Andy White Anthropology
  • Home
  • Research Interests
    • Complexity Science
    • Prehistoric Social Networks
    • Eastern Woodlands Prehistory
    • Ancient Giants
  • Blog
  • Work in Progress
    • The Kirk Project >
      • Kirk 3D Models list
      • Kirk 3D Models embedded
      • Kirk 2D images >
        • Indiana
        • Kentucky
        • Michigan
        • Ontario
      • Kirk Project Datasets
    • Computational Modeling >
      • FN3D_V3
    • Radiocarbon Compilation
    • Fake Hercules Swords
    • Wild Carolina >
      • Plants >
        • Mosses
        • Ferns
        • Conifers
        • Flowering Plants >
          • Grasses
          • Trees
          • Other Flowering Plants
      • Animals >
        • Birds
        • Mammals
        • Crustaceans
        • Insects
        • Arachnids
        • Millipedes and Centipedes
        • Reptiles and Amphibians
      • Fungi
  • Annotated Publications
    • Journal Articles
    • Technical Reports
    • Doctoral Dissertation
  • Bibliography
  • Data

The Carolina Bays: Terrestrial or Extraterrestrial?

3/5/2016

7 Comments

 
A comment on yesterday's blog post about the Middle Archaic brought up the issue of the origin and age of the Carolina bays. The bays are elliptical depressions with a northwest-southeast orientation. They vary significantly in size and occur along the Atlantic coast in a band extending from New Jersey to Florida.  There is a similar set of features (with different orientations) in Nebraska and Kansas.
PictureCarolina bays in North Carolina (Wikipedia).
Carolina bays are interesting for several reasons. They're obviously peculiar, geographically-widespread features formed by some sort large scale event or natural process. There is significant disagreement as to how and when formed and, subsequently, their relationship to the early prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands.  The most dramatic scenario sees the Carolina bays as impact sites from debris that rained down after an apocalyptic comet strike 12,900 years ago that triggered the Younger Dryas and caused the "extinction" of the Clovis peoples. The less dramatic scenario sees them as results of some regular terrestrial process that ran its course well before humans were even present in the region.  

How did the Carolina bays form?

Today there are two main schools of thought about how the Carolina bays formed: (1) through wind-wave action associated with Pleistocene conditions unlike those of today; and (2) as impact sites of debris ejected by a comet strike in Michigan or Canada.  

My impression is that the geomorphological (i.e., terrestrial) explanation enjoys a lot of support from geologists who specialize in the Pleistocene. I'm just going to paste in a paragraph from the Wikipedia entry that sums it up:​
"Quaternary geologists and geomorphologists argue that the peculiar features of Carolina bays can be readily explained by known terrestrial processes and repeated modification by eolian and lacustrine processes of them over the past 70,000 to 100,000 years. Also, Quaternary geologists and geomorphologists believe to have found a correspondence in time between when the active modification of the rims of Carolina bays most commonly occurred and when adjacent sand dunes were active during the Wisconsinan glaciation between 15,000 and 40,000 years (Late Wisconsinan) and 70,000 to 80,000 years BP (Early Wisconsinan). In addition, Quaternary geologists and geomorphologists have repeatedly found that the orientations of the Carolina bays are consistent with the wind patterns which existed during the Wisconsinan glaciation as reconstructed from Pleistocene parabolic dunes, a time when the shape of the Carolina bays was being modified."
The second proposition -- that the bays were formed in connection with an extraterrestrial impact -- is the more exciting one.  It has been around for a while in various forms (so far the earliest paper I've seen dates to 1933; here is a paper from 1975). Proponents of this idea point to the elliptical shape of the bays, their peculiar orientations and limited geographic distribution, and other characteristics that appear difficult to explain using the terrestrial model (why, for example, do similar features occur in Nebraska?).

This page proposes that
" . . . a catastrophic impact manifold deposited a blanket distal ejecta up to 10 meters deep in a set of butterfly arcs across the continental US. We have modeled the blanket as a ballistically deposited hydrous slurry of sand and ice originating from a cosmic impact into the Illinoisan ice sheet, and propose that Carolina bay landforms were created during the energetic deflation of steam inclusions at the time of ejecta emplacement."
PictureOrientations of Carolina bays and similar features in Nebraska used to suggest impact site at Saginaw Bay (page reference in text).
In other words, an oblique comet strike on the continental ice sheet (this paper says the orientations of the bays suggest the impact site was located at Saginaw Bay, Michigan) and ejected into the air a massive load of sand and ice. That debris landed in an pair of arcs, one stretching across the Atlantic coastal plain and forming the Carolina bays. 

You'll notice I have bolded the word "Illinoisan" in the quote above. That brings us to the next question.

When did the Carolina bays form?

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that, even if the Carolina bays were the result of an extraterrestrial event rather than terrestrial processes, they formed long before humans were present in eastern North America. The Illinoian stage of the Pleistocene referenced above dates to about 190-130 thousand years ago.

This paper by Mark Brooks et al. (2001) discusses stratified sequences of natural deposits in a Carolina bay that have been directly dated by radiocarbon to tens of thousands of years before the Younger Dryas (12,900 years ago) impact proposed by Firestone et al. (2007). That paper also details encroachment of a sand dune over and into a Carolina bay at around 48,000 years ago, indicating that the bay has to be older than 48,000 years.

Because many Carolina bays held water, they were attractive to both animals and humans in the regions they occurred. This 2010 paper (also with Mark Brooks as senior author) describes the presence of archaeological sites associated with Carolina bays near the Savannah River. Clovis artifacts are associated with the bays, which means that the bays could not have been the result of some event that "wiped out" the Clovis peoples: the bays were there before, during, and after the Early Paleoindian period.

Conclusion

I used "terrestrial or extraterrestrial" in the title of this post because I thought it would attract readers. While I'm curious about that question, however, it doesn't ultimately appear to have much bearing on the early prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands. The Carolina bays, however they were formed, predate the Paleoindian period by at least tens of thousands of years - there's a lot of positive evidence for that. Even if a comet strike at about 12,900 years ago did precipitate the Younger Dryas and cause environmental changes to which human societies would have had to adjust, that impact did not produce the Carolina bays.

No-one would have been around to experience the effects of a very ancient (e.g., Illinoian age) impact into the ice sheet.  Maybe I should have titled this post "If a comet hits the ice but there's no-one around to see it, does it make a difference?" It does, of course, if it re-shaped the environment in some way that was significant to later peoples. But I don't think it is those kinds of effects that most extraterrestrial impact fans are excited about. 
7 Comments
Erica H. Adams link
3/5/2016 02:11:07 pm

You answered the questions I 'd never thought to ask.
Thank you for insights on a geological formations and, of such a vast temporal scale.

Reply
Ken Lentz
3/5/2016 06:45:21 pm

I have to say that the fact that major elliptical axes all point generally to a common location is pretty strong evidence of an impact rather than wind.

Regardless of wind differences over time, there has always been a west-to-east jet stream which would dictate prevailing westerly wind. (unless one subscribes to the Velikovsky notion that the earth flipped on its axis at least twice in historic times - probably not too credible).

Reply
Andy White
3/6/2016 07:54:50 am

The orientations seem peculiar to me also. Apparently there are "terrestrial" explanations for the orientations that satisfy geologists and geomorphologists, however (see the Brooks et al. paper). Someone on Facebook commented that he has seen groups of superimposed bays that suggest a chronological sequence of formation (rather than formation during a single event). I don't really have a dog in the fight , but it's a pretty interesting set of features to try to understand.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
3/8/2016 04:59:14 pm

Hi Andy -

It is a common occurrence for those new to the field of impact research to lump different impacts together. The Carolina Bays could be impact ejecta structures, but from the Clovis presence one can pretty much rule out their creation by either of the Holocene Start Impact Events.

Those familiar with the area are more interested in the "marine sediments" from impact mega-tsunami.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

Reply
Bill Wagner
3/22/2016 08:29:45 am

The mindset of this author won't be to your liking, but he brings some interesting additional information to the table. FWIW

". . . However, the website did lead me to the work of two astronomers, Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University of Wales at Cardiff. In an Internet Essay they affirm that a large comet could have terminated the Ice Age some 12,000-13,000 years ago (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, 1999), thus leading to the Pleistocene extinction.

In the meantime a book had come into my hands which dealt with this very same subject: a book written by Otto Heinrich Muck, a German engineer, who called his book Alles über Atlantis ("All About Atlantis"), published in the German language in 1976. (An English translation entitled "The Secret of Atlantis" was published in 1978.) The author is neither a geologist nor an archeologist, but like most engineers he is in possession of a keen mind.

Muck pinpoints the area of impact in the North Atlantic Ocean off the Carolina coast, and discusses two large depressions in the basaltic ocean floor which occupy an area of roughly 77,000 square miles. He asks, "What could possibly have caused these two gigantic impact holes."

He suggests the depressions could be regarded as two deep wounds inflicted on the Earth's crust by the impact of cosmic intruders of massive size. Muck, with his engineering frame of mind, spends several chapters of this work on minute details, comparing data from several scientific disciplines. We need not go into all of that here. I merely want to make the student of Atlantis research aware of this possibility, and to present enough reference material to allow one to research it further.

. . . The "Carolina Bays" consist of a large number of circular and oval-shaped depressions concentrated in the coastal plains of the southeastern United States, but occurring less frequently as far north as southern New Jersey and as far south as northern Florida. They appear to be filled-in, flat-bottomed craters, with their rims highest in the southeast. Estimates of their number range in the neighborhood of a half-million overall. Single counties are often riddled with thousands upon thousands of these features. Dr. Tom Ross of Pembroke State University is presently in the process of counting the Bays in Robeson County from Soil and Conservation Service soil maps. So far Dr. Ross has tabulated over 8,800 bays in Robeson County alone. (Ross, 1994)

Lively, and sometimes heated, debates have taken place over what might have been the cause of the crater-field of the coastal states. According to Muck (1976) the area is only the western edge (less than one-fourth) of an elongated ellipse extending out into the Atlantic Ocean. The total area of impact he estimates covers at least 63,500 square miles (estimates have expanded over the years), although only the relatively small land portion has remained intact.

George Howard, one-time U.S. government ecology and land usage consultant, writes: "It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that if such a cataclysm occurred during a known time of known human habitation on the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain (approximately 10,000-15,000 BP) legends would be told to relate the horror to future generations." (Howard, 1997)

There are, in fact, numerous examples of such repercussions. For instance: "The local Indians are known as the 'People of the Falling Star,' and they believed the lake was created by a falling star, perhaps a great meteorite." (Waccamaw-Siouan Indian legend, Wild Shores, Exploring the Wilderness Areas of Eastern North Carolina. p.150)

What is one to think of this kind of legend? As an anthropologist I must give some degree of credence to the idea that some core event must have given rise to certain elements contained in the above legend. And there are plenty more of these which must be considered."

Reply
Bill Wagner
3/22/2016 08:57:07 am

http://www.atlantisquest.com/Asteroid.html

Sorry -- inadvertent omission.

Reply
Linda Goodman link
9/14/2016 08:07:25 pm

My question is: Who benefits and who loses if the Carolina Bays were, in fact, the result of a comet strike 12,000 years ago? Here's a press conference held by George Howard on the overwhelming evidence that this is indeed the case...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GCgOI3B1o
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2ld-lohrPw
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxvI0Lk8WKs
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2GNwebf6Z0
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEIMTtv68E
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzavBdRa5gk
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgbKyegrNLc
North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC Part 7

Reply



Leave a Reply.


    All views expressed in my blog posts are my own. The views of those that comment are their own. That's how it works.

    I reserve the right to take down comments that I deem to be defamatory or harassing. 

    Andy White

    Follow me on Twitter: @Andrew_A_White

    Email me: andy.white.zpm@gmail.com

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Picture

    Sick of the woo?  Want to help keep honest and open dialogue about pseudo-archaeology on the internet? Please consider contributing to Woo War Two.
    Picture

    Follow updates on posts related to giants on the Modern Mythology of Giants page on Facebook.

    Archives

    January 2023
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    3D Models
    AAA
    Adena
    Afrocentrism
    Agent Based Modeling
    Agent-based Modeling
    Aircraft
    Alabama
    Aliens
    Ancient Artifact Preservation Society
    Androgynous Fish Gods
    ANTH 227
    ANTH 291
    ANTH 322
    Anthropology History
    Anunnaki
    Appalachia
    Archaeology
    Ardipithecus
    Art
    Atlantis
    Australia
    Australopithecines
    Aviation History
    Bigfoot
    Birds
    Boas
    Book Of Mormon
    Broad River Archaeological Field School
    Bronze Age
    Caribou
    Carolina Bays
    Ceramics
    China
    Clovis
    Complexity
    Copper Culture
    Cotton Mather
    COVID-19
    Creationism
    Croatia
    Crow
    Demography
    Denisovans
    Diffusionism
    DINAA
    Dinosaurs
    Dirt Dance Floor
    Double Rows Of Teeth
    Dragonflies
    Early Archaic
    Early Woodland
    Earthworks
    Eastern Woodlands
    Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project
    Education
    Egypt
    Europe
    Evolution
    Ewhadp
    Fake Hercules Swords
    Fetal Head Molding
    Field School
    Film
    Florida
    Forbidden Archaeology
    Forbidden History
    Four Field Anthropology
    Four-field Anthropology
    France
    Genetics
    Genus Homo
    Geology
    Geometry
    Geophysics
    Georgia
    Giants
    Giants Of Olden Times
    Gigantism
    Gigantopithecus
    Graham Hancock
    Grand Valley State
    Great Lakes
    Hollow Earth
    Homo Erectus
    Hunter Gatherers
    Hunter-gatherers
    Illinois
    India
    Indiana
    Indonesia
    Iowa
    Iraq
    Israel
    Jim Vieira
    Jobs
    Kensington Rune Stone
    Kentucky
    Kirk Project
    Late Archaic
    Lemuria
    Lithic Raw Materials
    Lithics
    Lizard Man
    Lomekwi
    Lost Continents
    Mack
    Mammoths
    Mastodons
    Maya
    Megafauna
    Megaliths
    Mesolithic
    Michigan
    Middle Archaic
    Middle Pleistocene
    Middle Woodland
    Midwest
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    Mississippian
    Missouri
    Modeling
    Morphometric
    Mound Builder Myth
    Mu
    Music
    Nazis
    Neandertals
    Near East
    Nephilim
    Nevada
    New Mexico
    Newspapers
    New York
    North Carolina
    Oahspe
    Oak Island
    Obstetrics
    Ohio
    Ohio Valley
    Oldowan
    Olmec
    Open Data
    Paleoindian
    Paleolithic
    Pilumgate
    Pleistocene
    Pliocene
    Pre Clovis
    Pre-Clovis
    Prehistoric Families
    Pseudo Science
    Pseudo-science
    Radiocarbon
    Reality Check
    Rome
    Russia
    SAA
    Sardinia
    SCIAA
    Science
    Scientific Racism
    Sculpture
    SEAC
    Search For The Lost Giants
    Sexual Dimorphism
    Sitchin
    Social Complexity
    Social Networks
    Solutrean Hypothesis
    South Africa
    South America
    South Carolina
    Southeast
    Stone Holes
    Subsistence
    Swordgate
    Teaching
    Technology
    Teeth
    Television
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Topper
    Travel
    Travel Diaries
    Vaccines
    Washington
    Whatzit
    White Supremacists
    Wisconsin
    Woo War Two
    World War I
    World War II
    Writing
    Younger Dryas

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly