Comet or Meteorite Impact Events in 1178AD?

SIS Conference ^ | 1-26-2003 | Emilio Spedicato

[Mike Darancette]

BUMP

[blam]

"PS. Unless the meteor is so big that it vaporizes the ocean water and kicks up the ocean floor into the atmosphere. Then you could get both the (spectacular) tidal wave and an extended climate change, but rest assured that such a strike in 1178 in the Eastern Pacific Ocean would be readily apparent even today, assuming we weren't extinct.."

Tunguska type impacts would be invisible today as is the 1908 site in Siberia.

[AntiGuv]

The Tunguska impact obviously did not induce a century long global cooling event.....

[blam]

"The Tunguska impact obviously did not induce a century long global cooling event....."

Yup. I was thinking more about the tsunami aspect.

The Tibetans have stories/myths about floods of the 'mountain topping' variety. My take on that is that they migrated from the coasts to the high mountains to get away from the tsunami's.

[AntiGuv]

Well, like I stated, I don't particularly object to the tsunami conjecture. My problem is with the climate change dimension of this theory.

If you hypothesize an 1178 meteor-induced tsunami to account for the cited "discontinuities" then it must have been:

a) an Eastern Pacific oceanic impact

that created

b) a devastating tsunami in Peru and Mexico

and also

c) a major tsunami in the Polynesian Islands

but that

d) did not produce a notable tsunami in Japan or China.

That requires a modest meteor strike in the Southeast Pacific or perhaps two small rocks, one near Moche and one near Mazatlan. That does not permit for a climate-altering oceanic strike that would produce a spectacular event along the American coasts, a virtual extinction event for the Polynesians, and a rather dramatic event along the East Asian coasts.

Moreover, you have ruled out strikes in the Atlantic (no tsunamis) and strikes in most of Eurasia (they would have been recorded). We can pretty much rule out Australia (desert preserves craters very nicely), and can probably rule out Africa and the Americas (where are the native tales, even disregarding the absence of craters).

You are left with New Zealand as a plausible candidate and that's about it and perhaps Siberia and a few other very wilderness zones, and even then you have the problem of no crater. There's a strong question whether the Tunguska object even made it to the ground, precisely for the lack of an impact crater. To change the climate on such a grand scale, the meteor must hit the ground and throw up more debris than Mount Sts Helens did in 1981.......

[AntiGuv]

Opps! Make that 1980 for Mount St. Helens..

[Diplomat]

I thought the implication was that many comet fragments impacted earth in both periods. Thus the coastal living peoples were affected by the tsunamis and the inland peoples were little impacted. Except for genghis khan, who saw one of these meteorites as a sign to conquer his southern neighbor, China.

[AntiGuv]

I am assuming there is no record of a major tsunami in Japan or China at this time, if for no other reason than it would get mentioned. Especially since there is a rather strained mention of a typhoon four years later..

That leaves us with coastal peoples in the Middle Pacific Islands and the Eastern Pacific coasts .. and New Zealand. I don't have that much problem with the idea of comet fragments explaining the cited events there; my problem is with the idea that this could've reached the scale required for global climate change.

You cannot alter the El Niño system, typhoon/monsoon patterns, and Eurasian temperatures without an extremely dramatic ground impact.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. Spedicato's an interesting thinker. I've got a few of his older papers on the drive here.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
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[SunkenCiv]

"Is that saying that the extraterretrial bodies carried bacteria from outer space?"

That's one of the contentions of Hoyle (I think he died this past year or not long before), who is/was one of the best known advocates of "panspermia".

[SunkenCiv]

a couple topics regarding that 1178 ad impact:

A Celestial Collision
Alaska Science Forum ^ | February 10, 1983 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 09/15/2004 9:04:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1216757/posts

Giordano Bruno, the June 1975 Meteoroid Storm, Encke,
and Other Taurid Complex Objects
Icarus (Volume 104, Issue 2 , pp 280-290) ^ | August 1993 | Jack B. Hartung
Posted on 12/27/2004 2:37:46 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1309198/posts

[SunkenCiv]

a couple related to the 6th century:

Catastrophic event preceded Dark Ages - scientist
Miscellaneous News Keywords: SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGINATION
Source: Reuters
Posted on 09/08/2000 10:06:44 PDT by VadeRetro
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39b91ca42b27.htm

Astronomers unravel a mystery of the Dark Ages
EurekAlert ^ | 3-Feb-2004 | Dr Derek Ward-Thompson
Posted on 02/03/2004 2:54:24 PM PST by ckilmer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1070892/posts

[SoCal Pubbie]

There is the literal use of the word decimate- "reducing by 10%", and the second, common use as defined by Webster- "to reduce a large part of". The word pontificate originally meant "administer a pontifical office", but it now also means "talk in a dogmatic and pompous manner". That's the beauty of the English language- it is flexible and evolves, unlike the dead Latin from which we get the word decimate.

[ckilmer]

"Is that saying that the extraterretrial bodies carried bacteria from outer space?"

That's one of the contentions of Hoyle (I think he died this past year or not long before), who is/was one of the best known advocates of "panspermia".
/////////////////
for some reason people who don't believe in God tend to go for the idea that the earth was "seeded" in the past or that we'll run into space aliens sometime in the future. The basic idea seems to be that belief in God means we are exceptional. And that exceptionalism seems to be unnerving. But even if the question of origins went to extraterrestrials rather than God --it would only put the ultimate questions of origins one step back...as in "oh yeah well then where did these extra crackers get their life forms from--tell me that dude. Were they seeded/visited too." And the whole thing becomes a russian doll with ever smaller dolls inside each russian doll.

I'm starting to go for blam's catastrophe theories. Never heard anyone assoicate comet strikes with the Aztec migrations and human sacrifice. Don't know if it was true--but it sure was fun to read.

[SunkenCiv]

"even if the question of origins went to extraterrestrials rather than God --it would only put the ultimate questions of origins one step back"

Yeah, I agree with that. :') I don't concern myself that much with origins, because the latest find is never the last, although there are those who act as if it were.

The nice thing about catastrophe is, it can be studied, despite the unique characteristics of any given event of this kind. I don't go for any claims of supervolcanoes, which is one area I probably differ with Blam. But I like the discussion Antiguv and Thud have going here about impacts, impacts on water, etc.

The volcanism model was applied to the Moon before the Apollo missions. After the impact origin of lunar features was established by those visits, there was some retrenching regarding the "cryptovolcanic" surface features of the Earth. Now those "cryptovolcanic" features are seen for what they are -- impact scars.

The last I noticed, the volcanism model was being applied to Mars -- a place no human foot will fall on for decades at least, if at all.

[okie01]

traditional narratives show that an early people were found in Hawaii, Cook Islands and New Zealand by the later Polynesians...the later immingrants conquered their predecessors, who were not exterminated but absorbed.} The date of the events can be set between the years 1100 and 1200,

How very, very interesting...

[AntiGuv]

PS. I would add that a heavy bombardment of fine space debris would also cause climate change on that scale, but that is not something you could localize to the Pacific Basin. The debris would undoubtedly disperse throughout the atmosphere and create similarly notable climatic effects beginning about 1178 in Europe as well. By the way, this was the era of Saladin and the Third Crusade, and we have highly detailed accounts from both the Christian and Arab worlds.

That leaves unresolved the paradox of cooling in Mongolia but warming in the Pacific, which is what the cited events represent. I really just think there are way too many problems with the climate part of this hypothesis to make that aspect plausible.

[blam]

"You cannot alter the El Niño system, typhoon/monsoon patterns, and Eurasian temperatures without an extremely dramatic ground impact."

I agree with your disposition. However, I don't think we have the 'whole story' yet.

[blam]

"That's one of the contentions of Hoyle (I think he died this past year or not long before), who is/was one of the best known advocates of "panspermia"."

Yup, Hoyle died. I have his book, The Intellegent Universe. He has/had ideas along this line. (BTW, it's Sir Fred Hoyle, Royal Astronomer)

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, but Freddie-baby told us not to stand on ceremony. ;'D