In Horus vol II no 1, a journal published by the late David Griffard, Barry Fell was interviewed. Among other things:Carbon dating 'might be wrong by 10,000 years'An Anglo-American team found large variations in levels of the carbon-14 isotope, used as the basis of carbon dating, preserved in a 19in stalagmite recovered from a submerged cave in the Blue Holes of the Bahamas, limestone caverns created when sea levels were nearly 330ft lower than today. These findings suggested dramatic changes in the amount of radioactive carbon in Earth's atmosphere during the last Ice Age, much greater than previously thought, probably as a result of changes in the strength of the planet's magnetic field. The field shields Earth from cosmic rays that create carbon-14 in the atmosphere, altering levels of the isotope during the past 45,000 years... Their study could force a reappraisal of when certain events occurred, notably in the period when modern humans lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe... Dr David Richards of the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, made the study with colleagues in Arizona and Minnesota. He said: "Beyond about 20,000 years ago there are some dramatic swings in radiocarbon concentration, which means the age offset between the radiocarbon age and true calendar age can be up to 8,000 years." Radiocarbon dating, which depends on the steady decay of carbon-14, is less reliable if an artefact is older than 16,000 years. But the changes in radiocarbon, and dating, fluctuate greatly up to 45,000 years, the limit of the study.
by Roger Highfield
Saturday 30 June 2001Extremely large variations of atmospheric 14C concentration during the last glacial periodA long record of atmospheric 14C concentration, from 45 to 11 thousand years ago (ka), was obtained from a stalagmite with thermal-ionization mass-spectrometric 230Th and accelerator mass-spectrometric 14C measurements. This record reveals highly elevated Delta14C between 45 and 33 ka, portions of which may correlate with peaks in cosmogenic 36Cl and 10Be isotopes observed in polar ice cores. Superimposed on this broad peak of Delta14C are several rapid excursions, the largest of which occurs between 44.3 and 43.3 ka. Between 26 and 11 ka, atmospheric Delta14C decreased from approximately 700 to approximately 100 per mil, modulated by numerous minor excursions. Carbon cycle models suggest that the major features of this record cannot be produced with solar or terrestrial magnetic field modulation alone but also require substantial fluctuations in the carbon cycle.
Beck JW, Richards DA, Edwards RL,
Silverman BW, Smart PL, Donahue DJ,
Hererra-Osterheld S, Burr GS,
Calsoyas L, Jull AJ, Biddulph D.
Science
pub 2001 May 10Disaster that struck the ancientsProfessor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues. His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. The hieroglyphs there reported "all of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children". Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. He also had to find a culprit capable of producing such misery. He studied the meticulous records, kept since the 7th Century, of Nile floods. He was amazed to see that there was a huge variation in the size of the annual Nile floods - the floods that were vital for irrigating the land. But no records existed for 2,200BC. Then came a breakthrough - a new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel. Mira Bar-Matthews of the Geological Survey of Israel had found a unique record of past climates, locked in the stalactites and stalagmites of a cave near Tel Aviv. What they show is a sudden and dramatic drop in rainfall, by 20%. It is the largest climate event in 5,000 years. And the date? 2,200 BC.
We learned that seals were coming to a bad end and being mummified by nature in Antarctica in 1200 A.D. That was interesting and we wondered what was happening in Antarctica at that time...one of the technicians... noticed that a seal carcass that he himself had shot for dog-meat and that got left out through the winter... [looked] just like the mummified seals that they had been sending in. So without telling too many people what he was doing, he sent this mummified seal to be carbon-dated and do you know it was dated to 1200 A.D., and he had shot it the year before. When that was made public it really caused a storm...
We had two successive volcanic eruptions on the island of Tonga. There were human remains, then a layer of lava, then more human remains, then a layer of lava. We took charcoal out of both layers and had them both dated -- and we didn't tell them, the dating people, which layer which came from -- and to our amazement we learned that the whole island of Tonga has rotated through 180 degrees and is now upside down. The top layer is older than the bottom layer of the charcoal.
(Barry Fell? Gimmi a break!)
Shocking revelations; just shocking. The "scientific community" should throw themselves a marvelous feast in celebration of their strict adherence to the scientific method. I hear the crow is good this year.