[meteorite-list] Holocene start Extinction Level Event

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 07:15:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <305695.44716.qm_at_web36907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Sterling, all -

As you read this, please remember I've had a major stroke.

You left a new disease off of your list of extinction causes, and this could do the job quite fast, evolving among a starved population.

We don't know if the Holocene Start Impacts were from fragments of Comet Encke, or another comet. I don't think Clube, Napier, and Baillie have commented on them at all.

The starvation span may only have been for a year, or for a few months. But then a short time without food is enough to kill. Add in human hunting of the remainder, and then gone.

As you say, we have trouble imagining the ancient climate. For that matter, I wonder how much of the "Younger Dryas is simply the measurement of cold melt water. I don't know how warm it was to the south during the last Ice Age, hence the note on Mammoth fur.

Mammoth/Mastodon - the way I keep it straight is to remember that mastodon were bush eaters, if need be, and evolved for it. I don't know about the teeth on American Musk Ox, but suspect they were long grass eaters as well.

Voles are dung eaters, and any disease would have hit them hard. Given your dates, I would suspect new European disease vectors, brought in by the Red Paint People at 8,350 BCE.

I think that you and I can agree that given that there are now some six billion people on this planet, it might be nice to know with some certainty how it operated and will operate.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

--- On Fri, 7/4/08, Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Holocene start Extinction Level Event
> To: epgrondine at yahoo.com, meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Friday, July 4, 2008, 5:51 PM
> Hi, EP, List,
>
> EP wrote:
> > First off, that's comet fragments, more than one,
> and their dust.
>
> Yes, that's the Napier-Clube-Baillie Theory, but
> these guys
> are part of the Firestone & Company Camp and they
> believe in
> one Big Whack over the Ice Cap, a whole other cup of
> disaster.
>
> Like you (I imagine), I like the Napier-Clube-Baillie
> variation
> a lot better. But they don't.
>
>
> EP wrote
> > fur... insulating against both cold and heat
>
> Critters so massive, with a high ratio of body mass to
> surface
> area, need to dump heat in warmer climates. However,
> Mastodons
> had fur, short fur, only and no insulating wool, while the
> Woolly
> Mammoth had both, as the name implies. However, the climate
> was not hot; it's an Ice Age, remember.
>
> It is good to remember how much the world changes. One
> encounters everywhere the universal notion that the
> Amazonian
> Rain Forest is ancient, primeval, some sort of Jungle Eden
> from
> the Dawn of Time. Pretentious bosh.
>
> And wrong. The Amazonian Rain Forest is a brand
> spanking
> new Post-Glacial development. 12-14,000 years ago, those
> jungles
> were not jungles. The Amazonian Rain Forest was the
> Amazonian
> Grassy Plains, like the Pampas, a Sea of Grass with
> meandering
> rivers (much smaller rivers than today) and scattered
> clumps of
> trees, perfect Elephant country (Mastodons are elephants;
> the
> Mammoths are not, quite different, though they don't
> look it).
>
>
> EP wrote:
> > How? By starvation. Same thing that killed the horses
> at the same
> > time. Bison survived; they were hardy, and ate short
> tundra like grass.
>
> Let's straighten this out. There's 25,000 years
> of glaciation:
> very cold. Then, it begins to warm up a few degrees for a
> few
> thousand years. Then comes the Younger Dryas, a thousand
> years during which things cool off again, but not all the
> way
> back to glacial levels. Then, the warming resumes and the
> Interglacial begins in earnest. The YD is a hiccup.
>
> That's the history. Now, the five species of horse
> and ALL
> the other critters on the list were happy as clams during
> the
> 25,000 years of glaciation. It warms for a few thousand
> years,
> then cools again, and the cold kills them?
>
> Gimme a break.
>
> Whatever grass could grow in glacial conditions was
> enough
> for the horses to thrive. Whatever grass could grow in
> warmer
> conditions, LIKE NOW, is enough for horses to thrive. Grass
> is ubiquitous, and if its range shifts, well, horses travel
> well,
> you know.
>
> Then, there's Musk Ox, who can graze contentedly on
> crap a
> Bison wouldn't touch (and couldn't). The Musk Oxen
> munch
> on moss and lichens and such while all around them Bison
> keel over like victims of anorexia. The Death of the Grass
> wouldn't phase them at all. Why didn't the Musk Ox
> survive?
>
> In deference to Mexico Doug's sensibilities, I will
> not call the
> climatic theory of extinction anything crude and
> non-correct;
> I will call it "grossly inadequate, not a product of
> careful thought,
> and a collection of archaic prejudices."
>
>
> EP wrote:
> > How? By starvation...
>
> You could argue that these species are all large,
> require lots
> of food and are vunerable to smaller shifts in climate than
> little
> omnivorous species like... Pack Rats! Small burrowing
> rodents
> are about the hardest critter in the universe to kill. Ever
> tried?
> Then, you know what I mean.
>
> So, it comes as a big surprise that the Pleistocene
> Vole, the
> ultimate omnivore and pack rat that thrived through the
> worst of
> the Ice Age and the warmest of Interglacials (warmer than
> now)
> for 800,000 years, suddenly and inexplicably went extinct
> only
> 9500 years ago!
> http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/21_packrat.shtml
>
> Someone explain that, please... Hunted to extinction by
> Clovis
> Man, perhaps?
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "E.P. Grondine"
> <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 12:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Holocene start Extinction
> Level Event
>
>
> Hi Sterling -
>
> "Remind me again: how does a Comet in Canada kill a
> furry
> mastodon in South America? Both Mammoths and Mastodons
> are unique Ice Age critters, elephants with fur coats! But
> notice that while there are Mammoths in Canada and Alaska
> and Siberia (Brrr!), the Mastodons preferred Kentucky,
> Missouri, and Lu-Ezi-Anna, not mention South America.
> So, how does ONE climate change kill off TWO genera
> with such different climatic tastes?"
>
> First off, that's comet fragments, more than one, and
> their dust.
>
> How? By starvation. Same thing that killed the horses at
> the same time.
> Bison survived; they were hardy, and ate short tundra like
> grass.
>
> Mammoth and mastodon fur is suspected to be insulating
> against both cold and
> heat, like a camel's fur.
>
> The big mystery is the mammoth survival on the northern
> islands. But then
> birds are dinosaurs - I suppose it will be worked out in
> time.
>
> It sure would be nice to get a date and impactor type for
> the Ilturalde
> Crater.
>
> E.P. Grondine
> Man and Impact in the Americas
>
>
>
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Received on Sat 05 Jul 2008 10:15:47 AM PDT