[meteorite-list] Holocene Extinctions and a different lake

From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:36:46 -0600
Message-ID: <20111118113646.X924X.49056.imail_at_eastrmwml113>

In ?[meteorite-list] Holocene Extinctions and a different
lake?, Ed wrote:

?I'm glad to hear that all the debate about the dating of
the Lake Misssoula flooding has now been cleared up.
Does the same thing hold for Lake Bonneville, and
other Ice Age plains lakes??

I have PDF versions of about 70 publications about
geology and paleoliminology, and chronology of Lake
Bonneville. There are numerous other minor publications
about Lake Bonneville. In addition, I have about a couple
of dozen papers and other publications about other Ice
Age pluvial lakes that existed in the Southwestern United
States, including pluvial Lake Estancia in New Mexico.

In none of these papers, is there any evidence of either
any terminal Pleistocene impacts, including about
?10,750 BCE,? or any Holocene impacts. The significant
change from Ice Age pluvial lake levels in Lake Bonneville
and other pluvial lakes towards modern playa lakes started
about 12,600 14C yr BP (15,000 cal yr B.P.). This is long
before any of your proposed impacts. This is simply the
time that the colder, wetter climates of the Last Glacial
Maximum transitioned to the warmer, drier conditions
of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. This change
is coincident with comparable drops (regression) in
lake-level in Lake Lahontan, Lake Estancia, and other
southwestern pluvial lakes and with the onset of the
Bolling-Allerod warming event.

There is a very slight rise in lake levels to the Lake Gilbert
highstand in response to climate changes associated with
 the Younger Dryas. There is nothing obvious in the lake
 sediments to indicate any direct association with any sort
of extraterrestrial impact. Whatever caused the Younger
Dryas climatic changes is what indirectly caused the high
lake levels of Lake Gilbert.

In terms of basic reading, a person can start with:

Allen, B. D., 2005, Ice Age Lakes in New Mexico. in S. G.
Lucas, G. S. Morgan, and K. E. Zeigler, eds., pp. 107-114,
New Mexico?s Ice Ages. Bulletin no. 28, New Mexico
Museum of Natural History and Science.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/allen/documents/iceagelakesnm.PDF

Balch, D. P., A. S. Cohen, D. W. Schnurrenberger, B. J. Haskell,
B. L. V. Garces, J. W. Beck, H. Cheng, and R. L. Edwards, 2005,
Ecosystem and paleohydrological response to Quaternary
climate change in the Bonneville Basin, Utah. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. vol. 221, no. 1-2, pp. 99-122.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018205000829

Benson, L. V., D. R. Currey, R .I. Dorn, K. R. Lajoie, C. G. Oviatt,
S. W. Robinson, G. I. Smith, and S. Stine, 1990, Chronology of
expansion and contraction of four great Basin lake systems
during the past 35,000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology. vol. 78, no. 3-4, pp. 241-286.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003101829090217U

Benson, L. V., S. P. Lund, J. P. Smoot, D. E. Rhode, R. J. Spencer,
K. L. Verosub, L. A. Louderback, C. A. Johnson, R. O. Rye, and
R. M. Negrini, 2011, The rise and fall of Lake Bonneville
between 45 and 10.5 ka. Quaternary International. vol. 235,
no. 1-2, pp. 57-69.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618210004829

Louderback, L. A., and D. E. Rhode, 2009, 15,000 Years of
vegetation change in the Bonneville basin: the Blue Lake
pollen record. Quaternary Science Reviews. vol. 28, no. 3-4,
pp. 308-326.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379108002680

Godsey, H. S., C. G. Oviatt, D. M. Miller, and M. A. Chan, 2011,
Stratigraphy and chronology of offshore to nearshore deposits
associated with the Provo shoreline, Pleistocene Lake Bonneville,
Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
vol. 310, no. 3-4,pp. 442-450.

Oviatt, C. G., D. M. Miller, J. P. McGeehin, C. Zachary, and S.
Mahan, 2005, The Younger Dryas phase of Great Salt Lake ,
Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
vol. 219, no. 3-4, pp. 263-284.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018211004317

Patrickson, D. S., A. R. Brunelle, and K. A. Moser, 2010, Late
Pleistocene to early Holocene lake level and paleoclimate
insights from Stansbury Island, Bonneville basin, Utah.
Quaternary Research. vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 237-246.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589409001653

Spencer, R. J., M. J. Baedecker, H. P. Eugster, R. M. Forester,
M. B. Goldhaber, B. F. Jones, K. Kelts, J. Mckenzie, D. B.
Madsen and S. L. Rettig, 1984, Great Salt Lake, and precursors,
Utah: The last 30,000 years. Contributions to Mineralogy
and Petrology. vol. 86, no. 4, pp. 321-334.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j7744044505082r0/

Maps of the pluvial lakes of the Southwest US can be found at:

1. Late Quaternary Paleohydrology of the Mojave Desert
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/mojave/paleoenviron.html
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/mojave/images/fig13.gif

2. Reheis, M,, 1999, Extent of Pleistocene Lakes in the
Western Great Basin. Miscellaneous Field Studies Map
MF-2323, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1999/mf-2323/mf2323.pdf
http://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1999/mf-2323/

3. Matsubara, Y., and A. D. Howard, nd, Spatially-explicit
modeling of modern and Pleistocene runoff and lake
extent in the Great Basin region, western United States.
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
http://erode.evsc.virginia.edu/papers/matsubara_Pleistocene_GB.pdf

One of the stranger claims that has been made about Lake
Bonneville and other pluvial lakes in the southwest is that
the salt and other evaporite deposits that characterize the
modern playa lakes associated with them are the result of
the evaporation of sea water splashed into them from the
Pacific Ocean by multiple-kilometer-high impact generated
megatsunamis from a terminal Pleistocene /early Holocene
impacts as argued by Tollmann and Tollmann (1994) and
Knight and Lomas (2000).

Now, as in either 1994 and 2000, there exists ample data,
interpretations, and other information in published literature
to soundly refute their arguments. The change from fresh
water, pluvial lakes towards the modern saline playa lakes
occurred long before their proposed impacts as documented
in the above papers. The accumulation of evaporites in these
lakes started thousands of years before the hypothetical
impact. In addition, the geochemistry and sedimentology
of the salt and other evaporites found in these lakes clearly
demonstrates that they are the result of the evaporation of
water carrying dissolved minerals from rocks exposed
within the drainage basin of these lakes as discussed by
Hart et al. (2004), Spencer et al. (1985a, 1985b). Also,
despite the continuous record of lake sedimentation
recovered in cores from Lake Bonneville and other lakes,
there is a complete of either an event bed of deposits
that such an event would most certainly have left behind.
The many problems with the arguments of Tollmann and
Tollmann (1994), which Knight and Lomas (2000) simply
ignore, are discussed in detail by Deutsch et al. (1994).

References Cited,

Deutsch, A., C. Koeberl, J. D. Blum, B. M. French, B. P. Glass,
R. Grieve, P. Horn, E. K. Jessberger, G. Kurat, W. U. Reimold,
 J. Smit, D. St?ffler, and S. R. Taylor, 1994, The impact-flood
connection: Does it exist? Terra Nova. vol. 6, pp. 644-650.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3121.1994.tb00532.x/abstract

Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. 2000 Uriel's Machine:
?The Ancient Origins of Science. Element Books Ltd. 480 pp.

Kristan-Tollmann, E. and A. Tollmann, 1994, The youngest
big impact on Earth deduced from geological and
historical evidence. Terra Nova. vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 209-217.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3121.1994.tb00656.x/abstract

Hart, W. F., J. Quade, D. B. Madsen, D. S. Kaufman, and C. G.
Oviatt, 2004, The 87Sr/86Sr ratios of lacustrine carbonates
and lake-level history of the Bonneville paleolake system.
Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 116, no. 9-10,
pp. 1107-1119.

Spencer, R. J., H. P. Eugster, and B. F. Jones, 1985a, Geochemistry
of great Salt Lake, Utah II: Pleistocene-Holocene evolution.
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 739-747
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016703785901681

Spencer, R. J., H. P. Eugster, B. F. Jones, and S. L. Rettig, 1985b,
Geochemistry of Great Salt Lake, Utah I: Hydrochemistry
since 1850. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. vol. 49,
no. 3, pp. 727-737
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001670378590167X

Best wishes,

Paul H.
Received on Fri 18 Nov 2011 11:36:46 AM PST