UPDATED: January 04, 2015
By: Randall Carlson
Randall Carlson - Official Website
When Earth and Space Collide – there’s been a ‘Geocosmic
Wreck’. The transition to our current geological epoch was sudden with violent
global ramifications, and substantial data has been accumulating that
establishes Earth’s collision with some debris from outer space at that time.
We define here our perspective focused on those myriad events that occurred
around 13,000 years ago. Consider that a disintegrating comet impacting the
continental ice sheets would produce widespread catastrophic floods and
extensive torrential rains. We repeatedly venture into the North American
landscapes on research expeditions to investigate the after-effects. Now there
is additional evidence pointing to multiple devastating impact events during
this epoch, directly affecting the progression of the human chronicle. Dare to
rock some paradigms with us on a quest for “Recovering the Lost History of the
World”.
Recovering Lost History
Randall W. Carlson introduces the concepts to be addressed
in the upcoming series "Recovering Lost History" - evidence for
repeated catastrophes that have influenced or totally reset the clock on the
development of terrestrial civilizations.
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Ice Age Floods - Introduction
One of the great unresolved scientific mysteries of our time
concerns an extensive body of evidence for extraordinary catastrophic flooding
events in the very recent geological history of North America. From the Pacific
Coast of Washington State, across the mountains and prairies to the Atlantic
Coast of New England, from the region of the Great Lakes to the mouth of the
Mississippi, from the arid deserts of the Southwest to the lush forests of the
Southern Appalachians, the geomorphological tracks of tremendous floods of
truly prodigious scale are etched indelibly into the landscape. Based upon
irrefutable field evidence, these colossal floods utterly dwarf anything
experienced by modern man within historical times, and yet, by geological
standards they occurred exceptionally close to our own time, at the close of
the most recent ice age, some 11 to 14 thousand years ago. Familiarity with the
currently reigning dogmas regarding the cause of these great ice age floods
would leave the casual observer with the impression that the explanation for
this diluvial phenomenon has been more or less determined to the satisfaction
of a majority of Earth scientists and the work remaining is only in sorting out
a few particulars such as the exact number and timing of the floods. However,
it is our contention that the model of causation, which is accepted at present
by the overwhelming majority of geologists who have investigated the
phenomenon, has inherent difficulties. We argue that researchers have not yet
grasped an accurate explanation and that the currently accepted hypotheses are
beset with unexamined assumptions, inconsistencies and contradictory evidence.
The most impressive evidence for ancient megafloods is found
in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in Washington State, Idaho and western
Montana. Here the flood features are attributed to a series of events usually
referred to as the Missoula Flood, or Floods, and these are blamed upon the
repeated failure of a large ice dam that held back an enormous proglacial lake
named Lake Missoula, allowing the lake to drain suddenly. The lake is supposed
to have occupied the mountain valleys of western Montana, and to have been held
in by a large valley glacier in the region of Lake Pend O’rielle in northern
Idaho and finally to have drained to the west across southeastern Washington.
The floodwater is then assumed to have entered the great valley of the Columbia
River from whence it was conveyed to the Pacific Ocean. In the process of Lake
Missoula’s repeated draining a massive complex of erosional and depositional
features were created that have almost no parallel on Earth.
While they may have been the most spectacular, the Missoula
Floods were not the only giant flood events to have occurred in North America
as the great Ice Age drew to a close. The effects of mega scale flood flows
have been extensively documented in the eastern foothills of the Rocky
Mountains in both Canada and the U.S.; across the prairie states; in the
vicinity of the Great Lakes; in Pennsylvania and western New York and in New
England. All of the Canadian provinces preserve large-scale evidence of
gigantic water flows. All regions within or proximal to the area of the last
great glaciation show the effects of intense, mega-scale floods.
Complicating the problem is the fact that areas far removed
from the immediate proximity of the glaciers have not been spared the ravages
of gigantic floods. The arid American southwest preserves extensive evidence of
vast flooding on a scale unprecedented in modern times. The Mojave Desert of
Southern California is replete with evidence of mighty flood currents drowning
entire landscapes. Likewise the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and New Mexico
preserves evidence of mighty flood currents. One also finds in the southeastern
United States, massive erosional and depositional features in the Appalachians
that allow of no other explanation than that of colossal floods. Another great
flood is attributed to the catastrophic draining of Lake Bonneville, which,
during the latter part of the ice age occupied large intermontane basins in
Utah. The Great Salt Lake is but a diminutive remnant of this giant lake. The
passage of catastrophic floods has left their mark in Pennsylvania and Western
New York.
The scientific documentation of these great floods reaches
back into the nineteenth century, with repeated discoveries of various effects
that could not be explained by invoking modern fluvial processes operating at a
familiar scale, nor could they be explained by invoking glacial phenomenon.
It appears that much of this continent wide flooding
occurred during, or at the close of, the most recent ice age. The exact timing
of the various events remains to be established. Much of the evidence points to
episodic events stretching back tens of thousands of years. However, it also
appears that much of this continent wide mega flooding happened concurrently at
the end of the last great ice age.
Evidence for megascale flooding at the end of the most
recent ice age, is not limited to North America, but has been documented from
all over the world. This evidence supports the conclusion that large scale
super-flooding events were globally ubiquitous throughout the ice age, but
occurred with exceptional power and size at or near its conclusion. Among the
places around the planet from which proof is emerging of floods of
extraordinary size – Siberia especially, in the Altai Mountains region near the
Siberian/Mongolian border, hosts evidence for massive floods equivalent in scale
and power to the largest western USA floods. Across northern Europe megaflood
evidence is found in abundance. South America, too, shows extensive evidence
for massive catastrophic flooding in the recent geological past, as does
Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and Northern Africa. However, for the
time being, our focus will be on the great floods of North America. Eventually,
however, it will be our goal to document and correlate this imposing mass of
evidence for global catastrophe with a view to understanding its origin and
causes. Then, we will be in a better position to address the question of social
and cultural consequences.
Emerging evidence of earlier mega flood events, apparently
associated with global climate changes and transition phases from glacial to
interglacial ages implies a non random distribution in time, perhaps periodic
or cyclical.
The geographic distribution of megascale flood events also
appears to be non-random, certain areas being affected with greater intensity
than others. As stated, the Missoula Floods and Siberian floods were, as far as
can be determined from field evidence at present, the greatest known freshwater
floods in the history of the Earth. Other areas experienced floods of profound
magnitude, but, not apparently on the scale of these two events, although the
possibility of future discoveries should not be ruled out. The study of
megafloods from tsunamis is a related but distinct area of palaeoflood
hydrology, which in any comprehensive purview of catastrophism must be
addressed. However, for now we shall limit our discussion to floods involving
fresh water, meaning events related to glacial melting or rainfall.
The Missoula floods were the most powerful of the great
North American floods. The vast scale, the complexity and the sheer magnitude
of the forces involved bestow upon these mighty events a preeminent ranking in
any accounting of Earth’s great catastrophes. Even a preliminary acquaintance
with the awe-inspiring after effects of this extraordinary deluge can provoke a
deep sense of wonder and astonishment. Through a more prolonged acquaintance
with this landscape and the story that it tells, comes a humbling realization
of the almost inconceivable power of the natural forces involved. No flood
events even remotely close in scale are documented from anywhere within
historical times. They were one of the most significant geological occurrences
in the history of the earth. Their magnitude and the release of energies
involved rank them with the greatest forces of nature of which we are aware.
For a perspective on this refer to these graphs. But again, what renders these
diluvial events of exceptional importance and interest is that they occurred
only yesterday in the span of geological time, and, most significantly, well
within the time of Man.
Let us place the great floods in context. The final phase of
the last ice age, the Late Wisconsin, as it is called in reference to North
America’s version of the Great Ice Age, came to a conclusion only some 12,000
to 14,000 years ago. While the effects of the ice age were global, the Late
Wisconsin itself was the last episode of major ice expansion in North America
at the close of the larger cycle of glacial climate called simply the
Wisconsin, The final phase known as the Late Wisconsin appears to have lasted
from approximately 25 or 26 thousand years before present to around 10 to 12
thousand years before present, depending upon how one defines the precise point
of termination. The entire Wisconsin Ice Age lasted for around 100,000 years.
While the timing and extent of glacial recessions and expansions throughout the
Wisconsin Ice Age is still being worked out, it is clear that the fluctuations
of climate and glacial mass during this time were considerably greater than that
experience within historical times.
Three ice ages in North America that were earlier than the
Wisconsin have been documented by geologists and named after the states in
which their glacial effects are best preserved. From oldest to youngest they
were the Nebraskan, the Kansan and the Illinoian. Each of these glacial ages
was separated from the next by distinct interglacial periods. The warm interval
preceding the Wisconsin Ice Age and following the Illinoian is called the
Sangamonian. The European counterpart of the Wisconsin Ice Age is called the
Würm, which has been extensively documented in the Alps.
The signature of the Wisconsin Ice Age was, obviously, the
presence of huge volumes of glacial ice where no such ice now exists. In North
America this was most of Canada and a substantial amount of the northern United
States. The northern boundary of the great North American ice sheet reached to
the Arctic Ocean. From there south to the area now occupied by the Great Lakes
the entire region was entirely buried under glacial ice. At the southern
glacial margin the ice reached almost to the Ohio River in the eastern half of
the U.S. New York lay under a half mile to a mile of ice. Most of the states of
Wisconsin and Minnesota were buried as well as the Dakotas. The ice reached out
of Canada across what is now the border, from Montana to the Pacific Ocean,
with several major incursions further south in Idaho along the Rocky Mountains
and in Washington State. Great glaciers also occupied many areas of the Cascades
and the Sierra Nevada mountains. In all, some 6 million square miles was buried
beneath a mantle of ice, about the same size as that now occupying the South
Polar Region on Antarctica. Reference to this map will help to give you the big
picture of the Late Wisconsin Ice Age.
At the peak of the Late Wisconsin, around 18,000 to 15,000
years before present, the great ice mass reached from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. However, there were actually two separate ice sheets that began
separately some 5 to 7 thousand years earlier and eventually grew until they
coalesced near the final stage of the Late Wisconsin. The easternmost and the
larger of the two was named the Laurentide Ice sheet after a region in Quebec
where it appears the ice first began accumulating. This ice sheet appears to
have formed from the convergence of two centers of nucleation and outflow, one
center to the east of present day Hudson Bay and one to the west. A separate
ice sheet formed over the Canadian Rockies and has been designated the
Cordilleran Ice Sheet by glaciologists after the collective term for the great
mountain chain that forms both the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. As the Late
Wisconsin reached its maximum it appears that these three ice sheets coalesced
in an essentially single mass. One controversial question relates to the timing
and extent of an ice free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice
sheets, either prior to their convergence, or after, during the retreat phase.
A supposition would be that humans could have utilized such an ice free
corridor to migrate to the lower United States from Alaska, after crossing the
Bering Land Bridge, which, of course, was exposed during the lowered sea levels
of the Ice Age.
As described in more detail elsewhere, through most of the
late Nineteenth century and the first half of the Twentieth, it was believed
that the most recent ice age was essentially an unbroken episode of global
cooling and ice growth which for the most part continued uninterrupted for some
150 thousand years, or longer. It was also believed that the transitions into
and out of an ice age were protracted episodes lasting tens of thousands of
years.
However, during the second half of the Twentieth Century,
with improved dating, and with more precise and detailed stratigraphy
available, it became apparent that the climate changes associated with the
onset and termination of ice ages occurred much more rapidly than believed by
earlier workers. As the Twentieth Century drew to a close, high-resolution records
bore witness to climate changes that occurred with astonishing speed and
severity.
The most recent episode of widespread catastrophic flooding
occurred at the termination the Late Wisconsin. Some of these floods were
associated directly with melting of the glacial ice. Others are only indirectly
linked to glacial melting. The most
powerful of the terminal ice age floods was the complex of events known as the
Missoula Flood, although current theory would suggest a much more complex
series of floods rather than a single large scale event. The effects of the
Missoula Floods can be found imprinted upon the landscape of the Pacific
Northwest from western Montana to the Pacific Ocean, and, in addition to
Montana include the states of Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Our intention will
be to convey an understanding of these awesome floods and to raise some
questions concerning important issues that have not yet been answered, nor even
addressed under the current state of research.
The other catastrophic floods which occurred during this
period of transition out of the ice age, roughly from 13,000 to 11,000 years
ago, will be examined in an effort to understand the phenomenon accompanying
the end of the Great Ice Age, and which, hopefully, will shed light on the most
important question, which remains “What factor, or combination of factors,
brought about the abrupt and extreme climate changes which terminated the ice
age, and provoked catastrophic melting of the ice complex?”
Our purposes will be several— first, to acquaint the
interested catastrophist researcher with the field evidence which proves the
reality of the great floods; second—to present a summary of the scientific
thinking and research to date; third—to call into question some of the ingrained
dogmas that are invoked in the effort to explain these floods by means of
familiar, known processes; and, finally—to offer an alternative hypothesis, one
that we believe better fits the evidence and makes greater sense, albeit one
that invokes forces from outside the experience of modern historical man.
Visit Randall Carlson’s Official Website to keep up to date
with his important venture.
Randall Carlson – Official Website
Randal Carlson – Introduction to a Catastrophist
Randall W. Carlson discusses the influences that led him to
become a Catastrophist, believing that earth's history and man's development
have been impacted repeatedly by sudden disasters such as asteroid and comet
strikes, massive volcanic eruptions, mega-floods and climate shifts. His early
life experiences, and his later studies, have driven him to learn about the
processes that shape our planet, and the dangers it faces in the cosmic
environment. He is passionate about raising awareness of catastrophe as a
regular function of the geocosmic system, and its influence on human
civilization.
Links:
Randall Carlson – Official Website
GeoCosmic Rex - YouTube
Showemaker-Levy 9 - NASA
