age ice sheet, it
would have resulted in a huge release of ice water.
As the map shows, the comet that created the Carolina
Bays exploded just south of the late Wisconsin ice sheet
margin, the super flood evidence and the finding of
possible micro tektites in Wisconsin points towards a
large number of comet impacts also having occurring
on the ice sheet in Canada at the same time. Like
other comet events, the exploding Carolina bay comet
was only one of several large pieces of a large comet
that had been broked apart in space by the gravity of
a too close past to the sun or one of the large outer
planets before it approached the earth. If one or more
other comet pieces also hit the large ice sheet over
Canada and possibly other ice sheets as well, the
release of water would have easily raised sea levels
high enough to trigger a domino chain reaction among
the ice age ice sheets."====== end of wmscott quote ==========================Unfortunately, much, if not all of what Mr. wmscott
states above about the Carolina Bays has been largely
refuted by detailed examination of the Carolina Bays
by various geologists and archaeologists over the last
decade or so.A main problem is that the Carolina Bays predate the
end of the Wisconsinan by **tens of thousands** of
years. For example as discussed in "Age and Climatic
Correlates of Carolina Bays and Inland Dunes of the
South Atlantic Coastal Plain: New Data" at
http://www.cla.sc.edu/sciaa/srs.html , the Carolina
Bays are at least 115,000 to 135,000 years old as
indicated by sand from the rims of these landforms
dated by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
On the above web page it is stated:"On the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site
(SRS), adjacent to the Savannah River in the Upper
Coastal Plain, two OSL dates from the rim of Flamingo
Bay indicate that the bay formed initially at 108.7 +/-
10.9 ka B.P. and was rejuvenated at 40.3 +/- 4.0 ka B.P.
A single date from Bay 40 indicates that it formed at
77.9 +/- 7.6 ka B.P."The Carolina Bays are also older than surficial dunes
that have been dated using OSL dating at "29.9 +/- 2.8
ka B.P., 31.4 +/- 2.5 ka B.P., 35.8 +/- 4.8 ka B.P.,
36.7 +/- 6.0 ka B.P., and 39.0 +/- 4.5 ka B.P."Brook eta al. (2001) present radiocarbon dates that,
like OSL date indicate that the Carolina Bays are
older than 40,000 to 50,000 years old.Also, it is stated by Mark J. Brooks and Barbara E.
Taylor in " Early Hunter-Gatherer Use of Carolina
Bays" at: 300 Multiple Choices ,"Optically Stimulated Luminescence dates from several
bays, compared with ice core and deep sea oxygen
isotope records of global climate change, indicate
that some bays formed at least as early as the
Sangamon Interglacial (~135-115 thousand years ago)
and were rejuvenated during brief, warm, moist intervals
of the subsequent Wisconsinan Glacial. Many of the
bays apparently continued as open-water lakes into
the early Holocene but, due to sediment infilling,
most transitioned to temporary wetland ponds by
~7000 years ago."This is also discussed in an abstract of a talk presented
at the Geological Society of America 2002 Denver
Annual Meeting (October 27-30, 2002) by Ivester, A. H.,
Godfrey-Smith, D. I., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor, B. E.
and titled "Carolina Bays and Inland Dunes of the
Southern Atlantic Coastal Plain Yield New Evidence for
Regional Paleoclimate" at:http://gsa.confex.com/...2AM/finalprogram/abstract_45547.htmIn part they found:"Ages from eolian sand rims on the southeast edges
of Carolina bay wetlands indicate conditions were
suitable for rim development-i.e., southwesterly
winds were blowing across ponded water-during several
intervals of the late Quaternary. In the upper Coastal
Plain, dates from Flamingo Bay indicate the rim was
active at 108.7 10.9 ka BP and again at 40.3 4.0
ka BP. The nearby Bay-40 had an actively forming
sand rim at 77.9 7.6 ka BP."If the sand rims of these Carolina Bays are as old as
40 to 109 thousands years, than the Carolina Bays are
definitely predate the end of the last glacial epoch
by tens of thousands of years. In fact, these and
other OSL dates now that the Carolina Bays are ten
times older than Mr. wmscott argues them to be. This
present obvious problems with his theories. :-) :-)Radiocarbon data published by Brooks et al. (2001)
also refutes the age assigned to the Carolina Bays
by Mr. wmscott. In a study of the stratigraphy of
sediments filling one Carolina Bay, Big Bay, they
radiocarbon dated swamp deposits buried by a sand
sand dumped into Big Bay as a sand dune migrated
into this Carolina Bay. The organic-rich swamp
deposits found buried beneath and preserved by a
layer of eolian sand yielded radiocarbon dates
greater than 48,000 BP. These dates show that the
Carolina Bays were in existence over 50,000 years
and far too old to be associated with the end of
the last glacial epoch. In fact, Big Bay is likely
much older, as the sand dune, which migrated into
and dumped sand into Big Bay, was active between
65,000 to 140,000 BP as dated by OSL techniques.Regardless of their origin, the Carolina Bays are far
too old to be related to any mythical meteorite or comet
impact that occurred at the end of the last glacial
epoch. Additional dates refuting wmscott's estimate
of the age of Carolina Bays has been published in
Brooks et al. (2001) and other published articles.Also, research by Brooks et al. (1996) and Grant et al.
1998) both clearly demonstrated that the current size
and shape of the Carolina Bays is the result of extensive
modification by lacustrine and eolian processes of the
original depressions that formed the initial Carolina
Bays. These porcesses have modified the siae and
shape of Carolina Bays for over at least thousands,
and possibly tens of thousands of years. As a result,
the present shape and orientation of the bays likely
has little resemblance to the original shape of the
Carolina Bays when they first formed. As a result,
using the modern shape and orientation of the Carolina
Bays to infer their origin is a completely and utterly
bankrupt as a scientific technique.Some references are:Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E. and Grant, J. A., 1996,
Carolina bays and Holocene landscape evolution on the
Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina. Geoarchaeology.
vol. 11, pp. 481-504Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E., Stone, P. A., and Gardner,
L. A., 2001, Pleistocene encroachment of the Wateree
River Sand Sheet into Big Bay on the middle coastal
plain of South Carolina. Southeastern Geology.
vol. 40, no. 4., pp, 241-257.Grant, J. A., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor, B.E. 1998, New
constraints on the evolution of Carolina bays from ground-
penetrating radar. Geomorphology vol. 22, pp. 325-345.
SREL Home page, Office of Research, University of GeorgiaIn terms of their origin, other research also has
significantly contradicted the idea that they are the
result of an impact. For example, Carolina Bays not
only occur along the Atlantic Coastal Plain, but also
can be found in in Mississippi and Alabama within the
coastal plain bordering the Gulf of Mexico. On the
surviving terrace surfaces overlying the Citronelle
Formation, geologists have found hundreds of oval to
circular depressions ranging from 45 to 780 m (150 to
2,600 ft) in diameter and from 0.9 to 12 m (3 to 40 ft)
in depth. As noted by Otvos (1997) these circular
features show that Carolina Bays are found west of
the Atlantic Coastal Plain, except for a part of
Florida dominated by carbonate karst.Research by Isphording (1996) and Isphording and
Flowers (1988) concluded that the circular depressions
within the Gulf Coastal Plain are not impact craters.
Instead they, concluded that these depressions are
siliclastic karst. They argue that the intensive
weathering and dissolution of quartz and clay in the
Citronelle Formation created these depression much
like weathering and dissolution of limestone in the
Florida region created carbonate karst. Later, May
and Warne (1999) reviewed what was known about the
Carolina Bays and concluded that they, like the
"Carolina Bays" of the Mississippi - Alabama coastal
plain, are also siliclastic karst.References CitedIsphording, W. C., 1996, Siliclastic karst development
on Citronelle Formation sediments, Southeastern United
States (Alabama-Mississippi). Geological Society of
America Abstract with Programs. vol. 28, no. 2, p. 17.Isphording, W. C. and Flowers, G. C., 1988, Karst
development in coastal plain sands; a "new" problem in
foundation engineering. Bulletin of the Association of
Engineering Geologists. vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 95-104.May, J. H. and Warne, A. G., 1999, Hydrogeologic and
Geochemical Factors Required for the Development of
Carolina Bays Along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico,
Coastal Plain,USA. Environmental & Engineering
Geoscience. vol. V, no. 3, pp. 261-270. (Fall 1999)Otvos, E. G., 1997, Northeastern Gulf Coastal Plain
Revisited: Neogene and Quaternary Units and Events:
Old and New Concepts. Guidebook no. 8, Gulf Coast
Association of Geological Societies, Austin, TX.Also, people might be interested in looking at:
"NEBRASKA'S CAROLINA BAYS" by ZANNER, C. William at:
http://gsa.confex.com/...1AM/finalprogram/abstract_22324.htmYours,Bill Birkeland
Houston, TX

In message 160 of 160 wmscott wrote:"Did a quick search on the web I see. Well Bill, the
Carolina Bays are a somewhat broad classification
especially considering that their method of formation
is not agreed upon, this results in some landforms that
may not truly be Carolina Bays being lumped in the
classification incorrectly. Not every oval shaped
depression is a Carolina Bay, some of the very old
dates, which are in conflict with the more modern
dates generally found could be explained in some
cases by such a misclassification. Then there are the
usual errors associated with the various dating systems
that could account for some of the other very old
dates."This sounds like nothing more than an excuse by which
you are throwing out the data which contradicts your
hypothesis. This has been called elsewhere as "Cafeteria
Catastrophism". It is a process by which catastrophists
choose their data like they choose food at a cafeteria.
The data is "distasteful" to their hypothesis they leave
on it the counter (ignore it or discard it) as they would
leave distasteful food at a cafeteria buffet line. If
the data is "tasteful" to their hypothesis, they take
it (sort of "buy" it) and use it as they would do food
at a cafeteria buffet line.The fact of the matter is that the Carolina Bays within
the Atlantic with the "old dates" in general show the
general morphology, internal structure, alignment, and
distribution as other Carolina Bays within the Atlantic
Coastal Plain. Given that the bays with the very old
dates are identical in nature to the Carolina Bays along
the Atlantic Coastal Plain and virtually identical to the
Gulf Coast oriented lakes indicates that they likely
were created by the same process. From the innumerable
papers I have read about Carolina Bays, I have **not**
seen any data that even suggests that Carolina Bays
consist of landforms of very different origin within the
Atlantic Coastal Plain and they are any different in origin
from similar lakes and ponds within the Gulf Coastal Plain.The only reason that Mr. wmscott has for arguing for the
misclassification of Carolina Bays is that the OSL
dates of the Carolina Bays, which have been dated, showed
them too old to support his "comet theory". The claims of
misclassification is just one way that he can throw away
/ dismiss data that refutes his theory. This is simply
cafeteria catastrophism at work, where data that a person
finds distasteful is left behind like distasteful food of
the cafeteria shelf.What the difference in dates indicate is that the same
processes **acted at different** times in the past either
to create or substantially modify the Carolina Bays. In
case of the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dates,
the variance in dates simply means that at specific times
in the past the climate along the Atlantic Coastal for
reworking the rims of the Bays by eolian processes. During
each reworking, the OSL "clock" was reset when the sand
was exposed to sunlight. As a result, the younger OSL
dates are only minimum dates, which only indicate the
last period of when eolian processes eroded and redeposited
the sand along the rims and not the actual age of the
Carolina Bay dated. The wide spread of OSL dates certainly
indicate that the modern morphology of the Carolina Bays
is the result of **periodic** modification of them over
tens of thousands of years. This is totally consistent
with both their formation as siliclastic karst and later
modification by lacustrine and eolian processes. As the
least, the complete modification of the Carolina Bays
after formation over this period of time make the use
of their current morphology to infer their origin
completely impossible.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"I also allow for the possibility that the Carolina
Bays were formed earlier in the ice age such as just
after the LGM."If Mr. wmscott would look at the pollen data that has
been acquired for numerous Carolina Bays, he would find
that the presence of full-glacial pollen assemblages
within them clearly indicate that they are, at least,
as old as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This clearly
refutes his theory that they belong to a terminal
Pleistocene event.For example, the sediment filling Big Bay contains
multiple zones of differing pollen assemblages. The
pollen assemblages of the middle zones are characteristic
of cold climate, full glacial sediments. At the bottom
of the sediments filling "Big Bay" Brooks et al. (2001)
found pollen assemblages characteristic of warm climates
and plants that lived in the region during the last
interglacial between 75,00 to 134,000 BP. Thus, the pollen
assemblages from Big Bay confirm both the OSL and
radiocarbon dates that demonstrate that Big Bay is over
70 to 80 thousands years older than the model proposed by
Mr. wmscott would predict it to be.Similarly, if a person reads through other published
studies of pollen assemblages recovered from the cores
taken from cores many other Carolina Bays, a person
finds, that the pollen assemblages show that they were
in existence **during** the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
This refutes the proposal that they might have formed
just after the LGM. Some of these studies are Delcourt
et al. (1984), Frey (1953,1955), Watts (1980).Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E., and Stone, P. A.,
Gardner, L. B., 2001, Pleistocene encroachment of the
Wateree River Sand Sheet into Big Bay on the middle
coastal plain of South Carolina. Southeastern Geology.
vol. 40, no. 4., pp, 241-257.Delcourt, P. A. and Delcourt, H. R., 1984) Late
Quaternary paleoclimates and biotic responses in eastern
North America and the western North Atlantic Ocean.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
vol. 48, no. 2-4, pp. 263-276Frey, D. G., 1953, Regional aspects of the late-glacial
and post-glacial pollen succession of southeastern North
Carolina. Ecological Monographs. vol. 23, no. 3,
pp. 289-313.Frey, D. G., 1955, A time revision of the Pleistocene
pollen chronology of southeastern North Carolina.
Ecology. vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 762-763.Watts, A. L., 1980, Late-Quaternary vegetation
history at White Pond on the inner coastal plain
of South Carolina. Quaternary Research. vol. 13,
no. 2, pp. 187-199.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The extremely early dates that would push the Bays
formation back into an interglacial are obviously wrong
considering that the bays are also found on areas of
the continental shelves that were only exposed during
glacial periods."As far as I have found in the published scientific
literature, there is absolutely no hard evidence and
data to support the claim that Carolina Bays have
been on the continental shelf. Given that the LGM
continental shelves have been deeply eroded and
modified by shoreface and nearshore processes as it
was submerged, the only way surface landforms like
Carolina Bays would have survived inundation would
to have been buried by sediments before submergence.
Once buried, it be virtually impossible, even with
modern technology to find and identify Carolina
Bays. As a result, I find the reports of Carolina
Bay, especially since I can find no hard data to
support them, to be nothing more then catastrophist
mythology or geopeotry that has been repeated
mindlessly as fact when there is absolutely no
evidence to support it.If Mr. wmscott can point me to a specific paper in
which specific descriptions, maps, and sketches
of Carolina Bays found on the continental shelf, I
would like him to post it and I am very interested
in finding the citation(s) to such papers. I would
challenge Mr. wmscott to produce side-scan sonar
images and sub-bottom profiler data that clearly
show underwater Carolina Bays lying on the continental
shelf to prove that they actually exist outside of
the imagination of certain catastrophists.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The 'soft' nature of the bays restricts their
formation to fairly recent time, they could not
be an ancient land formation or they would have
faded away long ago. These factors limit the bay
formation to the last advance of the Pleistocene
ice age."The statement "The 'soft' nature of the bays
restricts their formation to fairly recent time"
is a completely factually bankrupt statement in
two respects.First, the flat plains, although composed of "soft"
sand, is an extremely stable surface surface as a
result of several factors. First, it is covered with
a thick cover of vegetation. The thick stabilizes the
surface by physically binding the sediment together
where it can be eroded by either surface flow or wind.
Second, the coastal plain is a very flat surface that
greatly inhibits surface runoff and encourages ponding
of water on its surface. This greatly inhibits the
development of drainage networks that would eventually
dissect its surface and encourages water to sink into
the sand instead of running off of it. Finally, the
coastal plain is underlain by thick sand, in which
water sinks into rather than running off. Overall,
the flat sandy nature of the coastal plain and its
thick vegetation cover makes for a very stable surface,
which despite being compose of sand, is very resistant
to erosion because. This is a surface, on which it
would takes tens of thousands to hundreds of years for
landforms to "fade away" as he claims. Such a stable
surface, in fact, is a prime location for the development
of siliclastic karst as argued by:May, J. H. and Warne, A. G., 1999, Hydrogeologic and
Geochemical Factors Required for the Development of
Carolina Bays Along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico,
Coastal Plain,USA. Environmental & Engineering
Geoscience. vol. V, no. 3, pp. 261-270. (Fall 1999)Finally, if Mr. wmscott would look at the literature
about the geomorphology of the Atlantic coastal plain, he
would find many ancient landforms, e.g. sand dunes and
beach ridges, are composed of the same sand as the
Carolina Bays that have been dated as being tens of
thousands, even about a hundred thousand years old.
These landforms **have not** faded away within a fairly
recent time as Mr. wmscott and other catastrophists
claim would happen to the Carolina Bays. The "fading
away" does occur, but its takes tens to hundreds of
thousands of years to occur. It doen **not** occur over
a "fairly recent time" as he incorrectly presumes without
reviewing the pertinent published research.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"I also noted that the third site you cited stated
"Extant SRS hay morphology formed mainly during the
Holocene and did not involve migration of bays across
the landscape." By 'hay' I assume they mean 'bay'. The
Holocene is of course the last ten thousand years. The
age of the Carolina Bays is just another of the many
facets of the Mysterious Carolina Bays that is argued
about."Mr. wmscott grossly misinterprets this web page. It does
**not** conclude that this Carolina Bay either originated
or was first created during the Holocene. Rather, this
web page concluded is that "extent", modern, morphology
of this Carolina Bay was the result of lacustrine and
eolian processes having modified a pre-existing,
Pleistocene Carolina Bay over a large part of Holocene.
The significance of this web page is that morphology now
exhibited by this Carolina Bay is not the result of the
processes the originally created it. As a result, it is
impossible to use the shape and orientation of this and
other Carolina Bays, as Savage, and many others have
naively done.For example, on this web page, it is stated:"Ia, Multiple periods of bay-rim accretion with intervening
intervals of erosion may characterize the longer-term
evolution of the (sic) a, bays."Comet impacts do **not** create a crater by eroding and
rebuilding its rim over a long period of time as happened
with the Carolina Bays. Impact processes occur over a
very, very brief period of time a and do **not** involve
periodic erosion and rebuilding of a crater over a period
of ten thousand years as has happened with various
Carolina Bays.The web page is the abstract to "New constraints on
the evolution of Carolina Bays from ground-penetrating
radar" by John A. Grant, Mark J. Brooks, and Barbara
E. Taylor, which appeared in vol. 22 of geomorphology.
It is found at:SREL Home page, Office of Research, University of Georgia+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"If you carefully read the web sites you provided
links to, you will notice that wind was sometimes
only invoked as a modifying effect on already
existing Bays, "southwesterly winds were blowing
across ponded water-during several intervals
of the late Quaternary" even some of the sites
you cited recognize that wind is a poor explanation
for creating the Bays."I did **not** say that eolian processes created the
Carolina Bays. I was noting that lacustrine and
eolian processes have modified the shape, size, and
orientation of the Carolina Bays once they were
created to the point that it is completely and utterly
impossible to use their orientation to infer their
origin. The web sites and papers that I cited in my
previous post demonstrate that the current / modern
shape, size, and orientation of these bays reflect
post-formation modification over the last several,
even tens of thousands of years. As a result, it is
incredibly sloppy and rather bankrupt science to use
the orientation and shape of the Carolina Bays as
evidence for them having been caused by the impact
of either a comet or meteorite.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Both the wind and Karst or dissolution theories
are unable to account for many features associated
with the Bays."Contrary to what Mr. wmscott falsely claims above,
May and Warne (1999) and Isphording and Flowers (1988)
clearly demonstrate that siliclastic karst can account
for all of the features of the Carolina Bays. Go read:1. May, J. H. and Warne, A. G., 1999, Hydrogeologic and
Geochemical Factors Required for the Development of
Carolina Bays Along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico,
Coastal Plain, USA. Environmental & Engineering
Geoscience. vol. V, no. 3, pp. 261-270. (Fall 1999)and2. Isphording, W. C. and Flowers, G. C., 1988, Karst
development in coastal plain sands; a "new" problem in
foundation engineering. Bulletin of the Association of
Engineering Geologists. vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 95-104."The most basic problem is since both wind and
dissolution are on going processes, why are no
Bays currently being formed?The dissolution of siliclastic sediments is a
very slow process. The development of a new
sinkhole would take hundreds, possibly thousands
of years. To actually observe the formation of
a sinkhole in siliclastic karst, a person would
need a sequence of either aerial photographs
or similar data covering a period of several
hundred years. Given that aerial photographs
and similar data only go back to the 1930s and
1940s, the data needed to observe the formation
of a new Carolina Bay simply does **not** exist.
Thus, given the limitations of the available
data, it is impossible for Mr. wmscott or anybody
else to know whether or not new Carolina Bays are
being forming. I would challenge Mr. wmscott to
provide hard evidence that actually proves that no
new Carolina Baysare not forming anywhere in
the Atlantic Coastal Plain.Another problem, is that the process is climate
dependant. Within parts of the Atlantic Coastal Plain,
the lack of new Carolina Bays being developed can be
the result of the fact that modern climate differs from
the time during which Carolina Bays were active. These
very well could be relict landforms, which are now only
being modified by lacustrine and eolian processes.However, Isphording and Flowers (1988) within the modern
Gulf Coastal Plain document active siliclastic karst that
Mr. wmscott claims does not exist. In fact, they have
describe actual damage to foundations of buildings in
Gulf Coastal Plain caused by active siliclastic karst.
In this case, the owner of the building actually
collected damages from his insurance company as the
result of the processes that create siliclastic karst and
insurance companies have had to rewrite policies to
exclude this process from their insurance coverage
(Isphording and Flowers 1988). This case, is proof
that siliclastic karst is a real process and capable of
creating the initial depressions, which can be later
modified by eolian and lacustrine processes to
create Carolina Bays.References CitedIsphording, W. C. and Flowers, G. C., 1988, Karst
development in coastal plain sands; a "new" problem in
foundation engineering. Bulletin of the Association of
Engineering Geologists. vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 95-104.+++++++++++++++++++ XXXXXIn message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The location of many Bays has proven to be
incompatible with the dissolution theory,Why? Nothing that Mr. wmscott has written about the
location of the Carolina Bays is incompatible with
their formation by the siliclastic karst processes.
In fact, the Atlantic Coastal Plain is an excellent
location for the development of siliclastic karst as
discussed by:May, J. H. and Warne, A. G., 1999, Hydrogeologic and
Geochemical Factors Required for the Development of
Carolina Bays Along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico,
Coastal Plain, USA. Environmental & Engineering
Geoscience. vol. V, no. 3, pp. 261-270. (Fall 1999)I find it quite revealing that Mr. wmscott dismisses
the above citation off-hand very likely without even
bothering to read it. :-) :-)+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"and alinement placement of many Bays is
incompatible with wind theories."This statement is **not** supported by the facts.
Kaczorowski (1977) demonstrated, e.g. his Figure 50,
shows a very strong correlation between the orientation
of Carolina Bays and either Holocene or Pleistocene
prevailing winds depending on when they were modified.
His and other studies refute the claim that "alinement
placement of many Bays is incompatible with wind
theories" as Mr. wmscott falsely claims.By carefully selecting the pictures used to illustrate
their papers and using averages of measured directions
of the orientation of the Carolina Bays, catastrophists
have greatly understated the large variation in
orientation that exists among Carolina Bays. As a result,
catastrophists by focusing on average direction of
Carolina Bay orientation have overlooked the fact that
the variability in the direction of Carolina Bays is far
greater than can be explained by either a meteorite or
comet impact. However, variations in prevailing wind
direction over the tens of thousands of years that
Carolina Bays were modified can explain the large
variation in orientation not illustrated either by
averaged directions or carefully selected photographs.There are several problems with figures as at:http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbfig5.gif1. As discussed above, they only show the average
direction of the orientation of the Carolina Bays.
They don't show the actual spread of bay orientations,
which is wide enough to greatly contradicts any
meteorite or comet hyp0thesis.2. This figure practices cafeteria catastrophism by
failing to show that the orientation of the Carolina
Bays in Delaware. Because they have a southwest to
northeast orientation, as seen in Figure 50 of
Kaczorowski (1977), the orientation of these Carolina
Bays cannot be explained by a meteorite / comet breakup
as shown inhttp://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbfig5.gif3. Also the figure at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbfig5.gif
also fails to show that the Carolina Bays in New Jersey,
Maryland, and Florida, as shown in Figure 50 and 51 of
Kaczorowski (1977), lack any preferred orientation. The
lack of preferred orientation readily refutes the origin
of these Carolina Bays by either meteorite or comet impacts.Finally, it is quite revealing that the orientation of
the Carolina Bays in Georgia and parts of South Carolina
do **not** converge as other orientations do. If all of
the Carolina Bays were created by the remnants of single
exploded meteorite, than the orientation of all of the
bays should converge on a single general point, which
despite areas having Carolina Bay orientations
contradicting the comet theory left out of the above figure,
they still do **not** do.Kaczorowski, R. T., 1977, The Carolina Bays: a
comparison with modern oriented lakes. technical
report 13-CRD. Coastal research Division, University
of south Carolina, Columbia.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"On the Carolina bays being formed by impacts, I
highly recommend the book "The Mysterious Carolina
Bays" by Henry Savage Jr. 1982. The book is out of
print and a bit hard to get hold of, but well
worth it. It covers the history of the controversy
on how the Bays were formed and covers all of the
technical points very nicely."Having been published in 1982, 20 years ago, the
discussion in this book is quite obviously antiquated
and badly out-of-date in terms of what is now known
about both geology and geomphology of the Carolina Bays
and what is now known about the mechanics of comet and
meteorite impacts. In the latter case, research in the
about impact mechanism in the twenty years since Savage
published this book found that much of what Savage had
to say about the mechanics of comet and meteorite
impacts is woefully wrong and violates what is now known
about the physics of impacting comets and meteorites.
Also, Savage's book contains a lot of misinformation
about the geology and nature of the Carolina Bays that
has been refuted by research conducted since his book
was published.+++++++++++++++++++ XXXXIn message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"comet exploded over the Ohio river valley in the
Midwest, allowing for various effects, all of the
Bays point to this area. The individual impacting
comet fragments exploded on contact blasting open
a shallow depression. The Siberian event blast
occurred at about 10,000 ft and the area of knocked
down trees is the same shape as a Carolina Bay."However, knocking trees is not the same as digging
a hole in the ground. These are two entirely different
processes for it is impossible to make a valid
comparison. The important thing here, is that **no**
Carolina Bay-like hole was dug. As a result, Mr.
wmscott completely lacks any observed instance where
the explosion of a comet created a Carolina Bay-like
hole.+++++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"If the blast had occurred at ground level, a depression
in that shape would have been created in an area with a
sandy soil like the area the bays are found in."This is pure speculation. If the blast had occurred at
ground level, very likely, a very well form crater,
with a bottom deeper than the Carolina Bays, would have
formed. Also, I have to wonder what process would cause
500,000 fragments of various sizes from a comet to all
explode at ground level.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The author even mentions "Near Camden South Carolina
is a long farm drainage ditch with a depth of about
fourteen feet. Exposed at the bottom of the ditch
are masses of prostrate timbers, many of considerable
size, indicating a massive blow-down."There are many problems with this piece of evidence.
First, prostrate timber can occur by a variety of
processes, including trees falling down onto the
bottom of a swamp. If there was some alignment of the
individual logs, a person might conclude it was a
blowdown. However, hurricanes, tornadoes, and violent
squall lines can cause blowdowns. The problem is that
from the description provide it is impossible to know
how this bed of "prostrate logs" was created and if
they are associated with or even the same age as the
Carolina Bays. That these logs are associated with
whatever created the Carolina Bays is nothing more
than speculation without any facts to back it up.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:page 96, the similarity with the Siberian event is
obvious.What similarity?1. the Siberian event did **not** produce a Carolina Bays-
like holes in the ground. As a result, the 1908 Tunguska
event has no similarity to the Carolina Bays.2. Processes other then exploding meteorites blow
down trees. If they were blown down, these South Carolina
trees are similar, not only to the Siberian event, but
also trees blown down by hurricanes, tornadoes, and
microbursts in thunderstorms. There is absolutely no
evidence that demonstrates the trees discussed above
are related to the process that created the Carolina Bays.
Also, even if the trees were blown down by a comet, for
which there is no evidence, there is no evidence that
such a comet was created the Carolina Bays. Not only
is the similarity not obvious, but it is nonexistent.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Inside the Bays, coring the ground has revealed that
the original surface was removed and a raised rim
formed."This is not true. There is nothing in the core data
that precludes ground having subsided as the result of
siliclastic karst formation. Also, when they were
completely dry, eolian processes could have been some
deflation (erosion) of the exposed bottom of these
bays to some extent. The core data does preclude
Carolina Bays from being impact craters.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"This action occurred very quickly, for the bottom
of the bays show no sign of gradual action in that
the next layer is lake bottom which then filled
in over time."This is completely false. There is simply no evidence
that shows that the Carolina Bays were created "very
quickly". In contrast, there is an abundance of
evidence discussed in the papers mentioned in Message
159 of mine that shows that the Carolina Bays have
been gradually modified by lacutsrine and eolian
processes over tens of thousands of years.The statement "gradual action" is an example of
scientific terminology that is so vague and ill-defined
as to be absolutely meaningless in any scientific
fashion. In fact, the pollen assemblages, radiocarbon
dates, paleosols, and well-defined layers clearly show
that the Carolina Bays have filled in over an extremely
long period of time dating back into, and even past
the last glacial maximum (LGM).+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The rims also contain fractured shells and pebbles,
and these same shells and pebbles are unbroken when
found in other areas.This is some of the incredibly bad misinformation
about the Carolina Bays that catastrophists mindlessly
repeat without bothering to verify whether it is true
or not. The fact of the matter is that " fractured
shells and pebbles" are almost always **lacking** from
the sandy rims of Carolina Bays. The only places where
fractured shells and pebbles occur within the sands
composing the rims of Carolina Bays are at known
archaeological sites where they are obvious manuports.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The Bays are also found in a pattern of over lapping
and in rows that only a bombardment pattern of comet
fragments could create."1. This is not true the erosion and rebuilding of the
rims of the Carolina Bays are very capable of producing
this pattern.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"The Bays are eroding away, they are not being formed
by processes in action today."They are **not** being "eroded away". Rather they
have been alternatively eroded and rebuilt by eolian
and lacustrine processes as they are being slowly
infilled by organic or other sediments. Go read the
article "New constraints on the evolution of Carolina
Bays from ground-penetrating radar" by John A. Grant,
Mark J. Brooks, and Barbara E. Taylor, which appeared
in vol. 22 of Geomorphology. An abstract of it is
found at:SREL Home page, Office of Research, University of Georgia+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"There are no new ones forming."As discussed above, 1. active siliclastic karst has
been observed, 2. it is impossible to directly observe
the formation of landforms that might require thousands
of years to develop, and 3. the environmental conditions
within the Atlantic Coastal Plain, which have varied
considerably over the last tens of thousands of years,
may not be those needed for the formation of siliclastic
karst. Just because the environemtal conditions now
might **not** be favorable for siliclastic karst to form
does **not** indicate that environmental conditions
at various times during the Pleistocene were always unfavorable for its formation.Of course, from what he has written, Mr. wmscott
provides absolutely no evdience that new Carolina
Bays are **not** forming within the Atlantic Coastal
Plain. The statement that "There are no new ones
forming" is unsupported by any credible evidence.
He has no way of knowing whether new Carolina
bays are the process of forming or not.In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"and no other answer for their creation that makes
more sense then comet impacts has been put forward.
Any theory can be attacked, but let us see if you
can find a better one, otherwise if by nothing else,
the impact theory wins by default."Given that a viable hypthesis, siliclastic karst,
does exist and the comet impact hypothesis cannot
explain many observations, e.g. the lack of preferred
orientation for Carolina Bays in Florida and New
Jersey and the NE - SW orientations of Carolina Bays
in Delaware, the comet impact hypothesis presents
many problems itself.+++++++++++++++++ end of part 1 +++++Yours,Bill Birkeland
Houston, Texas[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 03-23-2003]

Start of Part 2In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"A web site on comet impact formation of the Carolina
Bays stated. "The proposed model with shock waves from
cometary fragments exploding above the surface creating
a series of similar landforms is conceptually very simple,
and is far less complex than most of the terrestrial
models postulated recently. For geometrically regular
forms such as Carolina Bays we prefer a simple causal
mechanism if it is feasible."Siliclastic karst is a simple causal explanation. It
is far simpler and scientifically plausible than having
a metorite or comet explode first in the air and than
having 500,000 fragments, regardless of their size,
like a natural cluster bomb, all explode again just
above the ground without any of them actually
impacting the ground. (If they had impacted the
ground like normal meteorites, than the Carolina Bays
should all show the distinctive characteristics of real
impact craters.)+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Examination of impact mechanics and Carolina Bay
morphometry eliminates traditional impact phenomena
resulting from meteoroid swarms or asteroids. However,
the unique orbital and physical characteristics of a
comet favor a model in which a high velocity retrograde
comet or a low velocity prograde comet collided with
the Earth. The incoming nucleus approached from the
northwest and fragmented. The fragments, diverging
from the main trajectory, volatized and subsequently
exploded in the atmosphere near the surface. The
resultant shock waves created shallow elliptical
depressions which are best displayed in the sandy
sediments of the Coastal Plain."Experts in cometary and meteorite impacts would find
this explanation to be quite laughable. The problem
is that there is simply no known way to explain multiple
explosions, one high in the atmosphere, and then having
its fragments explode again exactly at the ground surface
like some sort of natural cluster bomb. After a meteor or
comet explodes high in the atmosphere, there is simply no
reason why its fragments would explode again right above
the ground. Instead, they should impact the surface any
meteorite or comet would do and leave recognizable crater.
Out of the several meteorites and comets that do explode
in the upper atmosphere each year, some with considerable
force, it quite curious that none of them, including the
Tunguska event and two other possible similar events that
have been recorded having ocurred in South America have
produced any Carolina Bays-like features. This web page
presents lots of speculation with little, if any, real science to
support their ideas.Although twenty years ago when Savage wrote his book
this explanation might have had some credibility, however
the knowledge about how impact processes work gained
since the 1980s shows that this hypothesis simply doesn't
make any scientific sense.Large comets and meteorites that reach the ground intact
do produce very large explosions and craters. However,
the explosions also dig deeply into the ground instead of
simply blowing a shallow patch of the surface away. If
the Carolina Bays, which are 1 to 2 km in diameter, were
created by such impacts, their original bottoms should be
over 90 to 150 meters deep, which they are not. Carolina
Bays among many other things simply too shallow to be
impact craters.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:""This model is not fully substantiated. But, given
the terrestrial and extraterrestrial constraints used
in this paper, a comet remains a viable alternative
worthy of further consideration."
A RE-EVALUATION OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN OF THE CAROLINA BAYS"The paper presented at this web page was published
in June of 1975. Since then, numerous people have given
this idea consideration and spent lots of time working
out the mathematics and physics of it needed to make it
work. Unfortunately, in the 27 years since it was
published, serious scientists have found the hypothesis
advoctaed by this paper just doesn't make any sense
in terms of what is now known about the process of
comet and meteorite impacts. As a result, the geologists
who work with impact craters and processes have all but
given up on the hypothesis proposed on the above web
page. For example, Mr. wmscott would have a difficult
time finding anyone attending the Lunar and Planetary
Conference in Houston, Texas this month that would
take "this model" seriously anymore.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Another web site had more information on comet impact
formation of the Carolina Bays and tied the event in
with the Pleistocene extinction event and a sudden
climate change event.".....rather old and largely outdated discussion of
terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinction omitted...The fact of the matter is that radiocarbon dates, OSL
dates, and pollen data from various Carolina Bays
previously discussed, all demonstrate that the formation
of the Carolina Bays occurred tens of thousands of years
prior to the extinction of megafauna at the end of the
Pleistocene. As a result, this discussion of terminal
Pleistocene extinction is totally meaningless as far as
the origin of the Carolina Bays is concerned.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"While the comet theory is not universally accepted,"This is a great understatement. :-) :-) Mr. wmscott
would have a very hard time finding even a sizable
minority among geologist would accept the "comet
theory".+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"it is by far the best theory for the formation of
the Carolina Bays and leads the pack by a wide margin"
It is the only theory to account for some features that
the other theories are unable to account for, and is
the obvious answer that pops out to even a casual viewer
of aerial shots of the Carolina Bays."Given that the modern orientation and shape of the
Carolina Bays are the result of repeated modification
of the bays by erosion and deposition as documented by
the research, which I have cited in this and my previous
post, it is impossible, as falsely claimed above by Mr.
wmscott to determine the origin of these bays by the
observations of the casual viewer. However, by casual
observation, a person can see that the Carolina Bays in
Maryland, New Jersey and Florida, because of their lack
of any preferred orientation, cannot be explained as the
result of the impact of either a comet or meteorite.
Similarly, by casual observation, the northeast to
southwest oriented Carolina Bays in Delaware cannot be
explained by casual observation using the "comet theory"
either. The Carolina Bays are very complex landforms,
in which, more than just casual viewing is needed to
understand how they form.In case of the aerial photographs, if a person carefully
selects the photography that best conforms to the argument
being made, casual observation will support the theory.
However, what is not usually shown, as illustrated by
Figure 51 of Kaczorowski (1977), are the many aerial
photographs of Carolina Bays of which a casual viewing
clearly refutes the "comet theory". The fact of the
matter, is that any data, e.g. aerial photographs, will
show "obvious answers" to the "casual viewer" if they
are carefully selected and illustrated because they
support the obvious answer, while contradictoty data is
ignored.Go see:Kaczorowski, R. T., 1977, The Carolina Bays: a
comparison with modern oriented lakes. technical
report 13-CRD. Coastal research Division, University
of south Carolina, Columbia.+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Now if the Carolina Bays were formed as the result of
an exploding comet, they will of course all have the
same age. Considering the older dates given to a few
possible Bays, there seems to be only two possible answers,
either the older dated 'bays' are actually old lakes and
are not true 'Bays' or they are Carolina Bays and the
dates are in error. The evidence points to a single
event that created the Bays, as for the dating of that
event."The problem is that people have looked at the spatial
relationships and relative degree of preservation of
the surface morphology of individual Carolina Bays. From
looking at these characteristics, it is quite clear that
Mr. wmscott is completely and utterly wrong about the
Carolina Bays having been created by a single event.An example of such research is:Washington, P. A., 1994, Spatial and temporal relations
among Carolina Bays in the southwestern North Carolina
coastal plain. Geological Society of America Abstracts
with Programs. vol. 26, no. 4, p. 68.Washington (1994) stated:"Statistical analysis of the size and areal distributions
of Carolina Bays in the southwestern North Carolina
coastal plain finds a series of distinct groups. Each
group is comprised of Bays with a very consistent size
and is found within a specific limited area, usually 15
to 30 km in diameter. The individual Bays within each
group have very similar character (depth of depression,
floor saturation, etc.) and degree of definition (clarity
of borders, etc.), suggesting the Bays within each group
are all of similar age and form a distinct genetic
population.The areal extents of the various groups overlap, giving
the wide range of Carolina Bay sizes seen in most areas.
Within overlap regions, many Bays are terminated
(overlain) by Bays of other groups. The superposition
patterns among Bays of the various groups are consistent,
indicating that each group formed at a distinct and
separate time. Based on the successive superpositioning,
it can be shown that there are many generations of
Carolina Bays in this region. The Bays comprising these
populations become progessively less distinct with age."The findings of this research clearly contradict the
supposition that they were created all at the same
time as required by the "comet theory". Because of
cyclic glacial-interglacial climate change,+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:dating is of course relative and needs calibration
according to what ever time scale we are referring
to. Whether that event occurred earlier or later
is not so much the point as the fact that it occurred."This sounds like Mr. wmscott is throwing out scientific
data that has been validated and calibrated simply
because it contradicts his hypothesis. If the OSL and
radiocrabon dating had supported his hypothesis, we
would likely be hearing a very different story. :-) :-)From various catastrophists, the reasoning might
be interpreted as being:If the orientation of a Carolina Bay doesn't support
the "comet theory" then it obviously must not be a
Carolina Bay. Therefore, it doesn't have the
orientation peredicted by the "comet theory" it must
be another type of lake or pond "misclassified" as
a Carolina Bay. As a result, a person can ignore
orientation data from a "Carolina Bay" that contradicts
the "comet theory" and he and she is not obligated
to either use or show it in their diagrams and figures.The latest version, I hear is:If a Carolina Bay is dated as being too old to fit
the "comet theory", then either that "Carolina Bay" is
a lake or pond of different origin "misclassified" as
a carolina Bays or the dating technique used to date
needs to be calibrated. In either case, this data can
be ignored in discussing the origin of the Carolina
Bays.The general rules, appears to be:If data from a Carolina Bay contradicts the
"comet theory", obviously either the oriented lake it
came from has been "misclassified" as a Carolina
Bay or the data needs to calibrated to fit the theory. :-)
:-) :-) :-) If the data doesn't agree with the "comet theory",
than there must be something wrong with the data, but
certainly nothing can ever be wrong with the "comet
theory". :-) :-)+++++++++++++++++In message 160 of 160 wmscott further wrote:"Since you like references, here is a whole bunch from
the first web site I cited on the Bays."These references only shows how antiquated and obsolete
the research presented on that web page is. For example, in
terms of cratering mechanics the following are extremely
out-of-date and now worthless as scientific references:Baldwin, R. B., 1963. The Measure of the Moon. Chicago:
The University. of Chicago Press.Baldwin, R. B., 1965. A Fundamental Survey of the Moon.
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.Hartmann, W. K., 1973. Moons and Planets: An Introduction
to Planetary Science. Belmont, California: Wadsworth
Publishing Co., Inc.Hawkins, G. S., 1964. The Physics and Astronomy of
Meteorites. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.Krivov, E. L., 1966. Giant Meteorites. New York: Permagon
Press.Wyatt, S. P., 1966. Principles of Astronomy. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Inc.Looking at these citations, it appears that the web page
understanding of the dynamics of meteorite and comet
impacts is woefully obsolete depending on references that
are over 30 years old. A person has to wonder where are
any modern citations about impact cratering, such as
Melosh's book on impact cratering to be found in this web
page.It is interesting that list does include:Frey, D., 1951. Pollen Succession in the Sediments of
Singletary Lake, North Carolina, Ecology, vol. 32,
pp. 518-533.Frey, D., 1954. Evidence of the Recent Enlargement
of the "Bay" Lakes of North Carolina, Ecology,
vol. 35, pp. 78-88.Both of these papers contain pollen data and radiocarbon
dates that refute the terminal Pleistocene age for theCarolina
Bays proposed by Mr. wmscott. (Of courselooking through the list of references, one of the
youngest of two references published in the same year is:Daniels, R. B., and Gamble, E. E., 1971. Stability of
Coastal Plain Surfaces, Southeastern Geology, vol. 13,
pp. 61-75.This web page apparently does not discuss any research
more recent than 1971. This just shows how out of touch
and out of date the discussion on this web page is about
what is known about Carolina Bays.Yours,Bill Birkeland
Houston, Texas[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 03-23-2003]

On 04-01-2003 08:29 PM, wmscott wrote:
Member ;>I found your last postings very intriguing and very
>persuasive. But I find the evidence and deductions
>supporting impact reation of the Carolina Bays also
>very persuasive. Have you read Savage's book?Yes, I have read Savage's book. Having read it, I find
it quite revealing that the antiquated, over 20 year
old science presented in it can be considered the
"best" that supporters of an impact origins for the
Carolina Bays can present.>If you haven't, perhaps you aren't aware of just how
>strong the case is for impact creation. Here is a
>link to a web site that has the complete book "The
>Mysterious Carolina Bays", by Henry Savage Jr on line.
>Index of /bobk/mcb I would suggest
>you read it over and show me the holes, for I find
>that Savage presents a conclusive case that the Bays
>are comet impact craters.One main problem, as I noted below, is that the physical
mechanisms / model, which Savage presents for the
formation, has been over the last 20 years, found to
be completely unworkable. Over the twenty years, since
Savage published his book, field studies and computer
simulations / modeling has shown that meteorites don't
impact and behave as Savage hypothesized in his book.>He examines all the other possibilities
>including the ones you put forward, and shows why they
>will not work. Only comet impacts can account for all of
>the features of the BaysYou greatly overstate the case made by Savage. Given
that his book was published in 1982, how can this book
argue against hypotheses and explain data published in
journal articles that were published in 1989, 2001, etc.
some 19 to 20 years **after**. Savage's book on the
Carolina Bays was published?? This book only addresses
arguments and information made up to 1982. It has
nothing to say about any the articles and abstracts
published after 1982. Even with the data up 1982, Savage
provides a less than iron clad, even convincing case in
his book on the Carolina Bays. Also, his ideas about
impact mechanics are out of date by 20 years and have
been found to woefully wrong-headed since its
publication....text deleted...>I don't agree with the "Cafeteria Catastrophism"
>approach, it is of course an exercise in self delusion.
>But what is it that you have against the catastrophists?
>Do you reject all catastrophism such as a comet killing
>off the dinosaurs, or is yours more of a limited
>rejection of just YEC influenced catastrophism?I have nothing against catastrophism when there is solid
data to support it. I agree that a comet very likely
killed off the dinosaurs. I agree that major catastrophes,
e.g. massive caldera eruptions, extraterrestrial impacts,
have occurred and influenced Earth's prehistory. What I
disagree with supporters of catastrophists like Immanuel
Velikovsky, whose wild and wonderful theories about global
catastrophes, can be now shown to be contradicted by an
overwhelming amount of evidence and are now known to
violate very basic laws of phyiscs. If a person can
provide, as in case of the K-T and various other impacts,
solid evidence of the catastrophe and show that it
follows the laws of physics, I have no problem in
accepting them.Like many geologists and astronomers, I disagree with
people who believe that every round or oval lake
absolutely positively must be an impact crater simply
beacuse of their shape and without providing very
reasons for their identifiaction.>From reading Savage's book it appears that only
>impacting comet fragments can account for all of the
>features, siliclastic karst or eolian processes can
>only account or some of the features.The impact mechanisms by which Savage explains the
formation of the Carolina Bays have largely, if not
entirely discredited in the last twenty years. If
the processes by which Savage explains the formation
of the craters are now known to be total nonsense,
then his impact can't be said to explain any of the
Carolina Bays at this time.>( haven't read the paper you cited on this, but hope
>to do so soon.) As many have pointed out, new bays are
>not currently being formed, which is a major problem
>for terrestrial theories since these processes are on
>going.This claim indulges in a hyperuniformitarianism, which
simply is not true. Just because we don't see a process
operating in the present fails completely to mean that
that this process hadn't operated sometime in the past.
Mr. wmscott doesn't understand that there has drastic
changes in climate between glacial and interglacial
cycles. During this time, different processes will be
active during a glacial - interglacial cycles. For
example, a person can find glacial moraines over all
of the Midwestern Untied States. Just because I can't
find ice sheets forming these moraines anywhere in the
Midwest today doesn't mean that there is a major problem
in advocating that they were created by terrestrial
processes associated with continental ice sheets. Using
Mr. wmscott's logic, I can argue that these glacial
moraines were created by some extraterrestrial event
because I can't find moraines being created currently
in eastern United States by continental ice sheets.
If the Carolina Bays are relict landforms, which
formed at somemtime in the past when climate, ground
water, and sea level were different than they are
now, than not being able to find any forming today
proves nothing. There are relict beach ridges on
the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Because these beach ridges
are now high and dry and not forming doesn't mean
they weren't created by active shoreline at some time
in the past.>Contrary to what you posted, it is childishly easy
>to detect the formation of new Carolina bays, it is
>as easy as spending a few moments in a woods and
>noticing how trees come in different sizes and
>deducing the pattern of growth.Contrary to what Mr. wmscott naively claims, it is
not "childishly easy" to detect the formation of
new Caroline Bays. It is absolutely impossible to use
trees to determine whether new Carolina Bays are
Forming. First, given the very slow process by which
a Carolina Bay form, the time over which it would
become apparent that a Carolina Bay is forming would
far exceed the life span of most trees, as it far
exceeds the period of time for which detailed aerial
and topographic data has been collected. Second, the
trees in a Carolina Bay and an area also is responding
to short term environmental changes in climate and
ground water, which would mask any influence of any
very gradual Carolina Bay formation that might be
taking place. Finally, the forests of the Atlantic
Coastal Plain have been greatly disturbed by agriculture,
urban development, ground water withdrawl, tree farming,
and many other anthropogenic processes. It would be very
difficult to find an area undisturbed to the point that
finding an area where a person can find the effects
of Carolina Bay formation extremely difficult. I don't
understand how it would be possible to use trees to
determine whether not Carolina Bays are indeed forming.
Looking at the sizes and variations of trees on the
Atlantic Coastal Plain would prove about whether
Carolina Bays are now forming or not.>Similarly with the Bays, growing Bays would be
>obvious by their increasing depth shown in the
>progression in the types of bottom sediments
>changing from shallow to deep lake types.Unfortunately, the level of Carolina Bays constantly
change in response to changes in climate (even weather),
groundwater, and other factors. The effects of the
subsidence of a Carolina Bay, presuming it is even
an active landform, not a relict landform being
modified by other processes, will be completely
masked by such changes.Presuming that a Carolina Bay is actively subsiding,
the progressive deepening and change in bottom sediments
still may not occur. The subsidence of such a feature
will be so slow that the rate, at which it is filled
by organic sediment and wind blow material can very
easily match or exceed the rate at which it subsides.
In such as case, a Carolina Bay can actively subside
and still not show a progressive deepening. There are
so many factors that would determine the depth of a
Carolina Bay that the present or absence of a
progressively deepening sequence of bottom sediments
proves nothing about their origin or activity.>Even if siliclastic karst origin theory was correct,
>and it maybe, it appears to be dependant on climate
>and is almost inactive under present climate conditions.
>The Karst theory does seem to be the only serious
>contender to the impact theory, but Savage claims to
>have shown why it will not work in his book.How does Savage, in a book published in 1982,
demonstrate that theory published in 1989 doesn't
work? How can Savage address new data and ideas
discussed in papers published in 1989 to 2002??
this doesn'e make any sense.>On the statements that the impact theory has been
>abandoned, appears to be premature at the very least
>or this fact is only known to some geologists. Here
>is a link to a web page dated 2001 referring to an
>impact origin for the Carolina Bays.
>http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v33n3/dps2001/198.htmPeople still rehash old ideas. What is interesting is
that this abstract fails to explain why the magnetic
anomalies occur **outside** of the features. If these
were real impacts, the magnetic anomalies should occur
inside the features. Meteorites and comets do not act
like bullets. A single abstract, which are not peer-
reviewed, does not mean an idea is widely accepted
except by the person who gave the abstract. Can Mr.
wmscott find a recent peer-reviewed journal article
that regards the impact hypothesis as being credible?>Here is a lecture outline for a college course dated
>November 14, 2002 that refers to a possible comet
>impact origin for the Carolina Bays.
>http://web.lander.edu/rsfox/415origin-4Lec.htmlYou misrepresent what the lecture states. This lecture,
which by a non-geologist, simply states that the
Carolina Bays are of "unknown origin". The impact
hypothesis is **not** endorsed in the lecture but
simply listed as one of "18 mechanisms have been
proposed, none is wholly satisfactory". It clearly
states that the "comet basins" and meteor basins"
explanations are not considered a satisfactory
explanation by the person who prepared the lecture
notes.The lecture notes are for " Limnology Lecture Outlines
Environmental Science 415, Biology 415, Richard Fox,
Department of Biology, Lander University, Lake
Origins 4">In 2001 the World Wild Life site stated; "Carolina
>Bays are ovate shaped shallow depressions and occur
>abundantly across a broad band of the coastal plain from
>southern North Carolina to the South Carolina-Georgia
>border (Richardson and Gibbons 1993). They represent a
>type of bog or bog-lake complex unique to the
>southeastern coastal plain, and are thought to have
>been formed by a meteor or comet impact."
>Biomes | Conserving Biomes | WWFThese are botantists, not geologists who produced this
web page. I suspect that they are just repeating what
they found in some source without bothering to critically
evaluated where it is a currently viable hypothesis.
This proves nothing about how Quaternary geologists,
Planetary geologists, and geomorphologists regard the
impact theory.>It appears to me that after a brief internet search,
>that the impact theory is alive and well, being
>referred to even in current college lecture outline
>notes.Mr. wmscott has a very strange definition of "alive and
well". By his definition of "alive and well", I could
claim that Saddam Hussein is "alive and well" and in
charge of all of Iraq. Today, Saddam is likely is
in better condition than the impact hypothesis. For
example, if Mr. wmscott look closely at the lecture
notes that he cited above, he will find that the person,
who prepared it, regards the impact hypothesis as being
not entirely satisfactory. This is not a "ringing"
endorsement of the "impact theory".A true indication of how geologists and the scientific
community in general feel about the impact hypothesis
concerning the origin of the Carolina Bays can be found
in the "Earth Impact Database" at:Planetary and Space Science Centre | UNB"The Earth Impact Database is a resource that
has been assembled since 1985 by researchers
at the Geological Survey of Canada (a division of
Natural Resources Canada). It has now been
transferred to the Planetary and Space Science
Centre at the University of New Brunswick
Department of Geology, owing to the restructuring
of various research programs of the GSC and
redeployment of many those who were formerly
engaged in its maintenance."The list of identified craters is sorted by diameter at:Planetary and Space Science Centre | UNBLooking at the list a person can find recognized
craters starting with Haviland with a diameter of
15 m (45 ft) and Dalgaranga with a diameter of
24 m (73 ft). However, not a single Carolina Bay
can be found on this list.If the Carolina Bays have any credibility among
conventional scientists as craters resulting from
either a meteorite or comet impact, they should
be on this list. The fact that none of the Carolina
Bays are listed on this list demonstrates that the
scientists involved in studying craters simply have
found any of the arguments for the Carolina Bays
being the result of an impact as being completely
unconvincing.Also, where are any of the Carolina Bays on other
lists of verified impact structures as such as:Terrestrial Impact Crater Structures
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/crater.htmIf the Carolina Bays are recognized as impact craters,
why are they not figured on the "Interactive Map of
Terrestrial Impact Craters"? This interactive
map can be found at: Interactive MapAccording to that map, the only recognized impact
crater on the East Coast is the Chesapeake Bay Impact
Structure at: Chesapeake Bay Impact Structure[Shortened too-long links. --Admin]Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center | U.S. Geological SurveyIt is impossible to argue that this impact structure
is in anyway related to the Carolina Bays. In fact, the
Chesapeake Bay Impact has absolutely no surface
expression.>Now on the impact theory, no one is saying that the
>impacts happened yesterday, everyone accepts the fact
>that the Bays are and have been under going modification
>by lacustrine and eolian processes which has effected
>their original alinement. These processes may have
>'detuned' the bays so that they are no longer pointed
>to a common source, as they once may have.If a person accepts that the Carolina Bays have been
extensively modified by lacustrine and eolian processes,
than a person is left with the problem that the oval
and circular shapes that they now exhibit are not
their original shapes. As a result, the shapes and
orientations of the Carolina Bays cannot be used as
evidence of their origin unless it can be prove they
are somehow related to their origin.>The theory being here that there may not have been
>enough time for the bay alinement to become completely
>random or purely local wind alined, so that much of the
>original 'signal' is still present.If there has been modification of the shape and
orientation of the Carolina Bays, how do you know what
is "signal" from the origin of a Carolina Bay and what
is the result of post-origin modification of the Carolina
Bays? The problem here is that Mr. wmscott is assuming
that the orientations, which are consistent with an
impact origin, are the "original signal" because it fits
the "comet theory" and any deviations from these origins
are later modifications because they don't fit the
"comet theory". He has absolutely no data to show any
of the original "signal", shape and orientation of the
Carolina Bays, has survived from the origin of these
features. From what Has been reported about these
features from references cited in my last post, I find
it quite unlikely that any of the Carolina Bays retain
their original shape and orientation.....text deleted...>Your objections to all the comet fragments just happening
>to explode just above ground level overlooks the
>explanations given in the impact theory. Highly volatile
>comet fragments impacting the ground at a low angle are
>riding behind a 'pressure wave cone' that triggers an
>explosion in the volatile comet and creates the bay shaped
>hollow.These ideas, proposed by Savage in his 1982 book, have
been shown to be completely scientifically bankrupt. The
"pressure cone wave" has been shown to be nothing more
rather imaginative, but scientifically bankrupt idea that
lack any basis in reality. Comet fragments would simply
**not** behave that way as research into impact cratering
has demonstrated in the twenty years since Savage
published his book. For the real dynamics of comet and
meteorite impacts, a person needs to read Melosh's book
"Impact Cratering". What is currently known about impact
theory clearly shows that the "explanations given in the
impact theory" provided by Savage have proved to be
simple-minded nonsense.>Or so they tell me, personally I suspect that exploding
>on ground contact would create pretty much the same
>effect.This not true. The ground explosion would produce a
classic impact crater, of which the Carolina Bays have very
few of the characteristics.>The volatility of comets combined with a low impact
>angle and possibly a lower impact speed in this case,
>would create impact features completely different
>than what is seen in meteorite impact craters.Unfortunately, none of what is said above is true.
Regardless of whether an object is meteorite or a
"volatile" comet and regardless of the angle of
impact, a well defined, classic meteorite crater will
result. Go read Melosh's book, "Impact Cratering"
for the details.>I even found a reference on the web to "Gault's
>idea that the Bays could be formed by ejecta from a
>glacial impact."
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/shoelett.html
>which happens to be the mechanism I put forth in
>my book. Ice ejected from impacts on the ice sheet
>that could have hit the Carolinas would be following
>flatter suborbital trajectories and would have a
>much slower impact speed than impacting comet
>fragments and eliminates the need for an air burst.This is as physically impossible as the ideas proposed
by Savage. First, an impact powerful enough to eject
large blocks of ice into suborbital trajectories would
have vaporized, melted, and completely shattered any
ice into very small fragments. Although the image of
large icebergs being ejecta into orbit by a comet impact
makes a wonderful image for a disaster movie, there
certainly isn't any scientific basis for accepting that
it could happen. In addition, an impact large enough to
do this would have left a very, very big crater and
spread impact eject over a large part of North America.
The idea is not only bad science, but also lacks any
evidence for having happened...text deleted...Yours,Bill Birkeland
Houston.[This message has been edited by Admin, 04-07-2003]

In Message 175 of 177
Mr. wmscott wrote:05-06-2003 08:41 PM"A victorious conclusion to a long debate? Since in
response to my last post there are no further posts
on additional changes I need to make in my flood
theory, it would seem that I can conclude this
thread by announcing a VICTORY. Only seems
fair that if no one is able or willing to challenge
my theory on how the Biblical flood happened, I
can claim victory in this debate."------------------Given that this is nothing more than a messageboard, which is unknown to more 99.999 percent of the experts in the field of Quaternary geology and paleoclimatology, you have achieved nothing of a victory. If Mr. wmscott actually argued his ideas against real experts, he will find that he has achieved nothing in the way of a "victory". All the above claim of "victory" indicates is how completely YE creationists deluded themselves with trvial matters about how credible their ideas are. There is a difference between "victory" and somone's opponenets getting bored enough with the same old arguments that they find something else more entertaining and worthwhile to do with their
time.If you presented your ideas at a meeting of the American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) or any international association of Quaternary geologists, your model wouldn't survive 4 minutes. I predict that your ideas would get sliced, diced, and shredded into innumerable pieces. If you manged to survive a presentation of your ideas at such as meeting that might be a minor victory.I would be more impressed with Mr. wmscott's ideas if he could prepare a paper about them and got that paper published in either "Boreas", "Geological Society of America Bulletin", or "Quaternary Research". However, I suspect that the posibblity that wil happen is nonexistent. This is not because of any prejuduice on the part of conventional scientists, but because of the badly flawed nature of the arguments and research behind his work. I would certainly challenge Mr. Wmscott to put his best arguments together in a paper and submit it for publication in one of the above journals and keep us posted on the results of his efforts. Publication of such a paper would be a real victory.(It also would be very intersting to see what would happen if this paper was submitted to "Creation Ex Nihlo Technical Journal". A "peer-review" by people sypathetic with Mr. Wmscott's ideas would be quite revealing.)Beside, I suspect that nobody has recently posted anything against your ideas because they have bored with the way this topic has been discussed to death and found it was a waste of time to continue discussing hopeleeslly scientifically bankrupt ideas in a thread ,which is going nowhere, and gone onto pursuing other more profitable or interesting matter. A major reason that people have stopped posting is that like others, I have better things to do than argue science with someone who still has a long, long way to go before he knows what he is talking about and proposes a hypothese so unsupported by the evidence that it poses absolutely no threat to conventional science and, will be taken seriously only by people, e.g. YE creationists, looking for science fiction of some sort to justify a very narrow, literal interpretation of the Bible. A person can only beat a dead horse for so long before finding way more useful, fun, or some combination of both to use their time. For example, I have joined a group of geologists, who providing assistance in the rebuilding of the Iraq Directorate of Geology and depts. of geology in Iraq universities that were totally destroyed by the looting and other aftermaths of the 2nd Gulf War. I will be devoting more of my time toward that project which will have far more than arguing about ideas that are going nowhere fast.The above claims of "victory" remind me alot of Baghdad Bob's claim that there were no either US troops in Baghdad of those present were getting soundly defeated.Also just because a person gets a book published, especially by a company like Xlibris, which allows an author to self-publish without any editorial review is no victory. I predict that his book will join the many other books published by nonscientific book publishers about Atlantis, various sorts of global catastrophes, UFOs, alien abductions, and so forth and ignored by all but true believers because they make their case with such flawed arguments and evidence, nobody considers them worth their time refuting them. There is so much junk science published in books dnd so little time that a person has focuse only on those that have some chance being taken seriously and ignore the rest.A person can find more about Xlibris Publishers at:https://www1.xlibris.com/about/index.asp"About Xlibris
Xlibris gives you the tools you need to become
your own publisher. You give us your manuscript,
we work with you to format it and design the
cover, and then the completed file is stored
digitally."It is only a hobby to argue with people like Mr. wmscott. Like many hoobies, I have to pass on them when I have serious things to do like work, finding oil, and more fun things to, e.g., like going on vacation to visit Lake Baikal in Siberia. To interpret my absent and others absence as a victory is a mistake and an exercise in self-delusion. All it means, is that I have either gotten bored with arguing about the same old technobabble that contributes nothing constructive to society; looking for something more challegening to do, e.g., learning knitting; or doing something more interesting to do, e.g., visiting Lake Baikal,, than discussing geology with someone who still doesn't much of what he is talking about and has nothing new to say and whose
idea;s will have no impact at all on conventional geology.+++++++++It was asked:"So last chance, does anyone know of any evidence
that would preclude the occurrence of a recent
global flood as described in this thread?"Any good book on Quaternary Geology and Quaternary Paleoclimatogy will contains numerous peices of evidence that easy refuted the concept of a late Pleistiocene Flood proposed by Mr. wmscott. Specific evidence that refute Mr. wmscott's reasearch can be found in the PAGE's newletters at:http://www.pages.unibe.ch/products/newsletters.htmlOne issue, the "Long Record" issue, Vol. 7 No 3
(December, 1999)That issue contains various long records of paloeclimatology and paleoenvironments that all refute Mr. wmscott's arguments. There is also a bunch of other evidence and data from many other sources mentioned on the PAGEs web page that also refute his ideas.Yours,Bill Birkeland
{off to Russia on vacation very, very early tomorrow morning :-) :-)[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 05-07-2003][This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 05-07-2003]

In Message 175 of 177
Mr. wmscott wrote:"So last chance, does anyone know of any evidence
that would preclude the occurrence of a recent
global flood as described in this thread?"For an of some of incredible amount of evidence that refutes Mr. wmscott ypothesis, a person need only go read one of many books such as;Ruddiman, W. F., and Wright, H. H., Jr., 1987, North America and
Adjacent Oceans. The Geology of North America, vol. K-3,
geological , Society of America, Boulder, COThat book, Chapters 13, 14, and 15, discusses a number of pollen sequences from numerous lakes across North America that span the period of time during which Mr. wmscott alleges his Biblical flood occurred and utterly fail to show any evidence of any sort of catastrophe. There is nothing within the fluvial and lakes deposits, which accumulated during the period which Mr. wmscott alleges his Biblical Flood occurred that show any evidence of any major catastrophe. There innumerable other published pollen data found in many published papers and summarized in various books, which also refute Mr. wmscott's ideas. Contray to what Mr. wmscott would like to believe, there is an abundance of evidence out there that readily refutes his ideas, which he will find if he bothers to research what is known about the Pleistocene. However, I doubt that the facts are enough to disuade him from wasting time, effort, and a good chunk of life on an idea which many published papers and books conclusively demonstrated to be invalid and scientifically bankrupt.Also, a person can find numerous papers with palynological evidence for lake cores and other sources in the "North American Pollen Database" list of references at:North American Pollen Database - References
North American Pollen Database - Unacquired Sites Inventory - MainmenuMr. wmscott shoulld take the time to attend an American Quaternary Society (AMQUA) or Geological society of America Meeting and discuss his ideas in person with people who are real experts in Pleistocene and Quaternary geology, climatology, and paleoenvironments. There, not on messageboards like this, he will find out what the basic problems his ideas are.He also can attend a "Friends of the Pleistocene" (FOP) fieldtrip, which occur annually in six different parts of United States. They are a good place where a person has the opportunity to talk informally with all sorts of Quaternary geologists, soil scientists, palynologists, and Earth Scientists who study the Holocene, Pleistocene, and Quateranry research that he or she is oding and get useful feedback and advice, and suggestions.An example of some of their field trips can be found at:http://www4.nau.edu/.../v30n1/friends_of_the_pleistocene.htmThe Midwest Friends of the Pleistocene field trip, which last usually 2 and a half days around a weekend, is one that Mr. wmscott could possibly attend.Some Web PagesQUATERNARY PALYNOLOGY
Page not found | GeosciencesNOAA Palaoclimatology
Error 404: Page or Resource Not Found | NCEI
Error 404: Page or Resource Not Found | NCEIOverhead transparencies
http://www.pages.unibe.ch/products/overheads.htmlIf I had more to spend on this subject I could pot the citation of numerous published papers, all presenting evidence that refutes Mr. wmscott's ideas. However, I have better things to do with my life than do the homework that Mr. wmscott needs to be doing himself.If Mr. Mr. wmscott really beileives that he has a case for his Biblical Flood, I challenge him to submit a paper for publication to either "Boreas", "Geological Societyof America", or "Quaternary Research" instead of publishing books with the vanity publishers where no scientist will pay any serious attention to them. If he can get a paper published in any one of those journals, he would have a real victory instead of the nonexistent one he claims, like Baghdad Bob claimed in Baghdad, in his previous messages.Yours,Bill Birkeland
(Soon to be visiting Lake Bailkal) :-) :-) :-)[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 05-07-2003]

In making some of the claims below, I get the impression that Mr. Scott intended to get a reaction from the geologists on this list. Because, his ideas are so completely refuted and unsupported by the vast volume of published evidence and aren't taken seriously by any conventional geologist, I have ignored his posts having better things to do than beat a hopelessly dead horse that "ain't" going anywhere. However, I will make an exception to this post.Mr. Scott started:"Basically I am looking at a large scale impact event on the late
Ice Age ice sheets, which resulted in the 40 days of rain and
dumped enough water into the oceans to raise sea level
high enough to destabilize the edges of the great ice sheets,
resulting in a runaway chain reaction of massive glacial surging.
The resulting rise in sea level would be something like 500
feet to perhaps as much as 4000 feet in less than a month,
perhaps even as little as a few days."If such a event happened, it would caused an extinction event comparable to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary as the worlds coastal and lowland environments would have been completely destroyed by being submerged under water. Besides there is simply not enough water in modern or ancient ice caps to have raised sea level by over 1,000 feet. On that basis alone, this idea is as scientifically bankrupt as the movie "Water World".Mr.Scott continued:"There is good evidence for supporting a recent temporary
rise in sea level to above the 1000 ft contour line. (see posts or
book)"This can be only said if a person simply ignores an enormous amount of negative and positive evidence the clearly demonstrates that this didn't happened. For example, such an event would have created a well-defined event bed that would be quite obvious in outcrops and in cores containing paleoenvironmental records covering tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years from numerous lakes, bogs, and other locations. Also, much of the evidence,except for his diatom research, that I have seen in his posts is composed of material recycled from other catastrophists. It consists of largely of alleged anomalies culled from now antiquated and out-of-date research. In many cases, if a person consults the recent literature, a person will find that these anomalies have conventional explanations or consists of features, i.e. the shorelines on the mountains near Lake Baikal, which have been found to exist only in the imagination of the person who reported them."Some of the more geologically minded posters on this board
have agreed with me that such a past event is feasible..."I am not one of such "geologically minded posters". From what I have seen of Mr.Scott's posts what he proposes is not only physically infeasible but readily refuted by a review the abundant paleoenvironmental data that has been published for the Pleistocene.Mr.Scott continued:"and have challenged me to prove it by publishing a
scientific paper on it. Currently I am working on improving
my testing methods to do the basic research required for
such a paper."I have challenged Mr.Scott to publish his research. I look foward to seeing Mr. Scott not only publishing the results of his research in a geology journal but also presenting it at a meeting or two such as GSA or AMQUA.Best Regards,Bill BirkelandThis message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 08-18-2004 09:23 AM

First, some interesting and recent research:1. Satellite reveals the biggest of big bangs by JAMES REYNOLDS
The Scotsman (Scotland) August 19, 2004
Home | The Scotsman2. Antarctic craters reveal strike - BBC News - August 19, 2004
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Antarctic craters reveal strike The asteroid may have raised sea levels by up to 60cm
Scientists have mapped enormous impact craters hidden under
the Antarctic ice sheet using satellite technology."The scientists told a conference this week that the
impacts occurred roughly 780,000 years ago during
an ice age.""This would have melted about 1% of the ice sheet,
raising water levels worldwide by 60cm (2ft)."The interesting thing is that according to this statistic is that if a hypothetical impact managed to melt all of Antarctica, it would only raise sea level by at least 200 ft.If a person searches the internet, they would find "Estimated Present-Day Area* and Volume* of Glaciers and Maximum Sea Level Rise Potential" at:USGS URL Resolution Error PageAccording to the USGS data and calculations on this web site, sea level would rise 7.0 meters (23 ft) if all of the ice in Greenland and mountain glaciers melted and 73.44 meters (241 ft) if all of the ice on Antarctica melted. At best, sea level would rise only 80.44 meters (264 ft) if some hypothetical catastrophe managed to melt the world's ice sheets. Although substantial, the melting of modern ice sheets falls far short being able to flood land anywhere near the 1,000-foot contour.Of course, a person can use a tsunami to flood above the 1,000-foot contour. However, as noted below, any process that can push water that far up on land will leave tear up the land and ecology to the point that well-defined evidence of its occurrence will remain behind long after it had occurred.Mr. Scott wrote:...Vogon Poetry about talking to the audience omitted... :-) :-)"Never heard of the Pleistocene Extinction event"The problem here is that it is "events" not "event". The extinction of Pleistocene megafauna occurred at different times on different continents separated by thousands to tens of thousands of years. Therefore, it simply impossible for a single event to be responsible for the extinction of megafauna all over the world. There is no single "Pleistocene Extinction event", but a number of extinction events, which is discussed in more detail by Scott A. Elias in an article at:http://www4.nau.edu/...n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htmOne example of this is the dates at which mammoths became extinct. As summarized by Claudine Cohen in her book, "The Fate of the Mammoth: Fossils, Myth, and History", Mammoths became extinct in central Europe between 14,000 to 12,000, years BP; in China about 14,000 years BP; and in Siberia about 9,000 years BP.In North America, it becomes more complicated as discussed in "Quaternary Paleobiology Update: Debate continues over the cause of Pleistocene megafauna extinction" by Scott A. Elias in Volume 29 Number 1 May 1999 of "The Quaternary Times Newsletter of the American Quaternary Association" at:http://www4.nau.edu/...n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htmIn this article, Scott A. Elias stated:"It now appears that the major megafaunal exinction
event took place at 11,400 14C yr B.P. This event
included the extinction of camels, horses, giant
sloths, Pleistocene bison, and all other genera
of megafaunal mammals that did not survive beyond
11,400 14C yr B.P. , with the exception of the
proboscideans. Mammoths and mastodons persisted
beyond 11,400 yr B.P. Stafford et al. have dated the
extinction of North American mammoth and mastodon to
10,900-10,850 yr B.P. So it now appears that there
were two distinct extinction episodes. Each event
took less than 100 years."According to the dates, at which, mammoth became extinct in various parts of the world, Mr. Scott's global flood would had first struck China about 14,000 BP to kill off the mammoths and then taken 2,000 years to reach Europe and kill off the mammoths there. After wiping out the mammoth in Europe, it would have had to taken a 600 years to cross the Atlantic Ocean to wipe out the camels, horses, giant sloths, Pleistocene bison, and all other genera of megafaunal mammals, except for mammoths and mastodons in North America. Then it would have had to sloshed back and forth around the Atlantic Ocean for 500 years and come back to North America to wiped out the mammoths and mastodons. Then Scott's global flood would have had to spend 1,800 years travelling back across the Atlantic and Europe and, 5000 years after leaving China, into Siberia to wipe out its mammoths by 9,000 BP. A 5,000-year long flood isn't a brief event.Finally, on Wangel Island, about 140 miles off the coast of eastern Siberia, mammoths became extinct about 3,700 years BP. This is a problem for Mr. Scott's theory. His global flood would have had to travel at a rate of 0.026 mile (139.47 ft) per year for 5300 years after having killed off the mammoths in Siberia to have reached and finally finished off the last of the mammoths on Wrangel Island. From this brief travelogue, it is quite clear that any explanation of Pleistocene extinctions needs to explain why the extinction of mammoths occurred over 5,000 years, 10,000 years if Wrangel Island is included.Mr. Scott wrote:"We have had this discussion before, and as I have told
you, the thin dusting of marine diatoms left by a brief
marine flood would be too sparse to turn up in convectional
examinations of sediment cores. I have to take a fair sized
sample and process the whole thing and manage to strain
out only a few marine diatoms. How on earth do you
expect such a brief event to show up prominently in
outcroppings?"The fatal flaw in your reasoning is that any catastrophe or movement of shoreline capable of flooding the land above the 1,000-foot contour would certainly leave behind something more substantial than a "dusting of diatoms". Any event of the magnitude of which you are proposing, no matter how brief is going to leave an event bed that will be preserved in protected areas, as in the thousands of lakes that have been cored and analyzed for paleoenvironmental data.An excellent proof of this argument is the 7200-7300-year old landslide, the Storegga Slide, which occurred on the continental slope west of Norway. It created a tsunami that propagated across the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea regions. Although the Storegga tsunami, which this slide created, was much smaller and briefer by orders of magnitude than the event proposed by Mr. Scott, it left a clearly recognizable event bed at locations within western Norway, Scotland, Faeroe Isles and as far south as eastern England. For example, the event bed associated with this tsunami can be found in coastal lakes coastal lakes all along the coast of eastern Scotland, where it is as thick as 10 cm. Although this event happened 7200-7300-years ago; was much briefer in duration than Scott's proposed Global Flood; and is event much smaller than Mr. Scott's proposed event, it left a well-preserved event bed. In fact, enough remains of the event bed created by the in coastal lakes and other locations that the run-up of this a tsunami can mapped with great confidence as discussed in:The Storegga Slide and Tsunami in the North Atlantic
Region by Alastair Dawson. Environmental Catastrophes
and Recoveries in the Holocene, August 29 -
September 2, 2002 Department of Geography & Earth
Sciences, Brunel University Uxbridge, United Kingdom
Emuparadise 2022Thus, it is well documented that a very brief and relative small event such as the Storegga tsunami left a well-defined event bed all across a large portion of the east side of the Atlantic Ocean from western Norway, Scotland to the Faeroe Isles and as far south as eastern England. The Storegga tsunami is excellent proof that large events, no matter how brief their duration leave deposits that should have by now been recovered and recognized in some of the cores analyzed for paleoenvironmental data from hundreds of coastal lakes and deltas all over the world. This fact strongly argues that the event proposed by Mr.Scott certainly should have left an even better developed and well-defined event bed.Ancient tsunamis, other than the Storegga tsunami and much briefer in duration and smaller than it and Scott's proposed global flood, have also repeatedly left readily recognizable event beds. Some documented examples are:Benson, B. E., Grimm, K. A., and Clague, J. J., 1997,
Tsunami deposits beneath tidal marshes on northwestern
Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Quaternary Research.
vol. 48, pp. 192-204.Kelsey, H. M, Witter, and Hemphill-Haley, E., 2002, Plate-
boundary earthquakes and tsunamis of the past 5500 yr,
Sixes River estuary, southern Oregon. Geological Society
of America Bulletin. vol. 114, no. 3, pp. 298-314.Minoura K., Nakaya S. and Uchida M., 1994, Tsunami deposits
in a lacustrine sequence of the Sanriku coast, northeast
Japan. Sedimentary Geology. vol. 89, no.1-2. Pages 25-31.Minoura, K., Gusiakov, V. G., Kurbatov, A., Takeuti, S.,
Svendsen, J. I., Bondevik, S., and Oda, T., 1996, Tsunami
sedimentation associated with the 1923 Kamchatka earthquake.
Sedimentary Geology, vol. 106, pp. 145-154Pinegina, T. K., Bourgeois, J., Bazanova, L. I, Melekestsev,
I. V., and Braitseva, O. A., 2003, A millennial-scale record
of Holocene tsunamis on the Kronotskiy Bay coast, Kamchatka,
Russia. Quaternary Research. vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 36-47."Deposits from as many as 50 large tsunamis during
the last 7000 years are preserved on the Pacific
coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula near the mouth
of the Zhupanova River, southern Kronotskiy Bay.
These deposits are dated and correlated using
Holocene marker tephra layers."Pinegina, T. K., and Bourgeois, J., 2001, Historical
and paleo-tsunami deposits on Kamchatka, Russia: long-
term chronologies and long-distance correlations Natural
Hazards and Earth System Sciences. vol. 1, pp. 177-185
Copernicus.org - 404 Even hurricanes can, under the right circumstances, produce event beds that are readily recognizable. This is well documented in:Liu, K. B. and Fearn, M. L., 2000, Reconstruction of
prehistoric landfall frequencies of catastrophic hurricanes
in northwestern Florida from lake sediment records.
Quaternary Research. vol. 54, pp. 238-45.Liu, K. B. and Fearn, M. L. 2000. Holocene history of
catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf of
Mexico coast reconstructed from coastal lake and marsh
sediments. In: Ning, Z.H. and Abdollahi, K.K. (eds.)
Current Stresses and Potential Vulnerabilities:
Implications of Global Climatic Change for the Gulf
of Mexico Region of the United States, Franklin Press,
Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pp. 38-47.Liu, K.B. and M.L. Fearn. 1993. Lake sediment record of
late Holocene hurricane activities from coastal Alabama.
Geology. vol. 21, no. 9, pp. 793-796.Hunting Prehistoric Hurricanes: Storm-tossed sand
offers a record of ancient cyclones by John Travis
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000520/bob9.aspThe above references clearly prove that geologic events, such as hurricanes and tsunamis, that are shorter in duration and considerably less in magnitude than the global flood hypothesized by Mr. Scott repeatedly create event beds / deposits that can be recognized in cores and outcrops. That events lessor in intensity and duration than the global flood advocated by Mr. Scott regularly create recognizable event beds, which can remain intact for many thousands of years, readily refutes the contention that such global flood could have occurred and left only a "thin dusting of marine diatoms". Such a global flood would have substantially altered the landscape it covered and left a well-defined and recognizable event bed because of its intensity regardless of how brief it might have been. It nothing more than wishful thinking to propose that a catastrophic global flood would only leave a "thin dusting of marine diatoms" given the intensity and scale of the proposed processes involved. Similarly, such an event would have had a devastating effect on coastal and lowland ecosystems that would have been even more painfully obvious than an event bed. That is another story and fatal problem to Mr. Scott's ideas.Mr. Scott wrote:"So the raised shorelines near Lake Baikal are imaginary?
Perhaps I will have to edit them from my book, got any
references on this? Seems like an awfully odd thing for
someone to imagine."Unfortunately, the references are still packed from moving. From what I found, the person, who mapped this shoreline, mapped it along with a number of other shorelines elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. Given that later geologists, in detailed mapping of the areas where this and his other shorelines had been, found nothing remotely resembling either a shoreline or any associated deposits, I feel quite safe in concluding that they were imaginary. I will look around for the references as it is an excellent example of antiquated research that has been completely refuted by later studies.In using the "raised shorelines" as evidence of his global flood, Mr Scott grossly contradicts himself. He argues for a "brief" marine flooding to explained the absence of an event bed. However, Mr. Scott overlooks the fact that brief catastrophic events, i.e. hurricanes and tsunamis don't produce shorelines. Well-defined shorelines are only produce if the boundary between land and water remains relatively stable for a long period of time. In the solid metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary country rock of the near Lake Baikal area, it would have taken decades, even hundreds of years of a stable water level for any sort of recognizable shoreline to form. If this global flood was a brief event, it is impossible for it to have formed any sort of recognizable shoreline. Thus, even if this shoreline was for real, it can't be used as evidence of a brief catastrophic flood as proposed by Mr. Scott.Best Regards.Bill BirkelandOperation Air Conditioner
http://www.operationac.com/
http://www.operationac.com/dw_pages/whatwedo.htmThis message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 08-20-2004 01:44 AM

wmscott wrote:"It would be expected that large scale removal of water
from the oceans would cause the ocean floor to rebound
which would cause a general subsidence of the continents.
This reduction in relief combined with glacial covering
of the high points beneath glacial ice, may have allowed
the entire earth to be covered by 'water' if the sea
level rise reached the edges of the ice sheets and
mountain glaciers. No tsunamis are invoked here, so
I am not expecting to find such wide spread evidence."The effects of large-scale removal of waters from the oceans and formation of ice caps in terns of what it would cause in terms of ocean floor uplift and continental subsidence has been modeled using data and field observations from the real world. The amount of water removed by the formation of ice sheets was simply too small, 120 meters of sea level rise, relative to a total depth of 4,000 to 5,000 meters, to have cause the ocean floor to rebound as much as Mr. Scott claims. At most, the removal of water from the world's oceans, would have caused only several meters of rebound. This is far, far, far, far too little to have caused what Mr. Scott claimed it did. Within continents, the isostatic depression of the crust beneath continental ice sheets, in fact caused a wide strip, called the "forebudge", of the continents adjacent to the ice sheet to be elevated, not depressed by tens of meters.Some examples of the published research, which completely refutes Mr. Scott's ideas about the extent of ocean floor rebound includes:Clark, J. A., 1980. A numerical model of worldwide sea-level
changes on a viscoelastic earth. In Earth Rheology, Isostasy
and Eustasy. N.-A. Morner, ed., pp. 525-534. Wiley & Son,
New York.Clark , J. A., Farrell, W. E., and Peltier, W. R., 1978.
Global changes in post-glacial sea level : a numerical
calculation. Quaternary Research. vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 265-287
(This paper received the Kirk Bryan Award for Best
Publication from the Geological Society of America,
Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology Division in 1979)Morner, N.-A., 1971, Relations between ocean, glacial and
crustal changes. Geological Society of America Bulletin.
vol. 82, pp. 787.788.Morner, N.-A., 1976. Euastasy and geoid changes. Journal
of Geology. vol. 84, pp. 123-151.Morner, N.-A., 1987a. Models of global sea level changes.
In Sea level Changes. M. J. Tooley and I. Shennan, eds.,
p. 333-355. Blackwell, New York.Some web pages: Isostasy Sea Level Changes
IIS 10.0 Detailed Error - 404.0 - Not FoundIn addition, Mr. Scott ideas are refuted by research concerning volcanic islands, which act as sea level dipsticks, within the Pacific ocean and elsewhere, which failed to show any significant rebound of the floor as he advocates. The mapping of submerges shorelines around all of these islands show that sea level **fell** by amounts roughly equivalent to the amount of sea level change caused by withdrawal of water from the oceans to create global ice sheets. The amount of rebound was less than several meters at most. This is completely insignificant relative to the depths of the oceans. Thus, the hypothesis that the ocean floors rebounded as much as Mr. Scott proposes is completely refuted by such research.For example:Shinn, E. A., 2001, Geological perspectives of global
climate change. L. C. Lee, W. Harrison, and B. M. Hanson,
eds., pp. 251-264, AAPG Studies in Geology. vol. 47,
American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa,
Oklahoma.Shinn (2001) stated:"Drowned coral reefs and oolitic beaches indicate sea
level was about 100 m below present during Stage 2 as
little as 12 ka."to repeat what wmscott wrote:"entire earth to be covered by 'water' if the sea level
rise reached the edges of the ice sheets and mountain
glaciers."Finally, if flooding up to the edge of the ice sheets had actually happened, it would have caused among land plants and animals and coastal ecosystems equivalent to what occurred at either Cretaceous-Tertiary or Permian-Triassic boundary. Coastal and lowland plants and animals communities would have been completely obliterated by it. Contrary to what Mr. Scott falsely claims, the extinctions at the end of Pleistocene in no fashion approaches this degree of extinctions.wmscott wrote:"As you know, tsunamis and hurricanes are both energy intensive wave
events which cause erosion. The flood model I am proposing would
not have that kind of intensity. A gradual but progressive and on going
rise in sea level caused by distant glacial melting and surging would
cause a high tide that just keeps on coming. The sea water would
simply rise and flow over the land like the tide. "There is very little
suspended sediment in the ocean and as long as the rise in sea level
wasn't fast enough to cause a incoming 'tide' with enough speed to
cause wide spread erosion,..."In the real world, this is all nonsensical wishful thinking on the part of Mr. Scott. Even under the best of circumstances, the placid surging envisioned by Mr. Scott simply doesn't occur. It is impossible for a body of water of any size, especially anything from the size of large lakes to seas and oceans, to be perfectly still all of the time. Because of the weather, i.e. prevailing winds and storms, winds at some time almost always generate waves of some type. Also, the circulation of water masses, including diurnal tidal currents, and major storms frequently generate significant bottom currents. As a result, by waves or currents of some type impact every shoreline of a major body of water at some time of the year.These currents and waves always result in the erosion of shorelines of oceans, seas, and any large body of water. Regardless of how slowly or fast sea level rose, there is always going be some sort of erosion by currents, waves, or combination of both, at the shoreface of the shoreline in which any loose sediments, specifically soil horizons, are stripped off of the ground surface. This erosion creates a readily recognizable erosion surface, called a "ravinement surface". Where tidal currents are active, the lateral migration of tidal channels along a trangressing coast will create a tidal ravinement surface. In the real world. studied in great detail by geologists, it is physically impossible for a "a gradual but progressive and on going rise in sea level" to submerge an area without land surface being deeply eroded as the shoreline moves landward across it. If Mr. Scott would visit the Louisiana coast, he anyone else would see that even during "a gradual but progressive" rise in sea level, significant and detectable erosion of the land's surface will always occur.Why this happens is discussed in:Bruun, P. 1962. "Sea Level Rise as a Cause of Shore Erosion."
Journal of the Waterways and Harbors Division. vol. 88(WW1)
pp. 117-130.Papers that document in great detail the erosion and
sedimentation that occurs even with "a gradual but
progressive and on going rise in sea level" submerges
dry land are:Rodriguez1, A.B., Fassell, M. L., Anderson, J. B., 2001,
Variations in shoreface progradation and ravinement along
the Texas coast, Gulf of Mexico. Sedimentology. vol. 48
no. 4 Page 837-853.Demarest, J. M., Kraft, J. C., 1987, Stratigraphic record
of Quaternary sea levels: implications for more ancient
strata. In Sea-level Fluctuations and Coastal Evolution.
D. Nummedal, O. H. Pilkey, and J. d. Howard, eds., pp.
223-239. Society of Economic Paleontologists and
Mineralogists Special Publication no. 41, Society for
Sedimentary Geology, Tulsa, OklahomaNummedal, D., and Swift, D. J. P., 1987, Transgressive
stratigraphy at sequence-bounding unconformities; some
principles derived from Holocene and Cretaceous examples.
D. Nummedal, O. H. Pilkey, and J. d. Howard, eds., pp.
241-260. Society of Economic Paleontologists and
Mineralogists Special Publication no. 41, Society for
Sedimentary Geology, Tulsa, OklahomaandSiringan, F. P., and Anderson, J. B., 1994, Modern
shoreface and inner-shelf storm deposits off the east
Texas coast, Gulf of Mexico: Journal of Sedimentary
Research., vol. B64, pp. 99-110.Mr Scott has rate of sea level rise versus degree of erosion completely backward. Here, Mr Scott doesn't understand that the slower the rate of sea level, the longer the former land surface would be subject to action of waves and currents within shoreface and the more deeply eroded the land surface would be. Conversely, the faster sea level rises, the less time a submerged surface will be subject to erosion within the shoreface and nearshore environments and the less erosion will occur. Still even with very fast rates of sea level rise, there is always a significant amount of erosion as land becomes submerged. Only if entire land surface of the continents were dropped several tens of meters instantaneously, would the surface not have been subject to wave action within the shoreface and nearshore environments. That processes, however, would create its own evidence of it having occurred."...there wouldn't be any sediment layer to be found save for what
sediment you would expect from ocean water, things like diatoms.
Erosion would be limited to the bottle necks where the flow would
be funneled, such as the straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus, etc."As documented in the publications noted above, what Mr. Scott claims here is simply not true. Even a slow submergence of the land surface would result in extensive erosion and accumulation of sediments. One factor overlook here is that while all of this is happening, volumes of sediments are still being dumped into the world oceans by rivers such as the Mississippi and melting out at the edge of the ice caps. As a result, even at high stands of sea level, large amounts of sediments would still be dumped into the world's oceans and a layer of recognizable marine clastic sediments would accumulate in some areas.It is quite obvious that Mr. Scott has a long, long way towards constructing a viable theory.Best Regards,Bill Birkeland.