Prior to these clowns and their 62 mile comet fragment theory, which, if true, would have done more then just stink up the joint, the prevailing theory was the body was one mile in diameter striking the ice cap, creating the Carolina Bays and other features. This as they say initiated the Younger Dryas - a period of extreme cold. There is also a body of thought which goes: when the comet hit the ice cap, a very very very large chunk slid off and into the Atlantic, blocking the Gulf current which cause the cooling.
Their date of 10,800 BC is about right, corresponding to the date of the end of Atlantis as given by Solon to Plato. And would have ended any world wide civilization at the time (as such an advent to day would do the same). It is also the date when the Sahara climate changed from wet to dry.
1000 years later as the Earth again passed through the torus of comet debris (as it does each year - the Taurids), another one mile rock hit which ended the Younger Dryas and the ice cap began melting in earnest causing the world wide floods as sea level rose hundreds of feet almost over night.
The 62 mile body theorized would have had to entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a very shallow angle to get enough heating to cause it to explode; a body that large might have been captured briefly by the Earth in a disintegrating orbit (helping with the heating problem).
However, the body was large enough to cause an ELE worldwide (as a similar sized rock did for the dinosaurs), but somehow managed to avoid it. A one mile rock would have accomplished the same things - especially as it would not be the only body entering the atmosphere at the same time as we can all see during the periods of meteor showers.
All of this of course does not happen in isolation - the Earth still passes through the same torus, and who is to say that all the large chunks are gone?
PIF, you have a point but only because the paper was sorely misreported by Universe Today. From the very first sentence the actual paper maintains that we encountered a 100km comet that had been disintegrating for millennia before we crossed into a particularly lumpy and dangerous portion of the existing debris stream. The pre-existing fragments, large and small, impacted earth and exploded in the atmosphere. As you say, a 62 mile or 100km diameter object would hit the ground and ruin the earth completely before ever disintegrating in the atmosphere. As a (non-credentialed;) co-author of the papers, I have written to Universe and asked they correct this mistake. The same miscommunication on this point has dogged us for years. See the actual papers here on my blog, the Cosmic Tusk, and enjoy the incredible evidence behind our claims: https://cosmictusk.com/9483-2/
George A. Howard, Comet Research Group
PIF, you have a point but only because the paper was sorely misreported by Universe Today. From the very first sentence the actual paper maintains that we encountered a 100km comet that had been disintegrating for millennia before we crossed into a particularly lumpy and dangerous portion of the existing debris stream. The pre-existing fragments, large and small, impacted earth and exploded in the atmosphere. As you say, a 62 mile or 100km diameter object would hit the ground and ruin the earth completely before ever disintegrating in the atmosphere. As a (non-credentialed;) co-author of the papers, I have written to Universe and asked they correct this mistake. The same miscommunication on this point has dogged us for years. See the actual papers here on my blog, the Cosmic Tusk, and enjoy the incredible evidence behind our claims: https://cosmictusk.com/9483-2/
George A. Howard, Comet Research Group
Do you have any links regarding “another one mile rock hit which ended the Younger Dryas?” If the 62 mile body was mostly ice which fragmented in the upper atmosphere it could have caused the results suggested, and large chunks coming in at an angle cause the Carolina Bays. Another idea I had was that the CB’s were caused when the Canadian ice sheet was hit by a very large solid chunk and huge pieces of ice sheet were sent flying to Carolina. Their eliptical shapes point toward the north as indicated in the Firestone et al. book, supporting the direction of origin.