[meteorite-list] Vance Holliday shares informal critique of the Younger Dryas Boundary impact theory, responding to many comments: www.cosmictusk.com Rich Murray 2010.10.03

From: Rich Murray <rmforall_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 23:48:41 -0600
Message-ID: <153887BB008F447FAAEB377B3DE184D8_at_ownerPC>

Vance Holliday shares critique of the Younger Dryas Boundary impact theory,
responding to many comments: www.cosmictusk.com Rich Murray 2010.10.03
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.htm
Sunday, October 3, 2010
[ at end of each long page, click on Older Posts ]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/71
[you may have to Copy and Paste URLs into your browser]
_______________________________________________


[ Rich: I have cleaned up the text and added spacing to increase the
readability, especially for myself, as this kind on on the fly editing helps
me understand and recall the main points.
I greatly appreciate both sides, and hope all will contribute freely and
courteously to protect a culture of cordial frankness and mutual respect
which will facilitate self-correction along with open yielding of any
positions found untenable in the face of facts and reason.
The exponentially growing ecology of nested paradigms of all of science
necessitates constant collaborative weeding, and radical surprises will
always evolve, for the reality itself is infinite in every possible way.
Bill Napier's Taurid ice comet fragment stream paradigm allows very
open-ended possibilites: impacts may vary hugely in time, periodicity,
number, power, angle, direction, and composition in any region, while the
current threat is unknown. ]

http://cosmictusk.com/tusk-exclusive-vance-holliday-provides-powerful-critique-of-the-younger-dryas-boundary-theory#more-2166

Tusk Exclusive:
Vance Holliday provides informal critique of the Younger Dryas Boundary
theory

Vance Holliday and others in this email exchange have kindly allowed me to
post their chatter to the Tusk.
I will clean it up later.
But for now -- here you go?.. [George Howard]

On Sep 30, 2010, at 9:00 PM, ?E.P. Grondine? <epgrondine at yahoo.com> wrote:
?Holliday! Why yes, I certainly could use one. What? That?s not what you
meant? Sorry about that?. ? Emily Latella

Hello Vance --

We all make mistakes, and working on the cutting edge of research one makes
a lot of them as the situation gradually becomes clearer.
Clovis has been found in South America (Venezuela) and scarcely in the far
North of North America.
As a matter of fact, given Clovis?s distribution, with major locations in
Gulf Coast Florida and Georgia, it is most likely that this technology came
up from South America across the Gulf of Mexico, by boat, and then spread
rapidly along annual animal migration paths.
See the PIDB points database for this.
This was also discussed at paleoanthropology forum (now archived), and the
NPS report on Clovis distribution is cited there.

Today, Haynes announced that they could not find annual hunting camps.
(But then if they are anything like other archaeologists I have met, Haynes
et al. probably could not find wallows or salt licks if their lives depended
on it.)
Then there is that little problem of the simultaneous extinction of what,
64(?), species.

For that matter, you yourself are most definitely unable to identify
cultural complexes with descendant peoples, and patently ignore those
descendant peoples? oral traditions.
In other words, the peoples remembered where they were at the time of the YD
event, and what happened, and they can be locked onto the archaeological
record from that point.
If I can get my book to a second edition, I?ll try harder to clear this up.

Vance, if you want one of the YD team to show you how to locate the sample
layer, take the samples, and prepare them, you?ll have to come up with the
funding to pay them to show you how.
Maybe you can write a grant application to the new Planetary Protection
Office for this money.

There is another issue here, which is the metallic content of comets,
particularly PGEs.
It may be that comets have metallic cores, depending on the length of time
they?ve been precipitating since their formation and their initial formation
size. In other words, IMO it is not likely that all comets are entirely
formed of carbon and organic compounds.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
(despite the gross mistakes, still a great book ? invest in a copy if you
have not read it yet.
details at http://cosmictusk.com )

-- On Mon, 9/27/10, rbfirestone <rbfirestone at lbl.gov > wrote:
From: rbfirestone <rbfirestone at lbl.gov>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Firestone responds
To: ?Vance Holliday? vthollid at email.arizona.edu;
Cc: ?Hermann Burchard? burchar at math.okstate.edu;
c.leroy.ellenberger at wharton.upenn.edu;
Allen7633 at aol.com;
cchapman at boulder.swri.edu;
bkobres at gmail.com;
epgrondine at yahoo.com;
kendrickfrazier at comcast.net;
ivan.semeniuk at utoronto.ca;
mbboslo at sandia.gov;
napierwm at cardiff.ac.uk;
jbkloosterman at gmail.com;
george at restorationsystems.com;
Date: Monday, September 27, 2010, 12:56 PM

On 9/27/2010 10:27 AM, Vance Holliday wrote:
At 01:21 PM 9/25/2010, Richard Firestone wrote:

Herman:

The word debate is too strong because this is a war of ideas that is being
fought out on the battlefield of experimental data.
Attempts by some to suppress the publication of this data on philosophical
bounds will only exasperate the intensity of this war.
There is a relatively small cabal of opponents of the YD impact whose ox
seems to have been gored.
There are dozens of respected researchers who support the YD impact data.
Dozens upon dozens of respected researchers do not support theYD impact
hypothesis, especially those directly involved in the research.
(archaeologists, Quaternary geologists, paleobiologists).
People who have spent their careers in the field and in the lab.
BUT, they don?t say it didn?t happen, just that the case hasn?t been made
and/or is distorted.
Coming from the more rigorous fields of physics and chemistry, I find much
of the information put out by many prominent geologists and archaelogists
highly suspect.
This view is shared by many of my academic colleagues.

We have only demonstrated that the YD impact was not by an ordinary Fe/Ni
meteor and thus probably a comet.
I can?t prove that it was a comet.
Vance Haynes, not me, argues about the sudden disappearance of the megafauna
at the onset of the YD.
I really don?t know what happened to the Clovis-era people but Haynes,
Waters, and Stafford have shown strong evidence that they too disappeared
nearly simultaneously.

NO THEY DO NOT!
They do not say this.
Just look at the DATA that W & S published!!!

Other arguments that climate change, disease, or human predation suddenly
killed of everyone are not based on empirical evidence, only conjecture.
The simultaneous disappearance of the megafauna and the sudden collapse of
the Laurentide Ice Sheet make sense if there was an impact.
Of course I can?t prove that yet experimentally but at least I don?t have to
rely on magic to make it happen.

The dating (by Tom Stafford) to date shows no sudden diasappearance of
megafauna at 12.9ka!

The Brunhes-Mayuhama reversal is coincident with the Australasian impact and
probably related.
More recent geomagnetic excursions probably never happened and were in fact
manifestations of near Earth supernovae explosions.
19th century scientists were open to catastrophic events that changed Earth?s
history but the 20th century was one of denial of catastrophic events.
The 21st century will fix hopefully that bias.


Rick Firestone

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Hermann Burchard <burchar at math.okstate.edu
> wrote:

Rick,

below (underneath my signature) your latest ?debate? entry to Vance
Holliday, trimmed and threaded in chronological order (latest 1st) for
easier review of this interesting series of exchanges.

Vance?s latest is very long and I have only skimmed it so far, myself a
casual observer, unfamiliar with details of his carefully composed
criticisms.

Still, I feel heavily prejudiced in favor of a YDB extinction-causing
Taurid complex impact at Northern latitudes, in view of overwhelming facts
favoring ET impact underrated frequency and geological importance.

Here is an attempt at new heterodox geology (future orthodoxy-2B):

1. No ET impacts -- NO plate tectonics (<= Shiva split India from Africa)

2. No mantle plumes ( <= www.mantleplumes.org )
3. No evidence from seismic tomography for mantle convection
( <= mantle transparent,
phantasist theories of sunken continents at D? layer at
core-mantle boundary,
difficult maths instability, of SVD,
deconvolution,
Radon transform inversion ?> artifacts, ?ghost tumors? )

4. No mantle plumes ( <= www.mantleplumes.org )
5. Geomagnetic reversals ALL caused by
ET impacts ( <= Brunhes-Matuyama reliably timed precisely
to Australasian tektite strewnfield impact )

Hermann


From: rbfirestone <rbfirestone at lbl.gov>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Firestone responds
Date: September 24, 2010 7:08:33 PM CDT
To: Vance Holliday < vthollid at email.arizona.edu >

Vance:

Haynes did confirm our evidence for peaks in the magnetic fractions at the
YD layer.
He found more Ir than we did at nearly any site which is a smoking gun for
an impact.
He?s nuts if he thinks the Ir levels that he found in the stream bed are
normal.
Probably the Ir washed out of the YD layer into the streambed.

Haynes believes that the mammoths and megafauna died in a sudden catastrophe
but he won?t say what that catastrophe is.

Paquay also found increased Ir at the YD layer even though he failed to do
microstratigraphy or look at the magnetic grains where it is most
pronounced.

Surovell also took far larger samples than we did, diluting his results by
an order of magnitude, yet he sees the same basic picture.

We have no idea where Scott got his samples, but I assure you we didn?t see
microfossils.

Daulton found no nanodiamonds because the sample was wrong.
aulton is now planning to look at our samples which have already been
studied by competent crystallographers.

Pinter does no experiments and makes up stories that are patently untrue.

The rate that cosmic dust falls to Earth makes microspherules from this
undetectable in soil.
Nobody has ever found what we found and showed in our papers.
What has been found was in arctic/antarctic ice where large volumes could be
studied.
The microspherules in the ice had a completely different composition than we
found.

Boslough?s ideas are disputed by Napier's ideas and largely ignore Schultz?s
data.
He ignores questions of the massive holes in the Great Lakes or the
accumulated data that recent impact rates are nearly as high as billions of
years ago.

Kurbatov?s measurements of nanodiamonds in Greenland, published in the
Journal of Glaciology, are ignored by critics.

Sharma?s paper' finding osmium isotope anomalies in the Pacific Ocean dating
to 12,000 years ago, preceded out work and was rejected by the PNAS reviewer
because ?there was no impact?.

Independent evidence of the YD impact from an Andean site was published by
Mahaney et al in Geomorphology.

We find the evidence of the YD impact layer in Sheridan Cave.
Tankersley tried to publish this but was rebuffed by reviewers that said
this was an old story.

The Carolina Bays are the only place where the markers found in narrow
sections elsewhere are found throughout the bay rims.
For many years these bays were assumed to be impact formed.
Revisionists came later but most of the recent arguments are unpublished
meeting abstracts.
Arguments based on questionable dating methods of samples of uncertain
origin don?t carry much weight.

We have presented a wealth of data.
Archaeologists and geologists have made a mess of much of the analysis of
the Clovis sites, yet they expound on theories made largely upon opinion and
conjecture.
The data will decide this subject not your opinion or mine.
Opponents can try as hard as they want to suppress new ideas.
That is the mantra of geology for the past 100 years.
It won?t suppress the truth.

Rick Firestone


On 9/24/2010 2:38 PM, Vance Holliday wrote:

Richard:

All I asked was why is it that when us skeptics can't reproduce
 data or confirm hypothesis for The Impact Team,
we are accused of slipshod science or incompetence,
yet The Impact team seems to always find what
they are looking for???

Has anyone on The Impact Team critically looked at their own data?
Questioned their hypothesis? Isn't that what science is about?

And are we really expected to believe that Vance Haynes can't
find the Black Mat???

I guess I could just as easily say to you, "Fortunately science
is not based on opinions but instead on measurements."

Dozens of scientists bringing unique skills to the subject have
provided an enormous amount of experimental data providing
no support for the idea of an impact at the onset of the YDB.

A few, highly biased scientists threw together some slipshod
experiments to support their hypothesis.

I must confess to growing very weary of unsubstantiated
accusations of incompetence, slipshod science, and bias toward everyone
who doesn't buy or who presents data contrary to the YD Impact
Hypothesis.

All of the people, who tested the hypothesis and came up wanting
or those who tried to reproduce the data, are just trying to figure
out what is going on.
I know many of them.
All are highly respected in their various fields.
None had any biases or agendas that I am aware of.
What is your basis for calling them "highly biased"?
On what basis do you decide that their experiments are "slipshod"?
Because their data don't confirm yours???

Like most of the skeptics (I am guessing), I don't actually care
whether there was an impact or not.
I just want to know one way or another because a lot of my work
deals with the late Pleistocene/early Holocene.
But good science requires that new ideas be questioned and tested.
Apparently we are all supposed to uncritically buy everything
we are told by The Impact Team.

You repeatedly asked me to explain that long list of apparent
contradictions.
I don't have to.
When proposing a new hypothesis, especially an "outrageous hypothesis",
the burden of proof is on your team to explain inconsistencies.

So far it seems that most of you have decided to simply accuse
all skeptics of not knowing what we are doing,
rather questioning your own work.

But I'll address a couple of your questions that I know something about.

Q: How else do you explain how Haynes found enormous concentrations
of iridium in the metallic fraction that he reported peaked at the YDB,
higher concentrations than we reported, yet he dismissed as somehow
unrelated?

A: That is easy. I'll let Vance answer using his own words from his
Reply in PNAS.
You should read it, too (or is he also under suspicion?).
We consider our iridium analytical results of 64 ppb and 31 ppb to not be
anomalous because they are less than the 72 ppb for magnetics from the
modern stream bed.
So, is Vance's Ir data from the stratigraphic section "good science",?
while his data from the modern arroyo channel is "slipshod"???
See: Reply to Firestone et al.: No confirmation of impact at the lower
Younger Dryas boundary at Murray Springs, AZ
PNAS 2010 107 (26) E106;
published ahead of print June 8, 2010.

Q: How do you explain why according to Stafford?s and Waters?
radiocarbon dating the Clovis people simultaneously disappeared
in both North and South America at the onset of the YD?

A: Three answers.

First, Clovis people did't do that.
Five sites (Mu Spgs, Sheridan Cave, Mill Iron, Lehner, Jake Bluff)
out of their "top 25? (20%) from their Table 1 are less than 12.9k
Second, there was no Clovis occupation of South America.
Third, their dating is not the last word on the age range of Clovis.
It is their estimate based on their selection criteria of available bone.
It is good work, but a lot of us think the age range is longer and
that they excluded some very good dates from some very good sites.
See:
Comment on ?Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the
Peopling of the Americas?
Gary Haynes, David G. Anderson, C. Reid Ferring, Stuart J. Fiedel,
Donald K. Grayson, C. Vance Haynes, Jr., Vance T. Holliday,
Bruce B. Huckell, Marcel Kornfeld, David J. Meltzer, Julie Morrow,
Todd Surovell, Nicole M. Waguespack, Peter Wigand,
and Robert M. Yohe, II
20 July 2007 317: 320 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1141960]
(in Technical Comments)

Q: Why are the enormous deep holes in the Great Lakes that radiate
perpendicular to the mid Continent rift not possible evidence of the
missing craters?

A: First, you should ask a structural geologist about this.
Otherwise, in reference to the "holes", I saw that you suggest
that "deep holes" beneath four of the Great Lakes could represent
impact craters
(in Journal of Siberian Federal University: Engineering &
Technologies Firestone et al. 2010).
You dismiss the possibility these holes were the result of glacial
erosion, citing the latest edition of Dawson's Acadian Geology,
a book published more than a century ago (Dawson 1891)!
Evidently, you believe subsequent generations of glacial
and Quaternary geologists working in the Great Lakes
failed to notice the holes' extraterrestrial origin.
Yet, if these holes were caused by an impact 12,900 years ago
(and you provide no evidence the holes are that old),
it is curious that the impacts produced elongated craters at
different orientations, yet each one is parallel to local ice flow
in the up-ice end of its lake basin.
Well, at least the latest edition of Dawson, 1891, was used!

Q: The interesting thing is that all of the detractors have set
themselves up for infamy in the history of science as the truth comes out.

A: Really???
Is that how science works?
The losing side of a scientific debate ends up in "infamy"?
Wow.
I wish I was told that in graduate school.
I would have gone into the aluminum siding business.

I'd like to present my own questions and comments to you, based
on quotes directly from some of your papers.

Over the past year or two, as I have gone back to the Firestone,
West, and Warwick-Smith book, Cosmic Catastrophe, and the
2007 Firestone et al paper in PNAS (the only two comprehensive
statements on the YD Impact hypothesis; neither of which was
peer-reviewed). I've come across what are best described as
"interesting" comments or assertions:

COSMIC CATASTROPHE

When I first came across, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood,
Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization, I casually flipped through
it and kept coming across comments that I knew to be misstatements
if not grossly in error.

Quote clearly, "facts" were fitted into preconceived ideas.
For example, my own research on playas was completely misstated and
what was purported to be my conclusions was essentially the opposite of
what I said!
They state (P 216) that because I had a suite of radiocarbon dates
from "the underlying formation" (i.e., from below the fill in
the playa basins, which they mistakenly refer to as "salty salinas"),
then these depressions must have formed at about the same time as the
Carolina Bays (according to their discussion elsewhere, at about 12.9ka),
and they must have been formed by the impact Event.

The problem with this interpretation
(as well as interpretations of the Bays ? see below) is that my dates
were from the playa fills, which is very clear throughout the paper,
and therefore the depressions must be older than 12.9k.
How could something so clear and straightforward be so stunningly
misrepresented???

The dating of the Carolina Bays was largely ignored or misstated
(p. 127).
One minute on the internet turned up three GSA abstracts with
OSL dates clearly showing that the sand rims around some Bays
date to between 15,000 and 40,000 years BP and between
70,000 and 80,000 years BP.
Some were rims active "during multiple phases over the past
100,000 years"? (Ivester et al, 2004, GSA Abstracts).

But also on p. 127 of The Book, the following statement is
presented: "All of the evidence fits our theory that the rims and bays
formed all at the same instant [i.e., by an "extraterrestrial event"?
at around 12.9k].
In support of that, Ivester and coworkers (2003) dated
two bay rims to 11,300 and 12,630 years ago using OSL?
We used the same technique to date two levels of?Bay rim sand?
the [OSL) Dating Laboratory at the University of Washington
reported that the "highest age (11,400+/-6100 years) is close
to the age of Clovis..."
?
This passage contains so much misleading and misunderstood
information that it is hard to know how to start sorting it out.

Luminescence dating produces ages in calendar years, so OSL dates of
11,300 an 12,630 are too young for the "Event" at 12.9k.
The mean of the date determined by the Impact Team at UW
is far too young for the "Event", but moreover,
absolutely meaningless given that the standard deviation
is over 50% of the mean age!
But the grossest distortion is the reference to the work of
Ivester et al.
In that paper they clearly state that they are looking at multiple
rims formed around some Bays.
"Four concentric rims along the margin of one Bay... selected
for dating have ages of 35,660+ -2600; 25,210+ -1900;
11,160+ -900; and 2,150+-300 years ago...
The trend of younger sand rims toward the bay center indicates
that the bay has shrunk in area over the last 36,000 years...
An additional date of 20,390+ -1600 years documents
eolian reworking of sediment associated with an adjacent bay
to the southwest.
Another new luminescence date from the Carolina bay rim
bordering Arabia Bay in southern Georgia shows the rim was
active 12,630+-1000 years ago.
These dates indicate bay rims were periodically active well
after the maximum advance of the Wisconsin ice sheet."

A rather remarkable twisting of words.
The dates cited by Ivester et al clearly do not pertain
to the initial formation of any Bay.

The Paleoindian archaeological record in the southeastern U.S. is
described as "well dated" (p. 113).
Further (also on p. 113), Al Goodyear is quoted as saying,
"...I'm noticing a big drop in the incidence of spear points
dating from right after that time" (13,000 years ago)
.
This was a surprise because that is flatly not the case.
There is almost no good stratigraphic or radiocarbon record
for Clovis and its variants in the Southeast.
Look at any paper or book on the topic.
The artifact style Goodyear was referring to (Redstone) has no
numerical age control at all!
Al thinks that it is post-Clovis but it is not dated
(Al told me that last year!).

On to the Blackwater Draw site (Clovis site) in New Mexico.
A visit to the site includes the following description (p. 73):
"18 inches" above the "Event" zone is a ledge "jammed with
spears, tools, and bone."

I've spent a lot of time at the Clovis site, much of it involving
stratigraphic work.
There is no such "ledge".
?
And this assertion (also on p. 73):
"Eight radiocarbon dates indicated that no humans had visited
Blackwater Draw for more than 1000 years."

There is simply no evidence for this whatsoever.
What dates?
>From where???
The considerable work at the site by my colleague C.V. Haynes,
and many others, apparently was ignored.

After simply paging through the book and seeing all this
misrepresentation of scientific data and scientific fact, and wholesale
distortion of the work of others, my skepticism began to emerge!

But there's more!
The Firestone et al paper in PNAS, 2007,
contains equally distorted statements.

p.16017: "Ten Clovis and equivalent-age sites were selected
because of their long-established archeological and
paleontological significance, and, hence, most are well
documented and dated by previous researchers."?

In fact, very few of these sites could be considered to have
"long-established archeological and paleontological significance."
?
The Clovis site and Murray Springs are arguably the only two.
Morley has no archaeological or paleontological significance.

Topper, neither the archaeology nor the geology of the
Clovis level has been published; little has been published
on any aspect of the site.

Daisey Cave is an important archaeological site, but as
indicated in the SI, was not occupied before 11.5ka.

Gainey is probably an important site, but is poorly published.

Chobot is very poorly published

Lake Hind has minimal archaeological significance,
no paleontological significance, and is poorly known.

P. 16019: "The YDB at the 10 Clovis- and equivalent-age
sites has been well dated to 12.9 ka."

This is a key point because the hypothesis fundamentally
rests on a demonstration that the layers in question,
with the purported impact markers,
are all of exactly the same age, or at least as close to
"exactly" as modern numerical dating methods
(chiefly radiocarbon) can get.
But in fact few of the layers are "well dated to 12.9 ka."
(This is clearly indicated in the SI to the PNAS paper).

The North American sites are:
Murray Springs, AZ
Blackwater Draw, NM No dates directly linked to sampled section
Daisey Cave, CA
Wally's Beach, Alberta "None of the Paleoindian points
recovered was in situ and therefore it is not possible to
directly link the points with the [dated] faunal remains"
(Kooyman et al. 2001, 687).
Gainey, MI No Black Mat, no dates, no obvious
indication of a 12.9ka level
Topper, SC No BM and no dates
Chobbot, Alberta No dates
Lake Hind, Manitoba
Morley, Alberta No dates
15 Carolina Bays No dates

Several of these sites are "dated" by presence of Clovis artifacts,
but that provides no precise indication of the 12.9ka level
because the Clovis occupation was at least several centuries.
So using the archaeology as an age indicator,
given the necessity for precise dating, is circular reasoning.

Five of the nine sites (over 50%) have no numerical age control
whatsoever or no direct numerical age control on the YDB layers.

No age control of any kind is reported for the 15 Carolina Bays (0%).

p. 16017: "Each of the 10 Clovis-age sites displays a YDB layer (average
thickness of 3 cm)."
?
This is impossible to verify because sampling intervals and
stratigraphic descriptions have never been provided.
The comment that the average thickness of the "YDB layer" is 3 cm
is significant in light of subsequent critiques of sampling by others.

p. 16017: "We further suggest that the catastrophic effects of this
ET event and associated biomass burning led to abrupt YD cooling,
contributed to the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction,
promoted human cultural changes, and led to immediate decline
in some post-Clovis human populations."?

The extinction issue is very complicated and in fact no recently
published data shows a synchronous extinction.
At the recent AMQUA meetings, Russ Graham and Tom Stafford
(who has also co-authored with some of the Impact proponents)
presented a paper with the latest radiocarbon dates showing
that most fauna was gone by 12.9k and that some mammoth
survived after 12.9.
And there is also the work of Gill (2010, Science) showing
that mammoth and other herbivores in the Midwest were on the
decline long before 12.9k (and that work followed other work
in the Northeast showing the same thing).
Moreover, the reference to post-Clovis human population decline
is based on a two-page paper on Redstone artifacts which, as
indicated above, are presumed to be post-Clovis in age
(Goodyear, 2006).
As noted above, Redstone is not dated at all.

p. 16018: "Charcoal displays peaks in the YDB at eight of nine
Clovis-age sites and is present in 15 of 15 Bays, reaching peaks
in four Bays with paleosols."
?
And from the Supplemental Information: "The Bays have poorly
stratified, sandy, elevated rims (up to 7 m) that often are higher
to the southeast.
All of the Bay rims examined were found to have, throughout
their entire 1.5- to 5-m sandy rims, a typical assemblage of
YDB markers (magnetic grains, magnetic microspherules, Ir,
charcoal, soot, glass-like carbon, nanodiamonds,
carbon spherules, and fullerenes with 3 He)."?

The sandy Bay rims are described as "poorly stratified" and
yet some have "buried paleosols."
Which is it?
And all Bay rims sampled have YDB markers throughout,
including, presumably, the buried soils?
What does that mean?
The Bay rims can't be used as evidence if
they contain no discrete impact marker layer.
The comment suggests that YDB markers can be found outside
of discrete contexts, negating their significance.

p. 16019: "At Murray Springs, Haynes? first reported the
presence of glass-like or "vitreous" carbon in the black mat.
In addition, he chemically analyzed the black mat layer,
concluding that it most likely resulted from the decomposition
of charred wood and/or a prolonged algal bloom,
both of which could result from event-related processes
(e.g., climate change and biomass burning).
Some black mats have no algal component, only charcoal."?

Haynes clearly describes the black mat as an algal layer
(and this is so stated in the SI to the 2007 PNAS paper).
How does an algal bloom result from "event-related processes"?
Algal blooms occur all the time on the Earth's surface and
almost all in the absence of any extraterrestrial event.

p. 16020: "...if multiple 2-km objects struck the 2-km-thick
Laurentide Ice Sheet at <30 degrees, they may have left
negligible traces after deglaciation?[perhaps] limited to
enigmatic depressions or disturbances in the Canadian Shield
(e.g., under the Great Lakes or Hudson Bay)"
?
An obvious flaw with that speculation is that by 12,900 years ago
only the Lake Superior basin was still under glacial ice, a fact
well-known and very well documented for decades!

16021: "For humans, major adaptive shifts are evident at 12.9 ka,
along with an inferred population decline, as subsistence strategies
changed because of dramatic ecological change and the extinction,
reduction, and displacement of key prey species."
?
I and other Paleoindian specialists are very familiar with the
North American literature, so this was news to us.

But sometimes you don't see what you are not looking for,
so several of us delved into the Paleoindian literature so see
if these claims have any merit (discussed below).
As noted above, this notion was initially based on
Paleoindian artifact data from the Southeast U.S.
This was a surprise, because there is almost no good
stratigraphic or radiocarbon record for Paleoindian
archaeology in that region.
Much of our work has been on the Great Plains,
which has the best dated regional stratigraphic record of
Paleoindian occupation in North America,
so we decided to test the
hypothesis with data from the Great Plains.
We see no evidence of any sort of occupation hiatus at 12.9ka.
The end of the Clovis point style tells us nothing about an impact,
and in any case the style persists after 12.9ka.

Arguments that cite stratified sites with a post-Clovis
occupation hiatus misstate the archaeological and
geological records.
At sites with multiple Paleoindian occupations, "sterile"
layers between occupation zones are the norm,
whether they separate Clovis from Folsom zones,
Folsom from other Folsom occupations,
or any combination of occupations you care to mention.

Moreover, out of >150 Paleoindian sites we looked at in the
literature, over two-thirds are single occupation sites.
So whether they are Clovis, Folsom or late Paleoindian
features, there is no occupation above.

Absence of a post-Clovis occupation is not a mysterious
"hiatus" -- it is the norm at most Paleoindian sites.

Another general question about the data from impact markers
in the PNAS paper:
Why the multiple peaks among the various indicators?
E.g., double carbon spherule and double charcoal peaks at Chobot;
the magnetic grain and spherule peak higher than the main carbon spherule
peak at
Chobot;
two Iridium peaks and one carbon spherue peak matching neither IR
peak at Lake Hind;
and a variety of spikes that don't match up at Topper.
How exactly did that happen?
A single "event" should sprinkle its traces across the
continent at the same time (the proponents make this
point over and over).
Yet they rarely occur together in the sites.
I know of no sedimentological or weathering process
that could so discretely vertically sort the various indicators.

So, please explain to me again; who is producing slipshod
science?

Vance Holliday
Vance T. Holliday http://www.argonaut.arizona.edu/
School of Anthropology & Department of Geosciences


At 11:20 AM 9/15/2010, rbfirestone wrote:

Vance:

Thanks for your opinion.
Fortunately science is not based on opinions but
instead on measurements.
Dozens of scientists bringing unique skills to
the subject have provided an enormous amount of
experimental data supporting an impact at the onset
of the YDB.
A few, highly biased scientists threw together some
slipshod experiments that still basically supported the
earlier work but yet were interpreted as proof that nothing
happened.

How else do you explain how Haynes found enormous
concentrations of iridium in the metallic fraction that he
reported peaked at the YDB, higher concentrations than
we reported, yet he dismissed as somehow unrelated?

How do you explain that when Kurbatov et al found a
massive peak of nanodiamonds at the YDB in Greenland ice
it doesn?t count, yet when Daulton et al found nothing in
Scott?s samples, it is somehow meaningful?

How do you explain why Pinter is allowed to make
outrageous claims that the magnetic spherules are normal
cosmic dust when nobody ever finds these spherules
elsewhere in sediment, the generally accepted influx
of cosmic dust is too low to account for a significant
concentration in sediment, and the composition of the
YDB metallic spherules is not the same as cosmic dust?

How do you explain why, according to Haynes, there
are no fossils of extinct mammoths and megafauna
within or above the black mat,
and it is as if all were gone in an instant?
How do you explain why according to Stafford?s and Waters?
radiocarbon dating the Clovis people simultaneously
disappeared in both North and South America at the onset
of the YD?

How do you explain why Bill Napier?s comet impact theories,
which can be buttressed by strong evidence of a major increase
in recent impacts, can be wrong, while Mark Boslough?s
suggestion that large impacts, including presumably the K-T,
never happen could be correct?

Why are the enormous deep holes in the Great Lakes
that radiate perpendicular to the midContinent rift not
possible evidence of the missing craters?

Why are Pete Schultz?s expermental evidence that high
velocity impacts into ice don?t necessarily produce craters
wrong and Boslough?s theories right?

How do you explain the evidence of high-temperature
burning in Greenland ice, highest in over 100,000 years,
and the high concentrations of soot in the YDB layer,
not seen since the K-T?

The absence of evidence in the detractors of the YD impact
papers is not evidence of absence, especially when there
is a wealth of positive evidence from all kinds of places.

The interesting thing is that all of the detractors have set
themselves up for infamy in the history of science
as the truth comes out.

More data is about to emerge from sites around the world.

Regards,

Rick Firestone

PS. I do agree with the bottled water sentiments.
Our conspicuous consumption of Earth?s resources needs to stop.
?The money Americans spend on bottled water could pay for
bringing fresh water to all the people in the world who need it.? --
Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute


On 9/15/2010 10:30 AM, Vance Holliday wrote:

Gentlemen:

Several weeks ago Mark Boslough forwarded comments on the
?YDB? and Vance Haynes sampling at Murray Springs.
Whoo boy? Poor old Vance Haynes, stumbling and bumbling
around a site he worked on for over 40 years
and he couldn't find the Black Mat!
But when Allen West came out they went right to the
section/samples Allen needed.
Good thing he got Vance straightened out!!
I guess the older we get the less we know about our sites.
In my case i've been working on the archaeology and geology
at Lubbock Lake in Texas since the 70s.
When I sampled for the YDB I submitted identical blind splits
to both Todd Surovell and to Doug and Jim Kennett.
When results came back from Kennett's lab
that were at odds with what they expected,
the immediate response was that I mislabeled the bag
and/or missampled the section and/or didn't understand
the stratigraphy.
Poor, poor, pitiful me?
Well obviously someone with no experience at the site
needs to straighten me out.
I am so glad that The Impact Team regularly and routinely
finds exactly what it wants to find when it samples,
and never makes mistakes.
Apparently the rest of us routinely and regularly get it
wrong in the field and in the lab.
How exactly does that work???

Vance Holliday
Professor of Anthropology & Geosciences


From: ?Boslough, Mark B? <mbboslo at sandia.gov>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:54:39 -0600
Subject: Firestone responds

Y?all might be interested in Firestone?s reaction to the latest.
Mark

From: Richard Firestone [ mailto:rbfirestone at lbl.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:56 PM
To: Hermann Burchard
Subject: Re: CORRECTION: was Re: Fw: Re: Impact hypothesis loses its
sparkle

Hermann:

Haynes didn?t know exactly where the YD impact layer is since it is mm?s
thick and not exactly at the base of the black mat due to turbation of the
horizon after the event.
Haynes did however see even higher levels of Ir than we reported in the
magnetic fraction which confirmed out work.
Daulton et al isolated microcharcoal aggragates at Murray Springs, whatever
those are, and not the carbon spherules that contain the nanodiamonds.
It is not clear where they got the Arlington samples since they communicated
with nobody associated with the original paper and just went fishing for
data.
Examining only two specimens of whatever they found for nanodiamonds was
insufficient because only 1 in 10 of carbon spherules were expected to
contain them.
Kennett?s nanodiamond analysis from many sites, including those reported by
Daulton and Kurbatov?s results from Greenland, are unambiguous proof of
their presence in the YD impact layer.
Daulton?s negative result proves nothing except that they couldn?t find
their way to the YD impact layer.
I?ve attached a copy of the Kurbatov paper.

Rick


On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Hermann Burchard
< burchar at math.okstate.edu > wrote:

Leroy,

attached please find PDF copy of the Daulton-Pinter-Scott paper from
PNAS on nanodiamonds.
 There is the footnote mentioned by Rick Firestone:
?This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.?
About peer-review, there is the note under the title:
?Edited by Mark H. Thiemens, University of California at San
Diego, La Jolla, CA, and approved July 27, 2010
(received for review March 24, 2010)?

Also, his comment regarding difficulties with obtaining correct samples from
the site at Murray Springs, AZ is interesting.
The authors state they relied on Haynes et al for dating their samples ?from
the base of black mat sediment layer at the same locality and stratum.?

Hermann


On Tue, 31 Aug 2010, Leroy Ellenberger wrote:

CORRECTION: Contrary to my previous email, Firestone informs me that
Daulton?s PNAS paper was peer reviewed.
 I apologize for this error.

CLE
?The money Americans spend on bottled water could pay for bringing fresh
water to all the people in the world who need it.?
Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute

Vance T. Holliday http://www.argonaut.arizona.edu/
School of Anthropology & Department of Geosciences
University of Arizona
Office in Anthropology:
P.O. Box 210030 (U.S. Mail)
1009 E. South Campus Drive (Overnight delivery)
Tucson AZ 85721-0030
office 520-621-4734
dept 520-621-2585
fax 520-621-2088

Vance:

I?ll take something positive from what you said.
It is fine to be skeptical as long as you leave open the possibility that we
are right, which you did.
Haynes showed convincingly that no megafauna fossils exist within or above
the black mat.
He argues that this was due to a sudden, catastrophic event.
It is difficult to know what other contributing events may have occurred
during the short period of Clovis occupation before the YD.
Stafford and Waters showed that Clovis-age occupation ended nearly
simultaneously in North and South America 12,900 years ago.
That says nothing about who or what disappeared.
The people may well have survived beyond this point but it is clear that
they stopped hunting megafauna then.
There is certainly a problem with the lack of data, data selection, and
radiocarbon dating methods.
Many may not realize that Stafford and Waters used their own radiocarbon
calibration methods, not INTCAL which would have given different results.
My opinion is that nobody can do radiocarbon dating to better than 100-200
years, 13 kyr ago, due to the many uncertainties in the radiocarbon record
for different locations and experimental problems.

Rick Firestone

October 1st, 2010 | Tags: clovis, comet, E.P. Grondine, firestone, richard
firestone, theory,vance holliday
Category: Younger Dryas Boundary: ET or Not?

1 comment to Tusk Exclusive: Vance Holliday informal critique of the Younger
Dryas Boundary theory
Dennis Cox
October 2nd, 2010 at 11:03 am
[ http://craterhunter.wordpress.com/ ]

As an autodidact, and a relative new comer to this debate, and who came into
it with no preconceived notions, I read every thing I can get my hands on
from everyone on both sides.
I have boundless respect for the work of all of the people in this thread.
And from the outside of the box I get a vastly different perspective.
But, as a consequence of the disagreement, it?s been the damnedest learning
curve of a lifetime.

Since the opinions of so many brilliant, and learned, people seem to be
completely at odds, an outsider is forced to read every paper with a
critical eye to what the individual researcher has demonstrated as empirical
fact, and what is speculation, or merely assumed.
And all will agree that there is much assumption in the Earth sciences.
And precious little empirical data.
There is also a distinct pattern to the assumptive stuff.

>From outside the box, when you objectively break it into two piles like
that, you quickly see that the discord isn?t in the data.
For the most part, the work is good.
What data there is, is sound.
The discord is in the opinions, and speculations, of the researchers.

Some of whom seem like blind scholars studying an elephant they can?t even
imagine.
And the elephant is in the room with them.
The question becomes: What?s with the blinders?

Early on, I noticed a common, and frustrating, pattern to many answers when
I would ask a question about an anomalous landform.
I would be asking for empirical information, and instead, I would get
something like, ?Well, most geologists agree that ___ ?, or words to that
effect. That?s the point where my compulsive curiosity would kick in with
the question:
Why? Show me the data.

Questioning every geophysical assumption like that always takes me down a
rabbit hole of inter-assumptive reasoning.
If we follow the chain of unquestioned assumptions, earlier-similar, to
earlier-similar, we always come to the foundation assumption that; ?The
present is the key to the past?.

In this case, it very clearly isn?t.
We have the burned bones of the corpses of extinct species, along with
volumes of other data, that tell us that the worst natural catastrophe in 65
million years happened only a few thousand years ago.
And we have no hope of ever understanding just exactly what happened, if our
thinking is founded on the assumptive belief that catastrophic events of
such magnitude cannot happen at all.
My questions to all of the authors of this thread, on both sides of the
debate are: How deeply invested are your thoughts, careers, and the science
you do, in the unquestioned assumption that the standard 19th century
uniformitarian model is correct?

What if it isn?t?
_______________________________________________


large expansion of fine website with global images and sensible
ideas re Holocene ice comet fragment impacts:
Pierson Barretto: Rich Murray 2010.09.24
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.htm
Friday, September 24, 2010
[ at end of each long page, click on Older Posts ]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/69
[you may have to Copy and Paste URLs into your browser]
_______________________________________________


Rich Murray, MA
Boston University Graduate School 1967 psychology,
BS MIT 1964, history and physics,
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-501-2298 rmforall at comcast.net

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Received on Mon 04 Oct 2010 01:48:41 AM PDT