[meteorite-list] Re: More Work on the Crackpot Theory

[Paul]

It is true that there is a lot of interesting stuff on the
Internet. However, if a person goes back to the primary 
literature, they often find that some of this material, as 
interesting as it might be, is based a odd collection of 
misinformation, urban legends, and outright fiction. 
Where documented facts are cited, too often they have 
been very badly garbled by the author of the web page 
citing them or they have been edited as to specifically 
omit the evidence that conflicts with whatever pet theory 
is being discussed.  Thus, a person has to carefully to
evaluate what is being said on any one particular web 
page.

In one example, Sterling K. Webb wrote:

"However, radiocarbon dates from frozen 
mammoth carcasses cluster in two groups: one 
around 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and another 
about 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. Fairly 
coincidental. The more recent ones are New 
World mammoths; the older group are 
Siberian mammoths."

One problem with this is that there exists a substantial amount
of evidence, which refutes any connection between these mammoth 
mummies and a single catastrophic event. Unfortunately, various
web authors automatically presume that these mummified mammoths
are clear evidence of a catastrophe without understanding that 
their formation is perfectly explainable by conventional processes. 

Another problem is that the clustering of mummified mammoths
about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago and 11,000 to 13,000 years 
ago is non-existent as can be seen in the dates listed "Woolly 
Mammoths Remains: Catastrophic Origins?" By Sue Bishop at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html

Looking at it, it is quite clear that the dates on mummified
mammoths are spread over a range of radiocarbon dates starting 
from greater than 50,000 BP to 32,000 - 34,000 BP. Of these 
dates, the only mammoth, which lies in this so-called 30,000 to
35,000 BP "cluster", is a clump of mammoth hair from Alaska. 
The other mummified mammoths in the older group predate
this older "cluster". There is also a mummified bison that 
dates to 31,000 BP. However, two data points fail to constitute 
a "cluster". 

There is a group of dates consisting of mummified 
mammoths, which fall in the 11,000 to 13,000 BP range. 
If a person includes a mummified mammoth from Fairbanks 
and one from  Yuribe, Siberia, a person can argue that the 
cluster actually ranges from 9,700 to 15,400 BP. If dates from
a mummified musk ox is included the range can be extended to
17,000 BP. Such a range would it make it impossible for the 
mummified mammoths and other mammals to have been 
associated with Firestone's catastrophe since there is a 
mammoth mummy,which fromed  2,400 years before this 
event is alleged to have happened and they continued to form 
long after it was over. In fact, an 8,000 year-old mummified 
reindeer is known from the permafrost of the Fairbanks region.
This extends the period during which mummified mammals 
were formed into the Holocene Stage and well past the time of
Firestone's proposed catastrophe.

Two recently found Siberian mammoth mummies, the Jarkov 
Mammoth and the Fishhook Mammoth both fall well outside 
of either the 30,000 to 35,000 BP cluster and the 11,000 to 
13,000 BP cluster. They are the Fishhook Mammoth, which 
dated at 20,620 BP and the Jarkov Mammoth, which dated at
20,380 BP. Neither of these dates lend any support to the 
existence of either cluster. They do show that the formation 
of mammoth mummies occurred at times outside of either
alleged "cluster" and there is a lack of any relationship of the
mammoth mummies to any known radiocarbon anomalies.

Sterling K. Webb also wrote:

"The extinction at 11,000 to 13,000 years 
ago is not called a mass extinction, but it 
involved the loss of more than 200 species, 
mostly megafauna (large mammals -- 75% 
were heavier than 44 kilos). Because of that, 
it is widely suspected that Man The Hunter 
was the extincting agent!"

This claim is an old misstatement of the facts, which has been
endlessly recycled on various catastrophist web sites despite
having been long known to be quite false. It is true that more 
than many genera of mostly megafauna have become extinct 
during the Pleistocene. However, it is quiet false to say that
all of them became extinct between 11,000 to 13,000 BP. 
It is now well established that the extinction of these genera 
occurred at very different times during different extinction 
events on different continents as documented in a number of
published papers including:

Anthony D. Barnosky, Paul L. Koch, Robert S. Feranec, 
Scott L. Wing, and Alan B. Shabel, 2004, Science.. vol. 306, 
no. 5693, pp. 70-75  , 1 October 2004.

By carefully analyzing available radiocarbon and other dates, 
they found that four genera of megafauna became extinct in 
Europe between 20,000 to 50,000 years and four more became 
extinct between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago. It was after 10,000
years ago that mammoth and Irish Elk became extinct in Siberia.
Also, mammoths became extinct on St. Paul Island in the Bering
Sea after 10,000 BP (Guthrie 2004). In Australia, six of these 
genera became extinct more than 80,000 years ago, six genera 
became extinct between 40,000 to 51,000 years ago, and one 
genera became extinct between 28,000 and 40,000 years ago. 
Roberts et al (2001) showed that the last extinction event in
Australia occurred around 46,000 BP, which fits none of the 
C14 calibration anomalies. It is clear form the available data 
that megafauna extinctions were occurring at very different 
places at very different times, which argues against a single,
or even two, global cosmic catastrophes having produced 
the extinction events, which occurred at various times during
the Pleistocene.

The most striking of these extinction events is North America
between 10,000 and 12,000 BP when 15 genera of megafauna
became. However, detailed research lead by Dr. Thomas Stafford
has demonstrated that this terminal Pleistocene extinction event 
actually consisted that were **two**, not **one**, distinct 
periods of megafauna extinction. Stafford et al. (2005) stated

"Direct radiocarbon dates on extinct New 
World megafauna are evidence that the 
extinction occurred as two distinct events. 
Non-proboscidean megafauna species went 
extinct ca. 11,400-11,300 RC yr. BP, 
whereas Mammuthus and Mammut 
survived until ca. 10,900 RC yr. BP."

(Note: Another similar discussion of the complexities of 
Pleistocene extinctions can be found in Elias (1999).

Looking at both Stafford et al. (2005) and Elias (1999), a 
person has to wonder how a supernova can first wipe out the 
non-proboscidean megafauna species and then 400 years later, 
wipe out the the last of the mammoths and mastodons and 
leave remnant populations of mammoths on Wrangle Island 
in Siberia and St. Paul Island in Alaska.

In case of American horses, Guthrie (2003) showed that there 
was a rapid decline in body size prior to becoming extinct about
12,500 BP in Alaska. Thus, not only did horses become extinct 
in Alaska long before Firestone's proposed catastrophe but were
also being subject to some sort of environmental stress, which 
Guthrie (2003) rejected as being human hunting, thousands of
years before it. Given the multiple and diachronous nature of 
Pleistocene extinctions, cosmic catastrophes simply do not fit 
the facts despite being wonderful and poetic Deus ex Machina
that many people use to explain them.

Reference:

Guthrie, R. D., 2003. Rapid body size decline in Alaskan 
Pleistocene horses before extinction. Nature. vol 426, pp
169-171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature02098.

Guthrie, R. d., 2004). Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene
mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island. Nature.
vol.429,pp. 746-749.

Elias, S.  A., 1999, Quaternary Paleobiology Update Debate 
continues over the cause of Pleistocene megafauna extinction"
in the The Quaternary Time: Newsletter of the American 
Quaternary Association. vol. 29 no.  1, (May 1999) at:
http://www4.nau.edu/amqua/v29n1/quaternary_paleobiology_update.htm

Roberts, R. G., Flannery, T. F., Ayliffe, L. K., Yoshida, H., 
Olley, J. M., Prideaux, G. P., Laslett, G. M., Baynes, A., 
Smith, M. A., Jones, R., and Smith, B.L., 2001, New Ages for 
the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction 
About 46,000 Years Ago. Science. vol.  292, no. 5523, 
pp. 1888-1892.

Stafford, T. W., Jr., Graham, R., Lundelius, E., Semken, H., 
McDonald, G., and Southon, J., 2004, 14C-Chronostratigraphy 
of Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinctions in Relation to Human
Presence in the New World. Clovis in the Southwest: Technology
Time and Space October 26-29, 2005, Columbia Metropolitan 
Convention Center, Columbia, South Carolina. 
http://www.clovisinthesoutheast.net/stafford.html

Also, the claim that conventional scientists, as a rule, regard 
humans as the sole cause of these Pleistocene extinctions is 
simply not true. In fact, there now exists a wide divergence of 
opinion and a lack of any real consensus as to what, if any role, 
humans played in any the several extinction events, which 
occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch. Good examples of this
are Gutherie (2003), Stafford et al. (2005), and Barnosky et 
al. (2004) cited above.

As far as Firestone's claim that the Carolina Bays were produced
by his hypothesized terminal Pleistocene catastrophe, a person 
should read through "An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence
Presented By ''Gateway to Atlantis'' for Terminal Pleistocene 
Catastrophe" at;

http://thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=86

Best Regards,

Paul



	
		
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