[meteorite-list] I ran up my white flag too soon -- 23 experts firmly show YDB era Greenland ice layer that has unique huge numbers of impact nanodiamonds in 11-page paper in J Glaciology: Rich Murray 2010.09.02

From: Rich Murray <rmforall_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 22:23:53 -0600
Message-ID: <931418CC3D554B3EBF2D08F35002B572_at_ownerPC>

I ran up my white flag too soon -- 23 experts firmly show YDB era Greenland
ice layer that has unique huge numbers of impact nanodiamonds in 11-page
paper in J Glaciology: Rich Murray 2010.09.02
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.htm
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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[ See also:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/clovis/debate.html ]

http://cosmictusk.com/tusk-exclusive-bunch-makes-brief-comments-on-daulton-paper

http://www.cefns.nau.edu/Academic/Geology/people/DrTedBunch.shtml

>From an email from Bunch to Leroy Ellenberger:

Dear Leroy -- not to worry, Dalton is a competent scientist and did what he
could do with the materials given to him.
The problem lies with Scott and Pinter.

Some brief reasons why the Dalton et al paper is inept:

1. They did not collect from the YDB layer at the Arlington site that was
used in the two Kennett et al papers, but from layers that contained
"carbonaceous particles", mostly charcoal -- there are no diamonds in
charcoal and it is not clear that they even sampled the YDB.

2. They did not collect or at least process the YDB sediment at Murray
Springs, which contains most of the nanodiamonds in the YDB as loose
nanodiamonds -- probably too much work because the work is labor
intensive -- need to separate kilos of material.
The diamonds average about 50 to 100 ppb and you need a lot of diamonds,
processed by the correct separation protocol.

3. Yes, we saw graphene, graphane and chaoite, but these are not diamonds.

4. They analyzed microcharcoal and glassy carbon for diamonds and found
none, neither did we!
These "carbon particles" were made outside the constrains for diamond
production and survival.

5. Two reviewers for the Kennett papers are world class shock and diamond
experts -- they had no problem.

6. One independent stratigrapher who read the Daulton paper was astonished
at the "complete ineptness of field protocol and sample characterization".
Of course, you and others can judge for yourselves.

7. The Greenland paper (Glaciology) will appear in September and there are
sufficient diamond data in this paper (STEM, HRTEM, RAMAN, EELS, etc.) to
prove once and for all that diamonds do, indeed, occur in the YDB.

More later, Ted

1 comment Rod Chilton September 1st, 2010 at 2:14 pm

Not only does the paper by Daulton seem inadequate in the factors as
mentioned by Dr. Bunch, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, the statements
Dr. Daulton and his team make regarding, and I quote, "Most evidence
supporting the hypothesis (Cosmic explanation) has been discredited."
Further to this and even more amazing is the following quote: "Our results
cast doubt upon one of the last widely discussed (nanodiamonds as detected
by so many) pieces of evidence supporting the Younger Dryas impact
hypothesis."
Finally, Steve Garcia has brought my attention to soemthing in the body of
the paper that is truly laughable (if it was not so serious).
And that is, the explanation for the triggering mechanism for the North
Atlantic slowing or shutting down was the St. Lawrence river corridor.
This has been dismissed some years ago, not by Dr. Wallace Broecker (the
original proponent of the whole idea of meltwater derived from the
Laurentide Ice Sheet as exiting via the St. Lawrence.
It has been determined that this exit was blocked by ice all the way though
the Younger Dryas and for a time thereafter.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/36697975/discovery-of-nanodiamond-rich-layer-in-the-greenland-ice-sheet
free full text 11 pages

Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 56, No. 199, 2010 page 749

Discovery of a nanodiamond-rich layer in the Greenland ice sheet
Andrei V. KURBATOV,1
Paul A. MAYEWSKI,1
Jorgen P. STEFFENSEN,2
Allen WEST,3
Douglas J. KENNETT,4
James P. KENNETT,5
Ted E. BUNCH,6
Mike HANDLEY,1
Douglas S. INTRONE,1
Shane S. QUE HEE,7
Christopher MERCER,8
Marilee SELLERS,9
Feng SHEN,10
Sharon B. SNEED,1
James C.WEAVER,11
James H. WITTKE,6
Thomas W. STAFFORD, Jr,12
John J. DONOVAN,13
Sujing XIE,13
Joshua J. RAZINK,14
Adrienne STICH,15
Charles R. KINZIE,15
Wendy S. WOLBACH15
1 Climate Change Institute, University of Maine,
303 Bryand Global Sciences Center,
Orono, Maine 04469-5790, USA
E-mail: akurbatov at maine.edu;
2 Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute,
University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30,
DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
3 GeoScience Consulting, Dewey, Arizona 86327, USA
4 Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon,
Eugene, Oregon 97403-1272, USA
5 Department of Earth Science, University of California,
Santa Barbara, California 93106-5131, USA
6 Department of Geology, Northern Arizona University,
Flagstaff, Arizona 86011-4099, USA
7 Department of Environmental Health Sciences/Center
for Occupational and Environmental Health,
University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1772
8 National Institute for Materials Science, 1-2-1 Sengen,
Tsukuba 305-0047, Japan
9 Imaging and Histology Core Facility, Northern Arizona
University, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011, USA
10 FEI Company, 5350 NE Dawson Creek Drive,
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-5793, USA
11 Department of Physics, University of California,
Santa Barbara, California 93106-5131
12 Stafford Research Laboratories, Inc.,
200 Acadia Avenue, Lafayette, Colorado
80026-1845, USA
13 CAMCOR High Resolution and MicroAnalytical Facilities,
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1272, USA
14 Department of Chemistry, University of Oregon,
Eugene, Oregon 97403-1272, USA
15 Department of Chemistry, DePaul University, Chicago,
Illinois 60614, USA

ABSTRACT.

We report the discovery in the Greenland ice sheet of a discrete layer of
free nanodiamonds (NDs) in very high abundances, implying most likely either
an unprecedented influx of extraterrestrial (ET) material or a cosmic impact
event that occurred after the last glacial episode.
>From that layer, we extracted n-diamonds and hexagonal diamonds
(lonsdaleite), an accepted ET impact indicator, at abundances of up to about
5X10E6 times background levels in adjacent younger and older ice.
The NDs in the concentrated layer are rounded, suggesting they most likely
formed during a cosmic impact through some process similar to carbon-vapor
deposition or high-explosive detonation.
This morphology has not been reported previously in cosmic material, but has
been observed in terrestrial impact material.
This is the first highly enriched, discrete layer of NDs observed in glacial
ice anywhere, and its presence indicates that ice caps are important
archives of ET events of varying magnitudes.
Using a preliminary ice chronology based on oxygen isotopes and dust
stratigraphy, the ND-rich layer appears to be coeval with ND abundance peaks
reported at numerous North American sites in a sedimentary layer, the
Younger Dryas boundary layer (YDB), dating to 12.9 +-0.1 ka.
However, more investigation is needed to confirm this association.

INTRODUCTION

Recently scientists reported an abundance peak in nanodiamonds (NDs) at
multiple locations across North America that is restricted to a thin
sediment layer, the Younger Dryas boundary layer (YDB), which dates to the
Younger Dryas (YD) onset at 12.9+-0.1 ka (Firestone and others, 2007;
Kennett
and others, 2009a).
A peak in hexagonal diamonds (lonsdaleite) was also reported in the YDB at
Arlington Canyon, California, USA (Kennett and others, 2009b).
The only known explanation for terrestrial lonsdaleite is by arrival inside
extraterrestrial objects and/or by impact of such objects with the Earth's
surface (DeCarli and others, 2002).
This discovery begged a prediction that a coeval layer with high ND
concentrations should be preserved in the Greenland ice sheet.
No layers of NDs have previously been reported from the Greenland ice sheet,
or any other form of glacial ice, although Yates and others (1992) reported
finding diamond concentrations in Greenland cryoconite holes, which are melt
depressions in surface ice that contain micrometeoritic
material.
However, those diamonds were not in a discrete layer and were found embedded
in metal-alloy cosmic grains, rather than being free in the ice.
Consequently, we conducted a pilot investigation on a section of the
Greenland ice sheet that potentially spans the last deglacial in search of a
layer containing an abundance of free NDs that might be coeval with that of
the YDB, a study that included both field and laboratory components.
The purpose of this contribution is to describe this pilot experiment and
its limitations, to present our results and to suggest future work related
to the
discovery of NDs in this sequence.

...Consequently, we followed the earlier approach of Reeh and others (2002)
and Petrenko and others (2006), who sampled the ice margin to obtain a
stratigraphic sequence over the interval from the last deglacial through the
Holocene.
In cooperation with PBS Nova documentary productions, we conducted fieldwork
in late 2008 during which several authors (A.V.K., P.A.M. and J.P.S.)
sampled at a margin site east of Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland, ~1 km inland
from the ice margin (Fig. 1).
Our goal was to collect continuous samples of ice extending from the end of
the last glacial episode through the early Holocene, including the 1300 year
long YD cooling episode.
One of the authors (J.P.S.) has considerable experience sampling along the
Greenland ice-sheet margin, and he identified a candidate for the YD-age
section based on visual inspection of dust stratigraphy (Reeh and others,
2002; Petrenko and others, 2006)....

CONCLUSIONS

The discovery in Greenland ice of abundant n-diamonds and lonsdaleite, along
with other possible diamond allotropes, represents the only known
depositional layer of free diamonds yet reported from glacial ice anywhere
on Earth (e.g. ice sheets and caps; alpine glaciers).
An inferred last deglacial age for the ND-peak layer is based on dust
stratigraphy and constrained by oxygen isotopic values of the ice.
This stratigraphy suggests that the ND-peak layer was deposited after the
end of the last glacial episode (14.6 ka) and prior to the earliest Holocene
(11.6 ka), which is consistent with the date of formation of the YDB in
North America at 12.9+-0.1 ka.
Also, the ND-peak layer occurs immediately below the base of an especially
dusty ice zone, which, according to the dust stratigraphy, may represent the
onset of the YD cooling episode.
However, higher-resolution stratigraphic studies are needed to confirm this
age.
Since lonsdaleite is only known to form during hightemperature/high-pressure
cosmic events, its presence currently can be explained in only two ways:
either the lonsdaleite arrived already formed within meteoritic material
or it crystallized during a hypervelocity impact with the Earth's surface.
The rounded morphology, range of allotropes and very high abundance of NDs
in the ND-peak layer appear to exclude the first possibility, arrival inside
meteoritic material.
Regarding a possible impact event, the Greenland NDs are identical to those
found in the K-T impact layers, so the presence of rounded n-diamonds and
lonsdaleite in Greenland ice suggests that a large cosmic impact occurred,
and further investigations are necessary to determine the nature and scope
of this event.
In summary, since continent-wide layers containing NDs are only known to
exist at the K-T boundary and the YDB, then the existence of this layer in
Greenland ice appears consistent with the occurrence of a major impact event
that correlates with the nanodiamond-rich YDB in North America at 12.9+-0.1
ka.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research was partially funded by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (Department of Commerce grant NA08OAR4310867) and the US
National Science Foundation (grant ATM-0713769).
HREM work was conducted at the CAMCOR High Resolution Facility in the Lorry
I. Lokey Laboratories at University of Oregon with support from the Office
of Research.
We thank the FEI Company for their generous support and technical assistance
with HREM (FEI TitanTM 80-300 scanning/transmission electron microscope).
We thank Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., S. Heier, T. Deschaines and J.
Hellgeth for their generous support and technical assistance with the Thermo
Fisher Scientific DXR Raman Microscope.
We also gratefully acknowledge PBS's NOVA series, E. Hadingham (senior
science editor), D. Hamilton (producer-director) and S. Pyne (assistant
producer) for encouragement and financial support for fieldwork in Greenland
by A.V.K., P.A.M. and J.P.S.
We thank the three reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.


Program Note

Regular readers have surely noticed the annoying and unsightly formatting
problems here at the Tusk. In particular, blogs which use "block quotes" of
outside material are superimposing themselves on older blogs, rendering them
both nearly unreadable. While surely embarrassing for me, please rest easy.
Technical personnel have been alerted and we will have it repaired soon.

This is only the latest in a string of incidents which have ham-strung my
efforts to keep you up-to-speed. At the AMQUA conference almost three weeks
ago, my formerly trusty Dell laptop blogging tool completely failed (and is
still being repaired). That took me off the air until I returned to the
office. Work has been wild lately, so no time to blog at work, though I've
made the effort of late. (I bought an Ipad last week, but it is a poor
substitute for the laptop as far as blogging is concerned).

So, dear reader, for the time being I can only steal away to the blog at
work, fervently typing when the line of workers asking dumb questions
slackens for a moment.

Hang in there. When I get up and running I will try to give you a full
run-down of the AMQUA conference. It was a great time, incidentally, with
the home team prevailing 65-35 in my humble estimation.

September 1st, 2010 George Howard
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Cox crisply comments; full text of "No evidence"; Comet theory carbonized,
Rex Dalton, nature.com; fungus found abstract: Rich Murray 2010.08.31
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.htm
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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3 times more downward energy from directed force of meteor airburst
in 3D simulations by Mark B. E. Boslough, Sandia Lab 2007.12.17:
Rich Murray 2010.08.30
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.htm
Monday, August 30, 2010
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excellent Google Earth and ground views of shallow oval craters worldwide,
Pierson Barretto: Rich Murray 2010.08.22
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.htm
Sunday, August 22, 2010
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Rich Murray, MA
Boston University Graduate School 1967 psychology,
BS MIT 1964, history and physics,
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-501-2298 rmforall at comcast.net

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Received on Fri 03 Sep 2010 12:23:53 AM PDT