WUWT previously covered this story on August 29th, and also on September 20th, 2012. This is a new press release from the University of Chicago today. A new study published in The Journal of Geology provides support for the theory that a cosmic impact event over North America some 13,000 years ago caused a major period of climate change known as the Younger Dryas stadial, or “Big Freeze.”
Around 12,800 years ago, a sudden, catastrophic event plunged much of the Earth into a period of cold climatic conditions and drought. This drastic climate change—the Younger Dryas—coincided with the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna, such as the saber-tooth cats and the mastodon, and resulted in major declines in prehistoric human populations, including the termination of the Clovis culture.
With limited evidence, several rival theories have been proposed about the event that sparked this period, such as a collapse of the North American ice sheets, a major volcanic eruption, or a solar flare.
However, in a study published in The Journal of Geology, an international group of scientists analyzing existing and new evidence have determined a cosmic impact event, such as a comet or meteorite, to be the only plausible hypothesis to explain all the unusual occurrences at the onset of the Younger Dryas period.
Researchers from 21 universities in 6 countries believe the key to the mystery of the Big Freeze lies in nanodiamonds scattered across Europe, North America, and portions of South America, in a 50-million-square-kilometer area known as the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) field.
Microscopic nanodiamonds, melt-glass, carbon spherules, and other high-temperature materials are found in abundance throughout the YDB field, in a thin layer located only meters from the Earth’s surface. Because these materials formed at temperatures in excess of 2200 degrees Celsius, the fact they are present together so near to the surface suggests they were likely created by a major extraterrestrial impact event.
In addition to providing support for the cosmic impact event hypothesis, the study also offers evidence to reject alternate hypotheses for the formation of the YDB nanodiamonds, such as by wildfires, volcanism, or meteoric flux.
The team’s findings serve to settle the debate about the presence of nanodiamonds in the YDB field and challenge existing paradigms across multiple disciplines, including impact dynamics, archaeology, paleontology, limnology, and palynology.
C. R. Kinzie, et al., “Nanodiamond-Rich Layer across Three Continents Consistent with Major Cosmic Impact at 12,800 Cal BP,” The Journal of Geology 2014, 122(5). http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/677046
I know from my industry days that diamond exploration in Northern Australia based on regional surface samples was significantly affected by the widespread distribution of microdiamonds (nanodiamonds) over the continent, so much so as to render some sampling methods almost useless. Microdiamond sampling of gravels/soils etc is a standard exploration technique where a bulk sample is completely dissolved in HF and the resistant residue is microscopically examined.
With such a stable continent, its likely the 12,800 yr surface is right at the present-day surface. (In fact, in parts of Australia the Cambrian-Pre Cambrian 600Myr surface corresponds with the present day surface).
Explanations for this widespread distribution of microdiamonds that I am aware of included aggressive kimberlite volcanism (diamond bearing), and cosmic sources.
FYI – Most of the YD layer has been found about 1 meter below the surface, though the Bradley soils are about 6-7 meters below, with loess above.
These researchers are examining mostly with SEM/EDS.
Dave
Can you please supply some references for your statement: ‘Explanations for this widespread distributions of microdiamons that I am aware of included aggressive kimberlite volcanism (diamond bearing), and cosmic sources.’
Ciao
John
People, people, you are playing right into their hands of your own tormentors by playing skeptic to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis! See Eric Steig’s of Real Climate’s comments in 2009:
“Think about it. If it turned out that rapid climate change events are caused by comets, it would imply the climate system is far more stable than we thought, that abrupt climate change events are not part of the inherent variability of climate during glacial periods. That would perhaps allay fears that we could be pushing the system towards an abrupt climate change in the future. On the other hand, it would also suggest that cometary impacts are far far more common than we thought. Now that would be news. Perhaps further research by Kennett, Firestone and others will indeed show that to be the case. We’re not, however, holding our breath.” – See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/the-younger-dryas-comet-impact-hypothesis-gem-of-an-idea-or-fools-gold/#sthash.GVWPk1xj.dpuf
It is no coincidence that the chief antagonist of the YDHI theory, Mark Boslough, is also a fundamentalist preacher of climate change alarm — the YDIH theory is suggest a serious threat to their “message.” If the YDHI is allowed to be true — The current level of attention and anxiety over climate change is akin to fretting over the radio station as your car sits on the train tracks.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend!
Good points.
DO, though, expect the default position here to be skepticism. But you make good points about being on guard about the mainstream trying to buffalo people into one way of thinking.
Boslough siding with where the big money comes from? Oh my! What a shocker.
Astonishingly irrelevant. Truth is not a consequence of who is talking. Jeez…
Rubbish. Science is replete with cases of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Jefferson refused to accept high and dry fossils as oceanic since for him that would be tantamount to accepting Noah’s flood. Galileo rejected a causal connection between the moon and tides, indifferent or oblivious to centuries of record keeping by English monks establishing a strong correlation. To him this was all menstrual nonsense. Skeptics have no need of grasping at straws of third party junk science to refute the junk science of climate alarm. –AGF
You increase your credibility when you identify the false basis of your antagonists’ claims. Al Gore laid the first modern brick of public fear of AGW with the “tipping point” meme — based on the Younger Dryas. Pull that block out — and the Jenga tower crumbles.
> Robertvd
> September 11, 2014 at 3:49 pm
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS7Adv3DFXg
Let’s just say that when it comes to “Ancient Aliens”, I’m a skeptic. To see the History Channel “Ancient Aliens” series debunked, it’s well worth spending 3 hours on
Zachariah Sitchin was another major name in the ancient aliens area. For a detailed point-by-point destruction of his theories (almost 2 hours long) see
NO. This is NOT Zechariah Sitchin in lab coats. Sitchin was a bunch of silly conclusions, a house of cards, and a lot of people with poor discernment skills fell for it..
He is a classic case of what I see in terms of translations of ancient cultures’ accounts – if the translator isn’t a native, he misses a lot. And how does one become a native of ancient Sumer? You don’t.
People riding in on a big-ass comet that goes out into deepest space, out beyond Neptune and Pluto – how silly is THAT? They leave their slaves here on the planet in the Goldilocks zone, while they go out where it is minus 200 degrees?
Ri-i-i-ight. That makes a lot of sense. /snarc
It was Robertvd who first posted the clip from the “Ancient Aliens” series. Ask him why he posted it. I was simply trying to cover the major variants of “Ancient Aliens” in the rebuttal post.
I never said I believe in Aliens. I think it is all about changes in incoming radiation . That’s why I use the picture of the plasma figure seen all over the world in rock art. There must have been a plasma event in the sky. There is no other explanation for finding the same figure all over the Earth. This plasma event must have taken a long time with sometimes dramatic results. That could be the reason why people started living underground (video Derinkuyu) to be save from the incoming radiation.
Lets be clear – finding evidence of an impact e.g. nanodiamonds is one thing. But evidence that such an impact changed climate profoundly is something else altogether. Folks may find evidence of the first that could be valid. But going from the first to the second – impact changing climate – is usually evidence-free, mechanism-free speculation at best, fantasy at worst.
It should also be crystal clear that those who argue that major climate shifts can only be caused by atmospheric forcing such as comets or CO2, stand squarely shoulder to shoulder with the CO2 AGW alarmists.
Its a very simple game. It’s called the “lets pretend the oceans don’t exist” game.
There is rock solid body of science with abundant evidence from ocean sediment geology and knowledge of oceanographic processes detailing how interactions between the NH and SH oceans, involving deep, intermediate and surface water currents, driveglobal climate shifts on timescales of centuries and millenia.
Of course oceans are forced from outside by e.g. Milankovitch and (possibly) other solar variations. And its hard to imagine the Chixilub dinosaur-terminatong meteor not affecting ocean currents.
The most destructive source of militant talebanic climate ignorance are those who wave the black flag of atmosphere-only. This CO2-comet-volcano camp either ignores the ocean entirely – where 99% of climate heat is located – or like Gavin Schmidt they dismiss the ocean as a passive puddle responding in mild obedience in real time to atmospheric (CO2) forcing.
But the ocean drives the atmosphere more than the other way around. For instance it is well known that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has nonlinear instability due to the positive salinity feedback. This means that on century-millenial timescales the AMOC is prone to abruptly switching on and off. 12 kya under the influence of Antarctic drived ocean circulation changes the AMOC turned off. This caused the YD.
It’s deeply ironic tha
Its deeply ironic that the AGW camp is now appealing to the ocean to explain the “pause” in global warming. Are they waking up to the existence of the ocean? Or just playing games to keep their fraudulent show on the road. Here’s the thing – the oceans don’t only explain the pause. They explain all climate change.
> agfosterjr
> September 11, 2014 at 1:07 pm
>
> Nanodiamonds? Maybe. Meteor? Maybe. But a climate
> changing meteor? A meteor that wipes out big game
> while stirring not a mouse? Or climate that does the same?
> Or disease? The comet theory and the overkill theory are
> best kept separate. -AGF
> Pat Frank
> September 11, 2014 at 3:59 pm
>
> The hunting hypothesis is made stronger by the fact
> that virtually all mega-fauna disappeared during this
> time. A climate extinction event might be expected to
> make extinct some suite of non-adaptive species. Not
> all species.
Both posts mention *MEGA*fauna. Remember that “the big one” 65 million years ago wiped out megafauna, leaving only smaller creatures as the survivors
1) It’s now widely believed that ***ALMOST ALL*** dinosaurs were feathered. See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140724-feathered-siberia-dinosaur-scales-science/ The asteroid/comet drastically changed climate, and destroyed the feeding grounds, starving to death any large herbivores that the asteroid impact didn’t immediately kill. This, in turn, led to the death by starvation of any large carnivores that the asteroid impact didn’t immediately kill. The only surviving feathered dinosaurs were the small, omnivorous types, aka birds.
2) Due to competition from dinosaurs, there weren’t any large mammals 65 million years ago. The small omnivorous mammals went on to take over.
3) Insects, also small, also survived.
Given that the dino-killer comet/asteroid selectively wiped out large land animals, why the surprise that YD comet/asteroid selectively wiped out large land animals. Note also, that the YD comet/asteroid was much smaller and seemed to affect mostly North America, so the extintion event was regional, not global.
No comparison. The K/T event wiped out almost everything, large or small. Birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, microbes. The reason small mammals survived is probably that they lived underground with a supply of roots, filtered air and probably warmth. Same for amphibians. Birds and reptiles may have survived as eggs, but very few birds survived. Snakes survived like mammals. Crocodiles, your guess is as good as mine; maybe as eggs, maybe fasting in the water; reptiles can go long without food. Dinos were warm blooded with high metabolism, needed constant feeding. At any rate, the K/T event was indeed catastrophic, and though habitat gave small creatures an advantage, most small species disappeared. The K/T event was not a megafauna extinction event.
Pleistocene extinctions on the other hand involved megafauna exclusively, even in historic times: the great auk is gone; the lesser auk survives. Why? Hunting. Humans consistently hunt big prey to extinction, from mammoths to seals and whales. And ancient man, without agriculture, without winter fruit, what do you think they depended on? What kept their population in check? If it wasn’t fast or scared it was doomed.
–AGF
NO. All large animals did NOT die out.
Elk, bison, caribou, moose, deer, several species of bears, all of these survived.
But the YD was different. There’s a meter or more layer of wind-blown soil-dust laid down during the YD in the Chesapeake Bay (Maryland) area . None of the dozens of earlier cold excursions (D/O, Heinrich events or even the LGM itself) in drilled sediment layers show this deep dust layer. It’s unique to the YD.
Exactly – and this is important to note.
The post to which I responded suggested that the YD was responsible for creating a more “plateaued” Holocene that enabled human civilization to arise. He said that previous interglacials appeared to reach a quick temperature peak then subside into the next glacial max, unlike the Holocene.
I countered that assertion. I pointed out that were the ice core resolution sufficient we’d likely see that previous Pleistocene interglacials had temperature ups and downs similar to what we’ve seen in the Holocene. I linked to the Eemian timeline, for which we have quite a bit of resolution. My thought is that human beings were not sufficiently evolved to take advantage of previous interglacials and create civilizations.
I did not address the cause of the YD, nor how or why it might be different from other cooling phases. My only comment was that it almost killed the Holocene right from the start and had it done so would have been a real climate catastrophe.
I might go hide after this but,
supernova close by that disrupted the entire geo-magnetism of our solar system.
Or sumpin like dat.
No don’t go hide. You are talking about a gamma ray burst, don’t know about the geo-magnetism thing (I’m a biologist, but one of my colleagues is a physicist who is working towards his astronomy masters and I’ll ask him Monday) and gamma ray bursts are theoretically the cause of the Permian–Triassic Mass extinction event. I have read something about evidence of a gamma ray burst presenting itself as high levels of radioactive compounds in tree ring analysis about 775 CE, further I have read about old logs recovered (in lakes in New England associated with Mastodon or Mammoth fossils, I’d have to search for it, I read way too many studies) and now wonder if they fall in the time frame of the younger dryas. Would be interesting if they had a go at them if they fell in the right time frame.
Well, IMHO anyhoo
From the U Chicago press release/post:
Lightning.
Lightning will easily provide the necessary high-energy conditions for exotic particle-formation, which advocates of the YDIH say can only be provided by a cosmic impact.
How is it that we are overlooking lightning? Large-scale ectrical arc-discharge phenomena exceed the conditions created in cosmic impacts.
Sadly The Electric Universe is not on the menu list of this blog. But then as long as we believe the Sun is heated from the inside out by nuclear explosions in its core making the Corona the hottest place of this plasma body little will change.
Arc-discharge is the key search-term that leads to extensive academic, industrial, and US Patent Office activity making tiny exotic particles from ordinary gases, etc. Add qualifiers to the root-term, like diamond, nanodiamond, diamond-like, etc.
Lightning is powerful, intense, and common. Certain kinds of storms churn up impressive lightning-displays, including dry and dusty environments that prevailed during and after the Ice Age.
It’s fallacious, to claim that only a cosmic impact can supply the kinds of conditions needed to create these unusual particles. Ordinary, familiar lightning does the trick nicely.
Thank you for including the stable link to the study.
The bottom line is and it is BIG is the YD period was not UNIQUE. That is all the evidence needed to show the cosmic ray theory is not valid. If it were valid then they would have to explain all the other similar climatic events to the YD due to a cosmic impact, which they can not do.
These one item climatic explanations do not cut it.
As I have said in my earlier post it was likely the ice dynamic and the state of the climate through out that time being close to boarder line glacial/inter – glacial conditions to begin with which made the climate very vulnerable to any changes in the various items which control the climate. The sun being a prime candidate.
The YD IS unique. Ask the biologists who have puzzled over the huge change in flora at that time. It was the biologists who discovered the YD cold period and who named it and who have not found an answer as to why it happened. The same sort of change only happened at the Older Dryas, but that one was very short.
ALL of the other temperature excursions since the Wisconsin ice age were short. The YD lasted 1300 years. THAT is unique.
The megafauna in N America went extinct. THAT is unique.
Clovis points disappeared from the fossil record. THAT is unique.
The mammoths in Siberia (except for the pygmy mammoth, which was a different species) went extinct. THAT is unique.
And now, they find spikes in SEVERAL materials that have ALWAYS been seen as impact markers. THAT is unique.
As explained in the Abstract, this paper focuses only on nanodiamonds and the spikes in the nanodiamonds. And yes, they know the difference between the various forms of nanodiamonds – which anyone who actually READ the paper would know. Other papers discuss the other materials normally seen as impact markers.
Agreed. There are only two identified large-scale impact-suggestive geologic boundaries (soot, trace-metals, nano-diamonds, etc) — the K-T boundary (65 Mya) and the YD boundary.
Agreed. There are only two identified large-scale impact-suggestive geologic boundaries (soot, trace-metals, nano-diamonds, etc) — the K-T boundary (65 Mya) and the YD boundary.
An interesting thing about it is that very often the K-T boundary layer is THINNER. Reason suggests that at 65 Mya there is more overburden and thus more compression.
Whereas Iridium was pretty a conclusive “tell” for the K-T, notice that the skeptics avoid mentioning the Iridium found in the YDB layer that shows up at some sites.
I liken the skeptics – not just here, but especially the academics – to a pack of dogs sorting out the weakest member of a herd – the weakest points of the YD proponents’ papers and completely avoid the strong points – the male bulls of the herd. They THINK they’ve got a weak point in the nanodiamonds, but keep an eye on this over time. The proponents will win out.
In design engineering, it is IMPERATIVE to find the weak points, the tough areas, and to put the most initial effort into those, so that they were no longer weak points. So, though the skeptics are a nuisance to the YDIH proponents, the proponents actually appreciate having to solidify their position on those weakest points. As Michael Jordan used to do, he would work on his weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
For SCIENCE it is better to deal with those weak points, certainly. If the hypothesis is no good, the proponents want to know that as soon as possible. Well, 7 years on now, and they have REAMS of evidence that supports the hypothesis IN THE WEAK AREAS.
That is the main thrust of this paper – to solidify the nanodiamond evidence (AGAIN), which the skeptic pack dogs have latched onto as the weak member of the herd. The skeptics are actually HELPING the YDIH proponents.
But myself, sometimes I wonder how many different times, how many different WAYS, do the proponents have to produce solid empirical evidence against hollow, NON-empirical blather – so the whole issue can move onto the next level. The skeptics are just yak yak yak yak yak.
While it would be nice to have a comprehensive theory that explains all features, it is not realistic in this case, since there is such a dearth of actual physical evidence from 10k to 20k years ago.
What is central here is the large black layer at 12800. And 40 studies finding nano diamonds embedded. The layer alone is unexplained, not to mention the diamonds. Any process capable of creating such a layer , diamonds or not, should be a prime suspect in any extinctions nearby in time.
Evidence such as ice cores is interesting, but as it is subject to melting and loss of years it can hardly be relied on, like you can, say, on a layer in the sediment over a 50M km in area.
The researchers leading the “impact skeptics” are anthropologists. In their field of anthropology, truth is somewhat subjective, as in whatever you can convince the other anthropologists of, without a lot of actual definitive physical evidence. They are hoping by making a lot of nice sounding arguments they can establish their theory of “something not an impact” being responsible for the black mat layer. Unfortunately for them, this is a topic with substantial physical evidence.
Take the 8200 year ago cold event similar to the YD. Abrupt although shorter in duration and less in degree of magnitude but still extreme. They need to explain that event among many others in relation to their cosmic impact theory which they can’t do.
YES, Salvatore, the 8.2 kya event is also on the table. Right now these scientists are wrapped up in this event. Will they get to the 8.2 kya event some day? I hope so. But none of THESE scientists are talking about looking into that event at this time.
But eventually it will need to be addressed.
Ted Clayton
September 12, 2014 at 9:02 am
“Although it is not currently a popular explanation, disease hasn’t really disappeared as a potential cause of population & even species-losses. And it would ‘cover’ why island-populations etc persisted after continental eradication.”
========================================================================
As with other non-hunting extinction explanations, microbes care less about the size of the host than its physiology. Cameloids of all sizes would be expected to share similar physiology and susceptibility to particular microbial parasites, yet the giant camels disappeared, not the llama, alpaca, or vicuña (other South American megafauna did bite the dust: GIANT ground sloths, GIANT armadillos, etc). (BTW, several species of GIANT ground sloths survived on various islands of the West Indies till 5kya–when humans arrived). So no, disease as an extinction agent is as spurious a cause as was ever suggested–like climate, comets, etc. Only if humans were the disease carriers could you blame island survival on disease, and humans would then be the megafauna carriers of a megafauna specific microbe. Will you buy that? –AGF
One of the few suggestions seemingly more-dubious than that microbes would have selectively exterminated the more-select cuts of big-game out from under freshly-arriving (and surely Eco-attuned) First Americans, is that Neanderthal might be in our direct line of ancestry.
That is, Neanderthal ancestry remained a topic of creative argument (among the certifiable idiotic and intellectually-irresponsible), after the point at which it became quite clear that we had acquired the basic tools that would sooner rather than later lay the question to rest once and for all. Why argue – the answer is just around the corner.
And the comparison is more than figurative, since it is further-enhancements of the same tool-kit that dropped the Neander-Denisova-comeonecomeall bombshell, that will resolve questions about microbes in paleoecology.
I’m of course not really a champion of Germs Dunnit. What I am is chagrined at the archaeological losses we suffer, because of poor relations with Native Americans. The Overkill Hypothesis promises to make an unfortunate situation, worse. That it remains a (mere) circumstantial case, which nonetheless strongly affects the ‘accused’, encourages me to go the extra mile on behalf of each of the available alternative explanations.
Investigation of fossil microbes, and their associations with bygone individuals, populations and species is set to make explosive advances. There’s nothing particularly time-sensitive in the Late Pleistocene Extinction, or the Overkill Hypothesis.
Overkill is admittedly a fairly obvious possibility (which may ultimately be proven), but asserting it makes a hefty impact on key sets of peoples. Adverse impacts experienced by those communities, seemingly at the hand of science, then reduces the opportunity of investigators to pursue avenues & questions.
=====
I have personal knowledge of the Manis Mastodon site, and its immediate & wider ecological contexts, throughout the Holocene. ‘What was going on there’, appears to weigh pointedly against a “pursuit” hunting-culture, and thus weakens the scenario in which hunters scour the landscape for every last game-animal.
Likewise, supporters of Overkill are known to point to ‘jumps’, and link wasteful killing to extinction. Yet, using jumps suggests a more-sedentary, certainly site-dependent means of acquisition. Let the game wander by, then run ’em off the bluff. We stay right here, and make sure nobody else claims our bluff.
Subarctic cultures are rather well-known for sitting in place, waiting for game-movements to bring the resource to them. Indeed, exciting things are happening, investigating high-north ‘fences’ erected to better-channel those movements, at much-early dates than we used to think.
There appears to be, actually, fairly abundant opportunity to question whether the practices of early-Holocene cultures really support the high-energy, chase-centered scenario that is implicit in Overkill.
I can’t resist another dig: all sailors carry a disease which doesn’t bother them or the lesser auk, but which was fatal to the great auk. –AGF
I’m an old sailor, alright, but I’m not copping to having sailed the Pleistocene. 😉
It was also fatal to Steller’s sea cow. –AGF
Duster
September 12, 2014 at 11:57 am
Not much there I can agree with. The extinctions occurred throughout the Americas, first on continents, then on islands. That includes polar islands and tropical islands. What sort of climate mechanism applies from tropics to poles? Climate as a general extinction agent is as absurd as disease. As is a natural ET agent. –AGF
Ted Clayton
September 12, 2014 at 1:26 pm
===================================
You are politically correct. Native American ancestors (excluding the the more recently arrived Dine people, were surely more noble ecological caretakers than my most recent ancestors who killed the dodo, the great auk, Steller’s sea cow, the passenger pigeon, and so on. To attribute to their ancient ancestors the same disregard for nature that I and my grandfathers show is surely a crime against that same nature. Indigenous peoples were noble, generous, peaceful, and benevolent to man, woman, child and beast. They were most likely vegans. War, slavery and murder were unknown; infanticide, unthinkable.
That’s why we shouldn’t celebrate Columbus day: Europeans brought nothing but Christian misery to the New World. I just finished reading 1493; read 1491 a few years back. Vermont could have done with out English worms and Arabian horses. It certainly could have done without a dozen Eurasian diseases. Because of Colon the New World population was literally decimated–victimized by…us. We…are…evil. Therefore it is wrong to blame not only survivors of this great onslaught for any animal deprivations, but their ancient ancestors as well! Absolve them all, science be damned. –AGF
agfosterjr says@September 12, 2014 at 1:45 pm
28 generations back, we spoke French on the upper Seine. Then we tended a manor directly under King William for 500 years, and eventually dropped the “de Clayton”.
Here on the Olympic Peninsula, there are 9 Federally listed Tribes. Olympic Nat’l is the only Park with it’s own staff anthropologist. I was born and went to grade school in Forks, with the La Push (Quilleyute) kids, who were then bussed. Yes, that Forks.
At Port Angeles (Elwha (yes, that Elwha) Klallam country, with whom I came of age), a “graving dock” excavation (for assembling floating-bridge sections) uncovered what is certainly a seminal site. The Klallam tribe required it be covered, and the dock-construction was cancelled. I believe this would have become a dig of global importance, lasting decades. The Klallam would have been elevated, past their Makah neighbors & competitors (who had grabbed the torch & ran with it, by reasserting whaling-rights).
But the problem for them and others, is that the fabulous remains at Port Angeles do not tell the story that they believe they have to stick to: That We were the First, have always been Here, and are the Only Ones.
Late in the evening of January 29, 1700, we now believe the offshore Cascadia Fault yielded in a megathrust earthquake. The shaking was probably still throwing initial survivors around on the ground, or even through the air, when the monster tsunami came ashore. Virtually everyone along the outer coastal regions was surely smote … from northern California to central British Columbia.
Less-apocalyptic but still-severe tsunamis thrashed coastlines – leaping up suddenly in the dark of the night – for additional 100s if not 1,000s of miles.
Social chaos ensued. The only thing that ‘saved it’ for many peoples & cultures, is that everyone along a huge stretch of the West Coast was severely affected (and ‘some’ members lived back from the beach). Still, it looks like there was a lot of tribal ‘turn-over’, as anyone that could, took every advantage while the taking was good.
It really ‘throws’ me, that the Native need to maintain exclusivity stands in face of the reality that they are here, they are who they are, that have the status that they have … and there is absolutely nothing to be found in the ground or in their DNA that is going to take what they have away from them.
So yeah, I’m able to work with the Politically Correct hegemony, even though I know it’s a story.
=====
As the reservoirs drained, as the dams were taken off the Elwha River, another important site came to light … 9K yo, establishing a very early presence at an inland small-river setting. This is very important, for the early Holocene cultural context. The Elwha claimed they formerly had a village there … presumably before the diseases made their way their up the coast from Mexico, say around 1530.
What really happened to the passenger pigeon?
The main insult is said to have been market or commercial hunting.
Like the Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene megafauna extinction, it’s a problem that other sources of game existed, as the lost species became difficult to procure, “economically”. Sensible hunters just shift to something else, if possible.
There are several dodo-species that sailors and Empire plainly rubbed-out. Mainly because they were dodos, and the invaders were moving fast.
Passenger pigeons, though, were not dodos, and neither were the market-hunters. Not in the sense that they would waste their time going after a particular, increasingly-scarce bird, not when they would be able to fill the wagon with other species.
In the late 1800s, the continent was ‘settled’, but there was still a lot of country that mostly just ran wild. In settled places, there was plenty of habitat for birds, and species with needs similar to the passenger pigeon carried on.
Actively exterminating the last of a successful, mobile, adaptable bird-species is … a surprise. This particular robust bird did die out, though, and events seemed to demand an explanation. We ‘found’ one.
Today, quickie and fairly facile accounting of the demise of this pigeon is secular Gospel. Ecologically, though, the passenger pigeon story sounds more like a story … really, someone’s Chapter & Verse, more than science … or even competent Game Management.
There’s a chance that what actually continued to make life difficult for passenger pigeons, as they became hard to find (which probably was not humans, or their landscape-modifications), will prove more interesting that our ‘story’. Scientifically.
=====
Similarly, that humans at the beginning of the Holocene would become so fixated upon particular game-animal species, that they would continue to invest extra effort harvesting them, when easier & richer food-sources were at-hand, at the very least raises questions.
In fact, we know better. From the middens, we know across long spans that hunter-gatherers were opportunistic, flexible and adaptive in their game-species.
=====
More-generally, in the same way that appealing to cosmic impact to explain events, comes up against the problem that there have really been a lot of events, and we end up invoking a lot of comets … statistically all species that have ever lived, are extinct, and humans obviously didn’t have anything to do with it, because they weren’t there.
Extinction is a major fact of Nature. Nature has exterminated nearly every species that every lived. Just as radical climate fluctuations throughout the Pleistocene, are natural.
There can be “exceptions”, but there is no need or requirement for a special accounting for the Younger Dryas … or for the extinctions that took place before, during & after the YD.
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Humans might have done it. I won’t go down, fighting good evidence. But all we have so far is circumstantial suggestions … and that I don’t think is quite worth the asking-price.
What a bunch of words! How the passenger pigeon met its end is well documented — google it. They nested en masse and the last flock descended in a place in Illinois or Ohio, and teams of passenger pigeon slaughterers descended on them and wiped the whole flock out — about 250,000 birds all slaughtered and dressed and sent on a train to New York for consumption, but the train derailed and the whole load went to the maggots. End of the passenger pigeon. Look it up!
NZ Willy @September 12, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Yeah, a lotta words, but we have enough skinny-Twiggy comments… 😉
The oft seen line goes;
The bit about the train is not incidental. In the later 19th C, large flocks of pigeons were tracked by telegraph, hunters etc brought in by train, and the train then took the meat to market.
In fact, only with the train, could the large-scale meat-hunts of the era serve large city markets of the era.
And therefore, only sites rather close to the tracks were suitable hunting-grounds. Although railroads were ‘extensive’, by no means was all the habitat suitable for passenger pigeons handy to transportation (or communication) of the day.
And, often presented as [hankies now!] the last pitiful flock of the doomed birds … it really says it’s the last_great_nesting flock. It was firstly a GREAT flock, and a NESTING flock, and purportedly it was the LAST of the great nesting flocks. *Large* nesting flocks filled the available nest-sites in the trees, and then spilled over onto the ground … making them easy to take. Smaller flocks might be able to all nest in the trees, and thus were commercially nonviable.
So this was the last of the big pigeon-hunting hurrahs … but we have very little basis on which to conjecture about the status of passenger pigeons at that time, across very extensive parts of Eastern America. That’s what banding of birds was about, years later … it is really tough to know about the movements & locations of migratory birds.
OK .. An open question for the assembled masses.
If microscopic diamonds could be formed from the energy released/transferred from a collision between a rapidly moving extra-terrestial object and (either) the earth’s atmosphere OR the earth itself, then
(1) how much microscopic diamond remnants are expected to be formed from the (very much smaller) energy released from last year’s comet/asteroid/meteor explosion over Siberia?
(2) How much more would have been formed over the much more massive Tunguska “non-impact” 100 years ago?
(3) How many micro-dimonds formed over Tunguska would be recoverable today (impact + 100 years)?
(4) How many micro-diamonds – if any! – have been found today in that area?
Why are we not confirming/checking this micro-diamond formation theory against the one impact that we KNOW happened (even if smaller than the Y-D “impact”) only a few years ago?
RACookPE1978 asks @September 12, 2014 at 5:31 pm;
Practically all incoming cosmic objects vaporize in the atmosphere. The high-temperature vapors then condense into particles of various sizes.
Tunguska is said to have caused unusual red sunsets around the globe. Obviously, the floating particles causing that effect drifted away from the vicinity of the impact … and so won’t be found there.
In nuclear weapons bursts, early fallout is granular and sandy. In warfare training, breathing radioactive fallout (it’s bad to have ‘hot’ particles stuck to the living lung-tissue), inhalation is not a big concern, because the condensed vapor products that fall are too big to breath in. Meanwhile, the really small stuff is circling the global, distributing itself very thinly.
Generally, meteor-dust hangs in the atmosphere, and circulates, for rather long periods. Any kind of stuff that would be called ‘nano’ [ie, nanometer-scale], is presumably off & gone for parts unknown … not on the ground surface beneath the locale of the original entry.
Off the cuff, I understand that the smallest “particles” are a few nanometers. At the other end of the range, objects of about a micron, or one micrometer (1,000 nanometers), are the biggest sizes of “dust”. Pragmatically, dust observationally remains suspended and travels well … probably being removed by specific processes & under certain conditions … rather than ‘gradually’ settling-out in an even distribution over earth’s surface.
Perhaps the smallest particles of the extra T object, but some stuff from the ground would be coarser. The diamonds could be from carbon in vegetation or even limestones, although the literature insists that carbonado diamond in Brazil has an extra T origin. The largest carbonado found was almost a kilogram weight. It is full of vesicles (bubbles) that I fancy were the result of a meteoric impact of a carbonate or carbonaceous sedimentary rock. They have been mining carbonado for ~150 years in Bahia – no small particles these. The fact such a volume of the stuff existed suggested a concentrated source of carbon on earth. I don’t believe meteorites have such a high carbon content – they do have nanodiamonds though.
http://www.meteoritestudies.com/protected_CARBONAD.HTM
RACookPE1978 @September 12, 2014 at 5:31 pm
It really is a valid & important point, that we should be broadly investigating the nature & origin of any nanodiamonds and any other anomalous particles and layers associated with the onset of the Younger Dryas … and testing the proposed impact-mechanism. I apologize to RACookPE1978 for being only negative, when the underlying point being made is actually very good.
Certainly, from nuclear weapons bursts, we know that vaporized solids also condense into larger sand-like particles, which do fall out nearby, as well as dusts that drift away***. This kind of coarse condensation-product could be produced in meteor bursts, too, and would be near the site of the impact. These would not be the nanodiamonds per se, but these residues would help fill out the picture.
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Gary Pearse @September 13, 2014 at 10:46 am,
Yes, the sheer volume being claimed is a problem. But stuff actually on the ground is going to be hard to heat to the prescribed temperatures. If an impact-explosion is very spread-out, and blows burning ground-vegetation high into the sky, where extreme temperatures are sustained, then a high-production diamond-factory might result.
But whether it’s an unholy volume of ET diamond-production directly from the impactor, or an unholy wallop of broad-spread high-intensity energy to diamondize roiled ground-carbon … either way there is the problem of being lured into ever-larger sizes for the putative object.
As the supposed object gets bigger, the easier its other proxy calling-cards should be to spot. It looks like trouble for the general hypothesis, that advocates keep amping up how much of the earth was affect, and how big this thing had to be…
*** The Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb was detonated at the surface, excavated a large crater in underlying coral limestone, which was lofted into the fireball and became a major part the fallout, both large & small.
North African locusts had nothing over passenger pigeons. Quoting my autographed copy of David Quammen’s, “The Song of the Dodo” (p.304): “In Virginia, around 1614, one man reported pigeons ‘beyond number or imagination,’ adding that ‘my self have seene three or four houres together flockes in the Aire, so thicke that even they have shadowed the Skie from us.’ A Dutch settler in Manhattan wrote in 1625, ‘The Birds most common are wild Pigeons; these are so numerous that they shut out the sunshine.'”
Same page: “Around 1810, the ornithologist Alexander Wilson made a meticulous but dizzying estimate of 2,230,272,000 birds in a single flock [a few too many significant figures; let’s round that off to 2 billion]. (Daily food intake; about seventeen million bushels of acorns.)”
They nested on the ground in flocks of billions, so numerous that predators could never make a dent in the reproductive rate. Crows and (introduced later) starlings were benign by comparison; the pigeons could eat a crop of grain or fruit in hours. Farmers battled them for a couple of centuries, loading shotguns with anything they could find, blowing the birds out of the sky by the millions, smoking them, netting them, trapping them, feeding people and pigs. Eventually the farmers did make a dent in their numbers, sufficient to reduce their nesting flocks to numbers where predators could kill them faster than they could reproduce. So the most numerous bird species in North America–in fact in the world–was reduced to a critical threshold beyond which it could not reproduce at a rate sufficient for survival. The most successful avian ecological strategy could not exist alongside the agriculture and technology of the Industrial Age. They’ve gone the way of the mammoth and dodo, and we did it, sure enough.
We’re better off without the passenger pigeon (falcons and foxes aren’t), but it would be nice to have some in cages. Dodos too. –AGF
agfosterjr @September 12, 2014 at 6:15 pm
The most successful avian ecological strategy could not exist alongside the agriculture and technology of the Industrial Age.
It is said of the Eastern deciduous forests as settlers moved west, that a wagon could be drawn by teams all day long through the trees, without impediment. They were that park-like.
But in truth they were actively managed forests, until not very long before the early settlers arrived (at least, not long by the standards of trees & forests). They weren’t exactly or even ‘very’ natural. The reason they were so park-like, is the tribes who mostly-vanished not long ahead of western emigration, tended them. To a fair degree, these were agricultural plantations, the product of indigenous technology.
The “great passenger pigeon flocks” developed on the fat of the vast stands of acorn & nut-bearing trees … which were artificially uniform, spaced and abnormally large & productive.
The Indians created the enormous passenger pigeon populations. This is why the species was not ‘notable’ in Western America; why no ‘great’ flocks were reported in the Far West. Conditions there did not support the kind of forest-management seen in the East. (Natives of the West did also ‘intensively’ manage landscapes there, but they used a different approach, with different results. Lewis & Clark, eg, marveled at the fabulous game-loads they encounter, and remarked upon the condition of vegetation.)
Variation of flocking and nesting behavior of birds, occurs with opportunities and adversities in the environment. For example, we used to have a major seagull presence along the West Coast shorelines. People who lived along the beach threw household garbage out for the tide to dispose of. Port Angles backed city garbage trucks to the lip of our 200′ tall Quaternary bluffs, and tumbled megatons of refuse directly onto the overflowing narrow beach, and ‘landfilling’ out into the surf. [Yellowstone National Park kept bleachers at the park dump, into the 1970s, where tourists sat to watch as dump trucks unloaded for the waiting, and often fighting grizzlies. They posted dump-times in campgrounds, etc.]
Seagulls responded. Maybe not quite passenger pigeon-esque, but impressively, to be sure. Then private dumping was banned, city dumps were modernized … bald eagles made a strong comeback, and seagulls are now very sparse. They get along as loners and in tiny flocks, after looking for decades like an obligate mega-flock & nest-colony species.
Glass from the event is still vitrified? I doubt it. Or are they able to find recrystallized spherical shapes that were likely once glass? Devitrification results in the surface spallling off in layers. Glass of optimal composition may last, perhaps, a millennium or two but poorly formulated glass can begin to devitrify more quickly. Desert conditions preserve glass best since in moist soil conditions, the alkalis dissolve out of the surface, frosting the surface, but eventually it flakes into pieces. 13,000years ago, I don’t think the glass survives as such. By the way, I do believe in the strength of the evidence for the impact, though.
One of the papers mentions carbon glass.
Die-offs of band-tailed pigeons connected to newly discovered parasite
There are links to further articles on this topics, on this page
Ted Clayton: “The Indians created the enormous passenger pigeon populations.”
A few problems with that:
1) Natural forest fires have always been able to provide wide open spaces. In the early 20th century there was far less forest than now in such places as South Dakota’s Black Hills forest and elsewhere. Were Lakotas and Dakotas still clearing forests?
2) Is it not established that the bird nested exclusively on the ground? Is there any extant species which nests both in trees and on the ground?
3) If it is true that the birds required predator proof nesting populations, requiring large areas of Amerind provided open space, how would they have survived before human arrival?
Sea birds typically nest on islands, and their populations are not limited as much by food availability as by nesting space. I don’t live far from the Great Salt Lake, and we have gulls and pelicans here by virtue of islands in the lake that provide nesting sites (vulnerable to fluctuating lake levels). These birds never nest anywhere else. So the question arises: how did the passenger pigeon evolve such a nesting strategy if small flocks lead to extinction?
I propose that it evolved soon after the K/T event when there were no predators extant, and persisted till September 1, 1914, when Martha, the last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden:
http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm
That is to say, passenger pigeon populations were greater 60mya than 400 years ago. As I recall, it was passerines that survived the K/T event, from which all modern birds descended.
But I could be wrong. –AGF
Not passerines but landfowl and waterfowl are known from across the K/T boundary.
Passerines did however evolve within five to ten million years of the K/T event. By about 55 Ma, in the Early Eocene, perching birds were recognizably distinct.
agfosterjr @September 13, 2014 at 9:46 am
Wikipedia says in its Black Hills Nat’l Forest entry: “After a series of devastating wildfires in 1893, U.S. President Grover Cleveland created the Black Hills Forest Reserve on February 22, 1897.” I’d have to do much more research, to know what the deal was with Lakotas & Dakotas, at that time, in that setting.
Especially for nesting, it was the Eastern Hardwood Forest that supported & enabled the passenger pigeon, and which the tribes there had modified & managed. Further west on the Plains, it was marginal for the big flocks. Smaller & sparser flocks would be able to forage successfully on semiarid landscapes, but maybe not nest in huge flocks.
Wikipedia’s passenger pigeon entry says; “The passenger pigeon was one of the most social land birds.[35] It lived in colonies stretching over hundreds of square miles and practiced communal breeding with up to a hundred nests in a single tree.” “Nearly every tree capable of supporting nests had them, often more than 50 per tree; one hemlock was recorded as holding 317 nests.[47]”
The egg was white, whereas ground nesters typically have camouflaged eggs. This is a hint, that actually this bird did not ‘naturally’ nest on the ground, and the behavior was an artifact of unusual flock-sizes … which likewise were not usual for the species.
Sorry – I don’t know birds thoroughly enough to say quickly whether we have ‘dual’ ground & tree nesters or not. But as I say, and especially as the white egg suggests, passenger pigeons were operating outside their normal parameters.
From what fragmentary fossil evidence we have, this species was not dramatically abundant, before humans arrived. It presumably lived similarly to other pigeons & doves.
The Eastern Hardwood Forest which Amerinds optimized, were park-like and the ground was clear & open, beneath the closed canopy. The very large flocks that confer predator-tolerance, appear to have been an outgrowth of the Amerind habitat-modification, followed perhaps by benefits that arose from European settlement – especially creating forest & open-space mosaics.
The Eastern Hardwoods upon which the sky-darkening pigeon relied, are themselves a phenomenon of the latter part of the Holocene, only some thousands of years. The family to which pigeons belong, is first seen in the Miocene fossil record (~20 mya).
Ecological adjustments following the K/T event must have been fascinating…
The capacity to express both large flock & herd, as well as small-group habits is not unusual. Bison have a large-herd Plains form, and a small-group Woods Buffalo form. Elk come in forms that disperse thinly, and others that herd strongly. Birds show ranges of such behavior too. Animals are generally good at ‘covering the bases’; the variations enable adaptation, selection, and evolution.
Passenger pigeons local to the Plains and other ‘marginal’ places are thought to have gotten along without large-flock strategies.
Well, I read Wiki and went back and reread my old sources and found no claim of ground nesting–my memory must have invented it. The only thing that comes close is the three-day mass fledgling, which would certainly attract a load of predators. Accordingly we don’t need any post K/T evolution of a nesting habit that didn’t exist.
Returning to your claim: “The Indians created the enormous passenger pigeon populations,” Charles Mann in “1491” has a different take. There seems to be no archeological evidence that Amerinds ate them. Even when many species of bird bones are found at a site, the pigeons are not included. Yet Europeans found them eating them with relish, together with appertaining lore and ritual. Mann suggests that it was in fact the disappearance of the Amerinds due to European disease that led to forest recovery and pigeon and bison population booms. Much to discovered and learned.
Thanks for the chat! –AGF
agfosterjr said @September 14, 2014 at 7:46 am
Yeah … I indulged a little ‘rhetorical flourish’. A bit of artistic license. 😉
It was by managing the forest, that Amerinds established the conditions that eventually supported & drove the hypertrophied passenger pigeon flocks.
Originally, the Natives were interested in foods produced by trees, like acorns, for their own direct benefit. There would be other pay-offs, too, in an upgraded-forest program.
Actually, during the days when acorns etc were crucially important to the indigenous cultures, the pigeons would have been a pest, an enemy, since they competed for – preferred – the same vital food-source that people wanted for themselves.
However, by the time Europeans showed up, eastern seaboard American Native cultures were newly but well-along to becoming agriculturalists. Indians famously saved our early Colonists, by giving them corn (maize) and other cultivated crops. Amerinds had become farmers; they made popcorn around the winter-fire, instead of roasting those old-fashioned acorns. Great-grandma still roasted a few of the bitter wild nuts … but with-it youngsters snacked on mild-flavored & deliciously-oily roasted pumpkin-seeds … which they ‘slaved’ to raise in gardens & fields, during the summer.
“The Three Sisters” based farming lifestyle – corn, beans & pumpkin/squash – had originated in Southwest and Central America long ago, but steadily migrated north and especially Northeast, over a span of centuries. Mississippian cultures had waxed fat on the new food-sources, earlier, and it was just getting established good in the far-Eastern reaches of America, when the Colonists arrived.
So … the importance of forest-foods had declined. Villages no longer had to defend vital acorn crops from pigeons, because they had recently adopted & committed themselves to other, better crops. I would imagine that in their own ‘old days’ when the acorns were their staple food, the Indians skillfully deployed efficient means to suppress the pigeons, all of whom seek acorns preferentially.
Amerind cultures were not uniform or egalitarian. They had hierarchies & one-up-man-ship that were often intense & merciless. Some uncouth groups, and various kinds of lowly individuals, still collected acorns and depended on them, and might not be welcome to share cornbread in the upper-class villages, even if things got tough. But the cool people and the with-it groups had shifted to domesticated agricultural crops … and didn’t care much about the acorns anymore.
And so … the pigeons went ‘hog-wild’ … the more nomadic-flocking passenger-type going into ‘perfect storm-mode’.
It would be a decent guess that the old-timer Indians had viewed pigeons the way we do rats – a scourge to be destroyed. You wouldn’t eat the awful things. But Three Sisters Amerinds didn’t need to worry anymore about pigeons gobbling the acorns, since they had cornmeal-dumplings instead. At that point, the taboo against eating pigeons went the way of pounded & leached acorn-meal.