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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: What created the Carolina Bays in N & S Carolina, USA?
« on: 14/03/2015 05:05:15 »
Been working on my hypothesis and may try to get it published: There are circular or oval depressions all over the world. Most are ringed with borders of apparently eroded materials. They are found in regions of freezing cold and intense heat, in regions of considerable moisture and scorching deserts. They range in size from a few acres to thousands, from 200 feet to 5 miles across and more.
Many hypothesis are offered to explain their formation. From comet or meteor impacts, through freeze-thaw activity and melting glacial boulders, along with chemical reactions and giant fish nests or beaver ponds, with prehistoric winds and water activity becoming more plausible. (1)
Many depressions are found along the Eastern Seaboard, from Cape Cod into Georgia. They are known locally by different names, but in North and South Carolina they are Carolina Bays. (2)
Carolina Bays' borders can be 24 feet high or more, with substantial width at the downhill end. These borders often contain large amounts of quartz or white sand. (3)
One hypothesis has these depressions created by impacts from fragments of comets or meteors. (4) Many claim their largely NW-SE orientation resulted when a cosmic object blew up overhead. Later, others claimed they resulted from glacial ice blown outward after a cosmic impact in the Great Lakes region. This hypothesis also claims the rims resulted when impacts displaced the soil. (5)
However, layers of sediment show no impact displacement and elevated rims are nearly uniform in altitude, within a few feet, over rim circumferences of 15 miles or more. There are also circular depressions and some ovals are E – W in their orientation; near Bethel, NC, for example. (6)
Another popular hypothesis is based on water freezing in loose soils, claiming this produces surface expansion or Frost Heaves, which would then thaw and shrink, forming Thermokarst depressions. However, Frost Heaves are small in comparison to Carolina Bays. In addition, Frost Heaves seldom produce raised borders and have never occurred in warmer regions where depressions with borders are common; South Carolina for example. (7)
Some claim that repeated cycles of Freeze-Thaw will enlarge and deepen depressions, then intense NW winds will break up surface ice on water filled depressions and cause ice flows to grind against shallow bottoms. Then these NW winds are said to carry bottom deposits onto the shores, supposedly producing the wider SE rims.
This might make sense for some, but not for a Carolina Bay with thousands of surface acres and a rim height little different than others far smaller in area. For example, Lake Waccamaw, NC, originally a depression 5.77 by 3.37 miles, some 14,000 acres or 22 square miles in area, with a uniform rim height around 39 feet.
Step outside and look towards an object five miles distant, then try to imagine a Frost Heave that large in South Carolina or anywhere else.
Another related “Theory” is the origin of Kettle Holes or Kettle Lakes and wetlands, with as many as 365 identified in Cape Cod alone. They are found in regions of the world once glaciated in the past, including Indiana and Nebraska, Canada and Alaska. Here again we have many circular to oval depressions, often ringed with deposits of materials, similar to Carolina Bays. Again, mostly one mile or less across, with a few up to six miles across. (
Kettle Hole origin theory, still taught in northern schools of geology, is that ice boulders, calved from retreating glaciers, are responsible. They claim these boulders, some six miles across, sank into soft ground and thawed in place. Some claim they may have existed for thousands of years before finally melting and forming depressions.
I have vacationed in Alaska and closely observed many slowly melting, retreating glaciers. No ice boulders were seen or reported. Not much support for glacier boulders supposedly breaking off from melting rivers of ice on land. Again, look outside to a point six miles distant and think.
Meanwhile, deposits of materials around Kettle Hole margins, called ramparts, are said to result from sudden floods of sediments, occurring when ice dams break. These floods are called Jokulhaups. Since Kettle Hole rims are fairly uniform, this is highly unlikely.
The Violent Winds hypothesis has supporters making convincing demonstrations as to how these winds blew circular depressions into the soil. Unfortunately, the rims of Carolina Bays, Kettle Holes, etc., are very uniform in altitude, which makes such a uniform displacement by winds in every direction an impossible feat, especially when concentric rims are seen within rims formed during an earlier period. (9)
A more scientific hypothesis claims depressions resulted from a chemical reaction subsidence or shrinkage in alluvial deposits. The mechanism is said to be effusing hydrogen gas, which is so reactive that it can split the oxides out of other minerals, hydrogen and silicon-oxide for one. This produces water (HOH) which is said to evaporate and shrink the volume of surface deposits. Makes sense, but, again, this fails to explain the elevated rims of materials.
LIDAR measurements of surface elevations indicate depressions are more aligned with the slope of the land in which they formed, in addition to having rims or borders at nearly the same altitude completely around the depression's circumference. The greatest deposits are found at downhill ends and the least at uphill ends, which is how materials erode from elevated surfaces, whether the oval orientation is NE – SW, E – W or N – S. (6)
Apparently, no current hypothesis or “theory” for the formation of Carolina Bays is valid, when their raised borders are considered. Especially after Optically Stimulated Luminescence was used to date the ages of their borders. These dates ranged from 7,000 to 140,000 years in rims sampled in South Carolina.
Then consider that many rims overlap the rims of other depressions with different ages. There are also “Ghost Bays,” with their depressions completely filled in and their barely visible borders leveled by erosion. (10) These may be millions of years old, but their borders have yet to be dated.
My hypothesis is that these depressions, whether Carolina Bays or Kettle Holes or Russian Seeps, developed after land was elevated by internal gas pressures; which would increase porosity and volume. Eventually, wind and/or water eroded the elevated land and surface materials washed down the sides of these elevated parcels, collecting around their margins.
Later, with a reduction of gas pressures, the now eroded surface deflated, resulting in a depression surrounded by a raised border. One recent example of land elevated by gases appeared off the coast of Pakistan on September 13, 2013. Previous examples exhibiting the same behavior in the same region have since eroded and become depressions with borders. (11)
This hypothesis is supported by the physical fact that measurable amounts of flammable gas vent not only from the Pakistan “island”, but continue to vent inside borders of Carolina Bays, with little or no gas flow found outside. In Russia, the same behavior of flammable gas seeps was identified in depressions similar to Carolina Bays, with another depression appearing there during the last decade. (12) This investigation was published in the peer reviewed journal NATURAL RESOURCES RESEARCH.
Critical evidence appears in concentric rims occurring in the center of larger depressions. OSL dating established the fact that interior rims are progressively younger, reflecting a regressive sequence over time. This proves these depressions are not the result of a single impact, freeze-thaw event or violent winds, but instead evolved due to a process that was active episodically over a long period of time. The very fact that concentric rims exist, with younger ages than those of outer rims, reinforces the possibility of sub-surface forces being responsible.
The mechanism which elevates surface areas can be found in another hypothesis of mine, gaseous emissions inside Earth created by the sun's and moon's gravitational attraction. Gravity produces land tides twice each day inside the crust. Earth's surface at the equator rises and falls around 8 inches. This is evidenced by twice daily pressure changes within the earth; observed by drillers of boreholes over many years. (13)
While crustal distortion is less at Carolina latitudes, the stress on materials inside the crust must still be substantial. One result of this stress is the effusion of atomic hydrogen contained within sub-surface crystals. This produces molecular hydrogen between the crystals, creating expanded pores or spaces within the earth. Obviously, expansion within sedimentary pores may elevate surface layers. This gaseous expansion activity is known as Hydrogen Embrittlement. (14)
My partners, Viacheslav Zgonnik and Nikolay Larin drilled small boreholes into many North and South Carolina depressions and also outside their borders. Then they measured emerging gas flow. In one Carolina Bay of 998 acres, gas flow inside depression was estimated at 52 tons per day while gas flow outside its borders was nil. The composition of this gas was verified by laboratory analysis to be largely hydrogen. Previously, they measured hydrogen flows in Kettle Holes in Nebraska and in earlier in Russian Seeps (12), being the only scientists to do that. (Publication pending peer review.)
Summary: Internal gas pressures can elevate a portion of land, sometimes 20 square miles in area. Over time, eroded materials from elevated surfaces will collect around its margin. Eventually, reduced gas pressures will allow the eroded, elevated portion to collapse into a depression. The surrounding materials often remain as a raised rim or border indicative of a Carolina Bay or Kettle Hole or Russian Seep type depression. References follow:
1. Review of different explanations for the formation of Carolina Bays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Bay
2. SOILS AND NEAR SURFACE GEOLOGY OF CAROLINA BAYS: A REVIEW http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/5874/1/chapter1.pdf
3. South Carolina Department of Natural Resources report on Carolina Bays: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/wetlands/carolinabays.html
4. Interpreting Carolina Bays as Glacier Ice impacts
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/etc/carolina-bays/carolina-bays.html
5. Corelating the Orientation of Carolina bays to a Cosmic Impact
http://cintos.org/SaginawManifold/Distal_Ejecta/CarolinaBays/index.html
6. National Elevation Dataset: http://ned.usgs.gov/
7. Detailed analysis of Frost Heaves: www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA295688
8. Brief review of Kettle Holes or Lakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_(landform)
9. Magnificent LIDAR images of depressions along the Easter Seaboard as well as in Nebraska, said to result from violent winds: http://cintos.org/LiDAR_images/
10. Report on possible effects of masses of ice bouncing back from major celestial impact in the Great Lakes region, resulting in Carolina Bays, including “Ghost Bays”: http://www.georgehoward.net/cbays.htm Item 14.
11. Recent island that emerged off coast of Gwadar, Pakistan “emits flammable gas” :
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24272552 Photos and size of island: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/10/06/new-photos-pakistan-earthquake-island/
12. Investigation into Hydrogen seeps in Russia. http://hydrogen-future.com/en/news-en/51-articlehydrogenseeps-en.html
13. Explanation of Sun-moon earth tidal gravitational effects: https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/tides.htm
14. Detailed report on the manner in which hydrogen can pass through as well as be stored within other materials, i.e. Hydrides: http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak8/wwm/research/phd_barnoush/hydrogen.pdf
Many hypothesis are offered to explain their formation. From comet or meteor impacts, through freeze-thaw activity and melting glacial boulders, along with chemical reactions and giant fish nests or beaver ponds, with prehistoric winds and water activity becoming more plausible. (1)
Many depressions are found along the Eastern Seaboard, from Cape Cod into Georgia. They are known locally by different names, but in North and South Carolina they are Carolina Bays. (2)
Carolina Bays' borders can be 24 feet high or more, with substantial width at the downhill end. These borders often contain large amounts of quartz or white sand. (3)
One hypothesis has these depressions created by impacts from fragments of comets or meteors. (4) Many claim their largely NW-SE orientation resulted when a cosmic object blew up overhead. Later, others claimed they resulted from glacial ice blown outward after a cosmic impact in the Great Lakes region. This hypothesis also claims the rims resulted when impacts displaced the soil. (5)
However, layers of sediment show no impact displacement and elevated rims are nearly uniform in altitude, within a few feet, over rim circumferences of 15 miles or more. There are also circular depressions and some ovals are E – W in their orientation; near Bethel, NC, for example. (6)
Another popular hypothesis is based on water freezing in loose soils, claiming this produces surface expansion or Frost Heaves, which would then thaw and shrink, forming Thermokarst depressions. However, Frost Heaves are small in comparison to Carolina Bays. In addition, Frost Heaves seldom produce raised borders and have never occurred in warmer regions where depressions with borders are common; South Carolina for example. (7)
Some claim that repeated cycles of Freeze-Thaw will enlarge and deepen depressions, then intense NW winds will break up surface ice on water filled depressions and cause ice flows to grind against shallow bottoms. Then these NW winds are said to carry bottom deposits onto the shores, supposedly producing the wider SE rims.
This might make sense for some, but not for a Carolina Bay with thousands of surface acres and a rim height little different than others far smaller in area. For example, Lake Waccamaw, NC, originally a depression 5.77 by 3.37 miles, some 14,000 acres or 22 square miles in area, with a uniform rim height around 39 feet.
Step outside and look towards an object five miles distant, then try to imagine a Frost Heave that large in South Carolina or anywhere else.
Another related “Theory” is the origin of Kettle Holes or Kettle Lakes and wetlands, with as many as 365 identified in Cape Cod alone. They are found in regions of the world once glaciated in the past, including Indiana and Nebraska, Canada and Alaska. Here again we have many circular to oval depressions, often ringed with deposits of materials, similar to Carolina Bays. Again, mostly one mile or less across, with a few up to six miles across. (
Kettle Hole origin theory, still taught in northern schools of geology, is that ice boulders, calved from retreating glaciers, are responsible. They claim these boulders, some six miles across, sank into soft ground and thawed in place. Some claim they may have existed for thousands of years before finally melting and forming depressions.
I have vacationed in Alaska and closely observed many slowly melting, retreating glaciers. No ice boulders were seen or reported. Not much support for glacier boulders supposedly breaking off from melting rivers of ice on land. Again, look outside to a point six miles distant and think.
Meanwhile, deposits of materials around Kettle Hole margins, called ramparts, are said to result from sudden floods of sediments, occurring when ice dams break. These floods are called Jokulhaups. Since Kettle Hole rims are fairly uniform, this is highly unlikely.
The Violent Winds hypothesis has supporters making convincing demonstrations as to how these winds blew circular depressions into the soil. Unfortunately, the rims of Carolina Bays, Kettle Holes, etc., are very uniform in altitude, which makes such a uniform displacement by winds in every direction an impossible feat, especially when concentric rims are seen within rims formed during an earlier period. (9)
A more scientific hypothesis claims depressions resulted from a chemical reaction subsidence or shrinkage in alluvial deposits. The mechanism is said to be effusing hydrogen gas, which is so reactive that it can split the oxides out of other minerals, hydrogen and silicon-oxide for one. This produces water (HOH) which is said to evaporate and shrink the volume of surface deposits. Makes sense, but, again, this fails to explain the elevated rims of materials.
LIDAR measurements of surface elevations indicate depressions are more aligned with the slope of the land in which they formed, in addition to having rims or borders at nearly the same altitude completely around the depression's circumference. The greatest deposits are found at downhill ends and the least at uphill ends, which is how materials erode from elevated surfaces, whether the oval orientation is NE – SW, E – W or N – S. (6)
Apparently, no current hypothesis or “theory” for the formation of Carolina Bays is valid, when their raised borders are considered. Especially after Optically Stimulated Luminescence was used to date the ages of their borders. These dates ranged from 7,000 to 140,000 years in rims sampled in South Carolina.
Then consider that many rims overlap the rims of other depressions with different ages. There are also “Ghost Bays,” with their depressions completely filled in and their barely visible borders leveled by erosion. (10) These may be millions of years old, but their borders have yet to be dated.
My hypothesis is that these depressions, whether Carolina Bays or Kettle Holes or Russian Seeps, developed after land was elevated by internal gas pressures; which would increase porosity and volume. Eventually, wind and/or water eroded the elevated land and surface materials washed down the sides of these elevated parcels, collecting around their margins.
Later, with a reduction of gas pressures, the now eroded surface deflated, resulting in a depression surrounded by a raised border. One recent example of land elevated by gases appeared off the coast of Pakistan on September 13, 2013. Previous examples exhibiting the same behavior in the same region have since eroded and become depressions with borders. (11)
This hypothesis is supported by the physical fact that measurable amounts of flammable gas vent not only from the Pakistan “island”, but continue to vent inside borders of Carolina Bays, with little or no gas flow found outside. In Russia, the same behavior of flammable gas seeps was identified in depressions similar to Carolina Bays, with another depression appearing there during the last decade. (12) This investigation was published in the peer reviewed journal NATURAL RESOURCES RESEARCH.
Critical evidence appears in concentric rims occurring in the center of larger depressions. OSL dating established the fact that interior rims are progressively younger, reflecting a regressive sequence over time. This proves these depressions are not the result of a single impact, freeze-thaw event or violent winds, but instead evolved due to a process that was active episodically over a long period of time. The very fact that concentric rims exist, with younger ages than those of outer rims, reinforces the possibility of sub-surface forces being responsible.
The mechanism which elevates surface areas can be found in another hypothesis of mine, gaseous emissions inside Earth created by the sun's and moon's gravitational attraction. Gravity produces land tides twice each day inside the crust. Earth's surface at the equator rises and falls around 8 inches. This is evidenced by twice daily pressure changes within the earth; observed by drillers of boreholes over many years. (13)
While crustal distortion is less at Carolina latitudes, the stress on materials inside the crust must still be substantial. One result of this stress is the effusion of atomic hydrogen contained within sub-surface crystals. This produces molecular hydrogen between the crystals, creating expanded pores or spaces within the earth. Obviously, expansion within sedimentary pores may elevate surface layers. This gaseous expansion activity is known as Hydrogen Embrittlement. (14)
My partners, Viacheslav Zgonnik and Nikolay Larin drilled small boreholes into many North and South Carolina depressions and also outside their borders. Then they measured emerging gas flow. In one Carolina Bay of 998 acres, gas flow inside depression was estimated at 52 tons per day while gas flow outside its borders was nil. The composition of this gas was verified by laboratory analysis to be largely hydrogen. Previously, they measured hydrogen flows in Kettle Holes in Nebraska and in earlier in Russian Seeps (12), being the only scientists to do that. (Publication pending peer review.)
Summary: Internal gas pressures can elevate a portion of land, sometimes 20 square miles in area. Over time, eroded materials from elevated surfaces will collect around its margin. Eventually, reduced gas pressures will allow the eroded, elevated portion to collapse into a depression. The surrounding materials often remain as a raised rim or border indicative of a Carolina Bay or Kettle Hole or Russian Seep type depression. References follow:
1. Review of different explanations for the formation of Carolina Bays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Bay
2. SOILS AND NEAR SURFACE GEOLOGY OF CAROLINA BAYS: A REVIEW http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/5874/1/chapter1.pdf
3. South Carolina Department of Natural Resources report on Carolina Bays: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/wetlands/carolinabays.html
4. Interpreting Carolina Bays as Glacier Ice impacts
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/etc/carolina-bays/carolina-bays.html
5. Corelating the Orientation of Carolina bays to a Cosmic Impact
http://cintos.org/SaginawManifold/Distal_Ejecta/CarolinaBays/index.html
6. National Elevation Dataset: http://ned.usgs.gov/
7. Detailed analysis of Frost Heaves: www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA295688
8. Brief review of Kettle Holes or Lakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_(landform)
9. Magnificent LIDAR images of depressions along the Easter Seaboard as well as in Nebraska, said to result from violent winds: http://cintos.org/LiDAR_images/
10. Report on possible effects of masses of ice bouncing back from major celestial impact in the Great Lakes region, resulting in Carolina Bays, including “Ghost Bays”: http://www.georgehoward.net/cbays.htm Item 14.
11. Recent island that emerged off coast of Gwadar, Pakistan “emits flammable gas” :
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24272552 Photos and size of island: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/10/06/new-photos-pakistan-earthquake-island/
12. Investigation into Hydrogen seeps in Russia. http://hydrogen-future.com/en/news-en/51-articlehydrogenseeps-en.html
13. Explanation of Sun-moon earth tidal gravitational effects: https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/tides.htm
14. Detailed report on the manner in which hydrogen can pass through as well as be stored within other materials, i.e. Hydrides: http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak8/wwm/research/phd_barnoush/hydrogen.pdf