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Posted on 12/20/2013 6:21:32 PM PST by BenLurkin
A piece of the famous Halley's comet likely slammed into Earth in A.D. 536, blasting so much dust into the atmosphere that the planet cooled considerably, a new study suggests. This dramatic climate shift is linked to drought and famine around the world, which may have made humanity more susceptible to "Justinian's plague" in A.D. 541-542 — the first recorded emergence of the Black Death in Europe.
The new results come from an analysis of Greenland ice that was laid down between A.D. 533 and 540. The ice cores record large amounts of atmospheric dust during this seven-year period, not all of it originating on Earth.
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It's unclear where exactly the putative comet chunk hit Earth or how big it was, she added. However, a 2004 study estimated that a comet fragment just 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide could have caused the 536-537 cooling event if it exploded in the atmosphere and its constituent dust were spread evenly around the globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Read “Catastrophe”.
It was a gigantic volcanic explosion very near where Krakatoa erupted many years later. The book is very convincing—especially involving the environmental impact.
Bush’s fault.
“Bush’s fault.”
Amen, brother!
Krakatoa must have been awesome - people 20 miles away went deaf from the sound
So where did this piece of Halley’s comet hit the Earth?
and when it finally warmed up it twern’t becuz of us hoomans.
Excellent book. Highly recommended.
I think the article is stating that the piece of the comet didn’t hit the Earth, it exploded in the atmosphere, much like the recent major event in Russia.
535 AD — The “Dark Ages” Begin – Scientific Growth Stops !
Volcano Krakatoa Explodes, plunging the Whole Planet into Darkness !
http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/535ad.htm
535 AD
The nobles were returning from the middle east “HOLY WARS”.
Pope John II died.
There were days of darkness.
The plague swept around the world three times in about ten years.
There were seven years of crop failures.
Nations changed their religions.
Empires Fell.
In places great drought destroyed the land.
In other places floods brought chaos.
Tree rings didn’t show normal growth for fifteen years.
Extreme weather events of 535–536
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%E2%80%93536
The 536 event and ensuing famine have been suggested as an explanation for the deposition of hoards of gold by Scandinavian elites at the end of the Migration Period. The gold may have been deposited as a sacrifice to appease the gods and get the sunlight back.[23][24]
The decline of Teotihuacán, a huge city in Mesoamerica, is also correlated with the droughts related to the climate changes, with signs of civil unrest and famines.
David Keys’ book speculates that the climate changes may have contributed to various developments, such as the emergence of the Plague of Justinian, the decline of the Avars, the migration of Mongolian tribes towards the West, the end of the Sassanid Empire, the collapse of the Gupta Empire, the rise of Islam, the expansion of Turkic tribes, and the fall of Teotihuacán.[11] In 2000, a 3BM Television production (for WNET and Channel Four) capitalized upon Keys’ book. This documentary, under the name Catastrophe! How the World Changed, was broadcast in the US as part of PBS’s Secrets of the Dead series. However, Keys and Wohletz’ ideas are not widely accepted at this point. Reviewing Keys’ book, the British archaeologist Ken Dark commented that “much of the apparent evidence presented in the book is highly debatable, based on poor sources or simply incorrect” and that “Nonetheless, both the global scope and the emphasis on the 6th century AD as a time of wide-ranging change are commendable, and the book contains some fascinating and obscure information which will be new to many. However, it fails to demonstrate its central thesis and does not offer a convincing explanation for the many changes discussed.”
Apocalypse Forever: The Root of Islam Was a Very Dark Year
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/MarkTwain40627.htm
Occasionally environmental conditions are so stupendously bad that it’s noticed by trees all over the world. As these very long, and very broad master chronologies evolved, certain dates in history began to stand out as being distinctly unusual. As described in Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic Encounters with Comets, by Mike Baillie, those dates are: 3195 BC, 2354 BC, 1628 BC, 1159 BC, 207 BC, 44 BC, and 540 AD.
Of these seven dates, 540 AD stands out as the most accessible, the best documented, and the most severe. The episode had a double minimum, beginning in 536 AD and plunging further yet to another event piggybacked on at 540 AD. Until recently, historians had little notion that this dramatic climatic event had occurred. The accounts left by contemporary observers were poorly understood and overshadowed by later historical events. In fact, those later events, it turns out, may have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the weather of AD 536. The Dark Ages actually were dark.
“The Root of Islam Was a Very Dark Year”
Yup.
The Comet of 536 and the Ravenna Mosaics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4WBALFPmw4
Author or ISBN please. My library shows nothing on the generic title - just air/sea disasters.
Interesting (though I’m surprised at how unfamiliar she is with the Bible.)
It didn’t surprise me.
You mean it wasn’t caused by EVIL TEA PARTY members?
Yeah, I remember that. It was freakin’ cold for a few years...!
It took me 30 seconds to find the article in A&G from 2004, almost a decade prior, here, poorly referenced in the final paragraph.
This is not "...may be linked..."; it's "could be" linked to Halley's Comet, and I question "new results" (save for the ice cores). It reinforces the analysis (quite detailed, if you click through) presented by Emma Rigby, Melissa Symonds & Derek Ward-Thompson, authors of the Astronomy & Geophysics article. There had also been analysis of such an event specifically referencing Halley's Comet at the Lunar & Planetary Institute, but I cannot ascertain a date and nowhere approaching the detail of the A&G paper.
The results are interesting, but in no way identify Halley's Comet as the source and save for the organisms in the dust, provide no evidence of a 'comet' actually impacting the earth (rather than an airburst). The findings conflict with terrestrial observations in Asia and provide no evidence of a worldwide tsunami that would have resulted from an ocean impact. As well, margin of error could easily sway to fragment(s) from the Taurid stream, as cited in the A&G paper. I dig 'science', but this is not science; this is sensationalism. I cite sloppy/sensationalist writing (it's partly sensationalism that brought us 'global warming'). Maybe the author did only have a 500-word article deadline...
National Geographic did an article in 2010 on her work and did properly credit the A&G paper from 2004. No other attribution, and certainly no smoking gun.
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