Re: ..not dinosaurs, but comets ...

[Paul <bristolia@yahoo.com>]

In Re: ..not dinosaurs, but comets ..., Grayton wrote:

âhttp://www.agu.org/meetings/sm07/sm07-sessions/sm07_PP42A.html 
which appear to assume an impactor may be problematic; the indication 
that the Carolina Bays are ejecta impact features is very interesting, 
though.â

Regardless of their origin, there an enormous amount of evidence, 
i.e. optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from the rims of 
the Carolina Bays and radiocarbon dates, and palynological records
dating to the Wisconsinan, even in one case early Sangamonian, 
stages from the sediments filling the Carolina Bays, clearly proves
that the Carolina Bays predate 12,900 BP by tens of thousands of 
years and many are at least 70,000 to 100,000 years old. Unless a 
person can propose a scientifically viable theory how impacts of any 
sort can cause"craters" to form tens of thousand of years before they
occur, any association of the Carolina Bays with any sort of event 
around 12,900 BP is readily refuted. Also, numerous pre-12,900 BP 
floodplain surfaces, which exhibit well preserved relict fluvial 
landforms have been mapped along coastal rivers. Significantly 
none of these pre-12, 900 BP relict floodplain surfaces exhibit any 
Carolina Bays. This would suggest that the formation of the 
Carolina Bays clearly predate these relict Pleistocene floodplains 
and 12,900 BP by a significant period of time. Even though people 
have argued that they are impact features, they are certainly too old 
to be related to any proposed 12,900 impact event.

That a Carolina Bay is filled with sand containing alleged impact
materials only demonstrates that it was in existence at the time 
of the impact. Similarly, the deep sandy soils of the rims are prone 
to deep bioturbation. Any surface accumulation of  alleged impact 
material would be churned by bioturbation deep into their sandy 
rims within the biomantle of soils developed in these rims. For 
how this happens, go look at "Biomantle and Soil Thickness 
Processes" at:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jdomier/www/temp/biomantle.html or

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jdomier/www/temp/biomantle.swf

Also, look at:

Johnson, D. L., Domier, J. E. D. and Johnson, D. N., 2005. 
Reflections on the nature of soil and its biomantle. Annals of the 
Association of American Geographers. vol. 95, no.1, pp. 11-31.

For dates and palynological data concerning the age of the Carolina 
Bays, some papers to look at:

Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E., and Grant, J. A., 1996, Carolina Bay 
geoarchaeology and Holocene landscape evolution on the upper 
coastal plain of South Carolina. Geoarchaeology. vol. 11, no. 6,
 pp. 481-504.

Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E., Stone, P. A., and Gardner, L. R., 2001, 
Pleistocene encroachment of the Wateree River sand sheet into Big 
Bay on the Middle Coastal Plain of South Carolina. Southeastern 
Geology. vol. 40, pp. 241-257.

Frey, David G., 1953, Regional aspects of the late-glacial and 
post-glacial pollen succession of southeastern North Carolina. 
Ecological Monographs. vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 289-313.

Frey, David G., 1955, A time revision of the Pleistocene pollen 
chronology of southeastern North Carolina. Ecology. vol. 36.
 no. 4, pp. 762-763.

Ivester, A. H., Godfrey-Smith, D. I., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor B. 
E., 2002, Carolina Bays and inland dunes of the South Atlantic 
Coastal Plain yield new evidence for regional paleoclimate. 
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. vol. 34, 
no. 6, p. 273.

Ivester, A.H., Godfrey-Smith, D. I., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor, B. E., 
2003, Concentric sand rims document the evolution of a Carolina 
bay in the Middle Coastal Plain of South Carolina. Geological 
Society of America Abstracts with Programs. vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 169.

Ivester, A. H., Godfrey-Smith, D. I., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor B. E., 
2004a, The timing of Carolina Bay and inland activity on the Atlantic 
coastal plain of Georgia and South Carolina. Geological Society of 
America Abstracts with Programs. vol. 36, no. 5, p. 69.

Ivester, A. H., Godfrey-Smith, D. I., Brooks, M. J., and Taylor B. E., 
2004b, Chronology of Carolina bay sand rims and inland dunes on 
the Atlantic Coastal Plain, USA. The 3rd New World Luminescence 
Dating Workshop. July 4 - 7, 2004, Department of Earth Science, 
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, p. 23.

Ivester, A. H., M. J. Brooks, B. E. Taylor, 2007, Sedimentology and 
ages of Carolina Bay sand rims. Geological Society of America 
Abstracts with Programs. v. 39, no. 2, p. 5

Whitehead, D. R., 1964, Fossil pine pollen and full-glacial vegetation 
in southeastern North Carolina. Ecology. vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 767-777.

Whitehead, D. R., 1967, Studies of full-glacial vegetation and climate 
in the southeastern United States. in E. J. Cushing and H. E. Wright, 
Jr., eds, pp. 237-248. Quaternary Paleoecology. Yale University Press, 
New Haven, Connecticut.

Whitehead, Donald R., 1981, Late-Pleistocene vegetational changes 
in northeastern North Carolina. Ecological Monographs. vol. 51,
 no. 4, pp. 451-471.

Yours,

Paul V. Heinrich
Baton Rouge, LA