[FPSPACE] Closer to the Holocene start impact epicenter

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all - 

Its good that fpspace is working again, as a 1 inch thick layer of impactites had been found near Sandusky, Ohio:

http://www.theprogressortimes.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=10335


Did extraterrestrial event alter the course of history?
BY DAN REINHART
For
years Sheriden Cave, west of Carey, has been recognized as one of the
foremost archaeological sites in the Americas, if not the world. At the
cave scientists have unearthed extinct animal species and artifacts
that have been undisturbed since the last ice age. 
Recently,
however, excavations by Dr. Ken Tankersley, an archaeologist from the
University of
Cincinnati, have uncovered evidence that indicate an
extraterrestrial event some 13,000 years ago may have permanently
altered the course of history in the Americas and possibly the whole
world. As a result the cave will be featured in several upcoming
documentaries on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel.

"The most interesting county."


"Wyandot County is the most interesting county in Ohio," Tankersley
told a group gathered at Woody's restaurant in Upper Sandusky Dec. 4.
Tankersley was the guest speaker at the "First Citizens Presents"
breakfast and he has appeared in documentaries on a host of television
channels including PBS, Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet
and others. He also worked on a film with the late Steve Irwin. 


Tankersley said that besides being shaped in a square because it was
the last Indian reservation in the State of Ohio, Wyandot County also
contains, at Sheriden Cave, a "complete, uninterrupted archaeological
sequence spanning the 13,000 years since the last ice age."


Tankersley said he first became interested in the area in the early
1990s. He was in New York at the time and a friend who was doing some
work at Sheriden Cave told him that excavations there had uncovered
fossils from a number of extinct species – including the short-faced
bear – that previously had never been found in the State of Ohio. 

National attention.


Excavation at the cave also uncovered a flaked stone artifact that was
dated back some 13,000 years to an ancient people known as the Clovis
culture. Tankersley said that although there are other Clovis sites in
the world, Sheriden Cave is the only site where animal fossils can be
found right alongside the flaked stone tools ancient people of the same
time period made. For that reason Sheriden Cave became a major
archaeological discovery.

 Tankersley said he originally became
involved in Sheriden Cave excavations because remnants of an ancient
peccary had been found there. He came to look at the site and after
finding a number of artifacts he wrote to the National Science
Foundation who, with the help of the Hendricks family, who own the
cave, agreed to sponsor an excavation there in 1996. 


Tankersley eventually found a number of bones that had been carved into
tools and a fluted Clovis point among the remains of various extinct
animals. He noted that some of the ancient bones found in Sheriden Cave
are fresher than you might find on a modern road-kill. "It's absolutely
incredible," he said. "They're abundant and very well preserved."

The Black Mat.


As the excavations continued workers began to uncover a lot of burnt
bones. Tankersley said that at first no one paid very much attention to
them but eventually questions were raised about how the bones got
burned. He said it was obvious that if primitive man had cooked an
animal so much that the bones were burned, no one would have wanted to
eat the meat. They concluded that the primitive people must have thrown
the bones in the fire after they were done eating. But there was no
evidence of hearths in the cave. "Why were these animal bones so
severely burned?" Tankersley asked.

 As excavators searched for
an answer to the burnt bones they began to notice an inch-thick layer
of earth in the sediment throughout the cave that was black. Scientists
were able to obtain 30 radiocarbon dates that indicated the layer of
burned material, or "Black Mat," was about 13,000 years old. It dated
to about the same time period that Clovis man and many of the
mega-beasts disappeared. (The radiocarbon dates have made Sheriden Cave
one of only 12 securely dated Clovis sites in the world.)

A new theory takes shape.


With the help of a man named Alan West, Tankersley found that Black Mat
layers have been discovered in other late Ice Age sites across the
country from the Carolinas to Texas and even into Canada. In each
instance the Black Mat of burnt material dates back to the same time
period. Furthermore, the Black Mats contain an abundance of
micrometeorites. Tankersley said that soil from the Black Mat in
Sheriden Cave contains so many magnetic, microscopic meteorites that he
can wave a child's magnet across samples of the soil and cover the
magnet with them.

 Tankersley took the Black Mat material to the
University of Cincinnati and magnified it 10,000 times through an
electron microscope. He found it was also filled with microscopic
"detonation diamonds." He said the majority of the (microscopic)
diamonds in the Black Mat are extraterrestrial.

Tankersley pointed out that when asteroids and meteorites explode over
the earth they create diamonds. He says the ones at Sheriden Cave are
either directly from objects from outer space or they are the result of
a major explosion over the earth – like a comet exploding over organic
material that compressed it and made diamonds. Tankersley said it is
increasingly likely that an asteroid or meteor is the reason for the
disappearance of the Clovis people and the mega-beasts 13,000 years ago.


Tankersley said the evidence indicates that the catastrophic event may
not have wiped out Clovis man and the mega mammals completely, but life
definitely changed and creatures that survived the event had to find a
way to exist in a changed environment. For example, there wasn't a lot
of food around and since the mega mammals required a lot of food to
survive, they had to adapt or die. He said some of the mega mammals
became smaller.

 Although evidence indicates that an asteroid
created the Black Mat, no one has ever found a crater to prove where
the event originated. Some scientists believe that Hudson Bay may
actually be the crater. 

13,000 years later.


Tankersley said that the implications for us in the 21st century are
sobering in that the impact of another history-altering asteroid with
earth is not a question of "if" it will happen, but "when" it's going
to happen next. 

 Tankersley said that some of the people from
Wyandot County who made his work at Sheriden Cave possible include
Keith Hendricks and his father Richard, Kate Orians who wrote a number
of stories about Tankersley and his work for The Progressor-Times and
Dale Stansbery of the Ohio Archaeological Council. 

 Tankersley
also noted that the latest discoveries made at Sheriden Cave will be
featured in a film on the Discovery Channel in December and another
film on the History Channel this spring.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas


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