[meteorite-list] Holocene Extinctions and Missoula Flood

From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:25:35 -0600
Message-ID: <20111116142535.J86CC.20218.imail_at_eastrmwml303>

Holocene Extinctions and Missoula Floods

E.P. Grondine wrote:

?I see from today's news that many people are still confused
by the extinctions caused by the Holocene Start Impacts. Its
really pretty easy, as Elephants need 450 pounds of food a day.?

Perhaps the following will explain it better. Good hunting, all -
E.P. Grondine, Man and Impact in the Americas?

THE WASHINGTON SCABLANDS AND ASSINIBOINE IMPACT ACCOUNTS

Several posters here are interested in Harlan Bretz and the
spread of his catastrophist hypothesis for the formation of
the Washington scablands. Currently, while all geologists
agree that the scablands were formed by catastrophic flooding,
there is debate over whether they were caused by the
release of one or multiple lakes and exactly when the
flooding(s) occurred.?

The above debate, which mentioned above, is imaginary
in nature. First, the age of the latest Missouri Flood is
well established by both radiocarbon dates and well-dated
volcanic ash beds from Mt. St. Helens. Wood fragment from
the lower-middle part of the Missoula Flood deposits in
Sanpoil Valley yielded a radiocarbon date of 14,490 14Cyr
B.P. A 14,000 year old volcanic ?set-S? ash from Mount St.
Helens overlies at least 28 giant-flood rhythmites and
underlies eleven giant-flood rhythmites in southern
Washington. Organic matter recovered from within and
below the Missoula flood deposits in the Columbia Gorge
yielded three dates between 15,000 and 13,700 14Cyr B.P.
These and other dates clearly indicate that catastrophic
flooding occurred at multiple times during a period of time
between 15,700?13,500 14Cyr B.P. (Booth et al. 2004).

The Missoula Flood clearly predate and are, thus, unrelated
to any hypothetical terminal Pleistocene or Holocene impact
event. As noted above, the Missoula Flood deposits are
thousands of years too old to be associated with such an
impact. In addition, the detailed study of sedimentology of the
flood deposits demonstrates that the catastrophic flooding
from glacial Lake Missoula occurred every few decades to
years. This is comparable to the frequency in glacier-outburst
floods (jokulhlaups) associated with modern Icelandic glaciers
(Booth et al. 2004). The occurrence of multiple catastrophic
Missoula Flood events over a period of approximately 2,000
years definitely refutes any notion that the Missoula Flood
is associated with a single impact event of any age. A single
impact would only have created a single catastrophic flood. It
would have been quite impossible for a single impact of any
age to have created multiple flood events over a 2,000 year
period of time as has been well documented in the published
 literature.

References Cited

Booth, D. B., K. G. Troost, J. J. Clague, and R. B. Waitt, 2004,
The Cordilleran Ice Sheet. in A. Gillespie, S. C. , Porter, and B.
Atwater, eds., pp. 17-24, The Quaternary Period in the United
States: International Union for Quaternary Research, Elsevier
Press, New York.
http://faculty.washington.edu/dbooth/Ch_02_INQUA_volume.pdf
https://catalyst.uw.edu/workspace/file/download/0808b306b9967a473ab1851d477a4a35b0f79990349e2dc5d3eb3c7bfeb12668?inline=1

Also, go see:

O'Conner, J., and R. Waitt, 1994, Beyond the Channeled
Scabland: A field trip? to look at Missoula Flood Features in
the Columbia, Yakima and Walla Walli valleys of Washington
and Oregon. Friends of the Pleistocene 1st Pacific Northwest
Cell Meeting May 13-15, 1994. U.S. Geological Survey,
Vancouver, Washington.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24574508/Channeled-Scabland-A-field-trip%C2%B7-to-look-at-Missoula-Flood

E.P. Grondine also stated:

?Of course, as oil companies have for years been drilling cores
off the coast of Washington, those questions could be readily
answered, except that those cores are proprietary.?

Oil company cores will likely tell use nothing about the Missoula
Flood as the deposits that would contain deposits from the Missoula
Flood are too young to be of any interest to them. They would simply
drilled through such surficial sediments any only start coring once
they got to the oil-bearing strata. In addition, petroleum seismic is
not designed to image shallow strata, which are of no interest to oil
companies.

However, research by marine geologists using cores and seismic data
have identified and mapped thick turbidite deposits consisting of material
from the Missoula Flood that was flushed down the Astoria Fan on the
Oregon continental margin. The vast majority of this research, including
cores, is not proprietary. This research is discussed in a number of
published papers, including:

Brunner, C. A., W. R. Normark, G. G. Zuffa, and F. Serra, 1999,
Deep-sea sedimentary record of the late Wisconsin
cataclysmic floods from the Columbia River. Geology. vol. 27,
no. 5, pp. 463-466.
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/5/463

Normark, W. R., and J. A. Reid, 2003, Extensive Deposits
on the Pacific Plate from Late Pleistocene North American
Glacial Lake Outbursts. The Journal of Geology. vol. 111,
no. 6, pp. 617-637. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30081242

Zuffa, G. G., W. R. Normark, F. Serra, and C. A. Brunner, 2000,
The Journal of Geology. vol. 108, no. 3, pp. 253-274.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/30079990

This research also demonstrates that the Missoula Floods are far too
old to be associated with any hypothetical terminal Pleistocene or
Holocene impact.

Yours,

Paul H.
Received on Wed 16 Nov 2011 02:25:35 PM PST