EnK Aliens  Erasmus and Kinkajou Learning to Survive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tsunamis

Kinkajou:Kinkajou. So tell us about what you think are the most destructive disasters.
Erasmus: Erasmus. I think the “Tsunami” would be the top destructive event across a large geographic area. Deprivation of oxygen kills people within three minutes. People caught by 10 to 30 m high waves and tangled in vegetation have a very low probability of survival as can be seen by the death rates witnessed in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.

 

 

Tsunami Damage

Tsunami Damage

(This event was actually an underwater earthquake causing a tsunami). In the heavily damaged communities, tsunami mortality was extremely high. In about one quarter of these communities more than 70% of the population died. Before this the last major tsunami in the Indian Ocean was about A.D. 1400.

However there are a number of other major contenders for lethal disasters throughout history.


Prior to 2004, the most significant natural disaster was the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. It was the third most powerful earthquake recorded since the year 1900.

The deadliest-known earthquake in history occurred in 1556 in Shaanxi, China, with an estimated death toll of 830,000, (although figures from this far back in history may be quite unreliable).


The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was thought to have caused somewhere between 36,000 to 120,000 deaths, the deaths largely being due to secondary tsunami development.

 


In 1782, about 40,000 people are thought to have been killed by a tsunami (or a cyclone) in the South China Sea.

KrakatoaKrakatoa


The deadliest tsunami before 2004 was Italy's 1908 Messina earthquake on the Mediterranean Sea where the earthquake and tsunami killed about 123,000.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. So we have a number of contenders for worst or most lethal natural disasters. These include tsunamis, earthquakes, cyclones, flooding, and no one has even mentioned meteorite impact.

Let's focus on the destructiveness of Tsunamis and Meteors with a view to looking how such events in context of The Deluge cause rain, dark skies and human deaths.


Erasmus: Erasmus. The most significant meteor event in modern era is the Tunguska event . This was an explosion equivalent to approximately 12 megatons in eastern Siberia of Russia on the morning of 30th of June 1908.

It is estimated that over 80 million trees over an area of over 2000 km² were flattened by the explosion. We generally believe the explosion to have been due to a meteor air burst of a stony asteroid of approximately 50 to 60 m in diameter, approaching the earth with a speed of approximately 27 km/s. We believe the object disintegrated an altitude of 5 to 10 km, rather than having hit the surface of the earth.

It is the largest impact event in Earth’s humanly recorded history, though much larger impacts are known to have occurred in prehistoric times. The classic event is the impact that heralded the end of the era of the dinosaurs.


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. I have here a witness’s description of events. It gives some unusual insights. The witness reports an iron lock being snapped on a building. The sounds of an explosion were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of kilometres away.

At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it - as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres.

I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped.


Erasmus: Erasmus. Sound from the blast (air pressure waves) was detected throughout Europe and the United Kingdom and as far away as Batavia, the Dutch East Indies and even as far as Washington DC. The shockwave was equivalent to an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale. So in spite of its destructiveness, it had substantially less energy than the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.


For several days, the night skies in Asia and Europe were aglow sufficiently to allow “daytime” photographs to be successfully taken at midnight without the aid of flashbulbs. It is believed that this sustained glowing effect is due to light passing through high-altitude ice particles injected into the upper atmosphere by the energy of the explosion, (a mushroom cloud effect). In the US, the Mount Wilson Observatory in California observed a months long decrease in atmospheric transparency consistent with an increase in suspended dust particles.
Goo: Goo the Numbat. So it becomes obvious that there are complex interactions between disaster events and the effects on people. Tsunamis are deadly because they deprive people of oxygen. Three minutes and game over. But there are also regional environmental effects.

With meteor / comet strikes , dust and water vapour become ice and are injected into the upper atmosphere over large regions of the planet. The death and destruction to flora and fauna would impact many communities ability to feed themselves, in a substantial event.


But probably the most interest to me, is the human centric attitude towards disasters. Very few people consider the Tunguska event as much of a disaster because very few people died. The meteorite impacted on an inhabited part of the planet, killing less than a dozen people. No one counts the animals and the trees and the impact on the environment.


Dr Axxxx: Dr Axxxx.  Humans always do look to themselves as being the most significant thing in their environment. A very selfish point of view. A very human centric point of view.
Kinkajou:Kinkajou. Let’s go back to analysing the Indian Ocean Tsunami .

House Banda Aceh House at Banda Aceh


Erasmus: Erasmus. The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 is the most destructive and most known tsunami in the world. A 9.1 magnitude undersea earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra created a series of events ocean waves (tsunamis) which devastated coastal areas throughout southern Asia and East Africa.

Waves generally reached a height of 9 m when they hit the shoreline. Along parts of the west coast of Aceh in Indonesia, the tsunami waves removed bark from trees up to 13 m tall. The tsunami waves reached many coastal communities within a few minutes of the quake occurring.


The waves traveled up river valleys up to 6 to 9 km from the river delta.


The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake occurring when a 1200 km section of the Earth’s crust shifted beneath the Indian Ocean. It is calculated that the energy released is equivalent to over 23,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. In one of our later pages we discuss using meteors to melt earth's ice. Each of the cometstrikes we propose would have an energy in the 1000+ megaton range - energies equivalent to the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

 

Speeds of 500km/h were reached as the tsunamis radiated through the Indian Ocean.

In the worst cases, the waves reached over 20-30m.

Ship Flung Inland 2600 Tons Ship Flung Inland 2600 Tons

Kinkajou:Kinkajou. Describe some of the damage experienced by the locals.
Erasmus: Erasmus. Indonesia


The Aceh province of Indonesia suffered the most damage and the worst casualties of any region in the world. The tsunami wave hit the region minutes after the earthquake.


The tsunami devastated the coastline of Aceh province, about 20 minutes after the earthquake, with flow depths of up to 10 m. Banda Aceh, the closest major city, suffered severe casualties. Local eyewitnesses described three large waves, with the first wave rising gently to the foundation of the buildings, followed minutes later by a sudden withdrawal of the sea .

This was succeeded by the appearance of two large black-coloured steep waves which then traveled inland into the capital city as a large turbulent bore. Eyewitnesses described the tsunami as a "black giant", "mountain" and a "wall of water".

 


The area toward the sea was wiped clean of nearly every structure, while closer to the river, dense construction in a commercial district showed the effects of severe flooding. Footage showed evidence of back-flooding of the Aceh River, carrying debris and people from destroyed villages at the coast and transporting them up to 40 km (25 mi) inland.

Mosque Banda Aceh Mosque Banda Aceh


In Lhoknga is a small coastal community south-west of Banda Aceh , locals reported 10 to 12 waves, with the second and third being the highest and most destructive. In the distant horizon, a gigantic black wave about 30 m (98 ft.) high, made explosion-like sounds as it broke and approached the shore.

Overturned Ship Lhoknga Indonesia Overturned Ship - Lhoknga Indonesia
The second and third waves were 15–30 m (49–98 ft.) high at the coast and appeared like gigantic surfing waves but were "taller than the coconut trees and looked like a mountain according to witnesses.

Apung 1, a 2,600-ton vessel, was flung some 2 km (1.2 mi) to 3 km (1.9 mi) inland. In the years following the disaster, it became a local tourist attraction and has remained where it came to rest.

 

Baiturrahim Mosque survived the tsunami in Ulee Lheue, Banda Aceh
The tsunami heights in Sumatra:
* 15–30 m (49–98 ft.) on the west coast of Aceh
* 6–12 m (20–39 ft.) on the Banda Aceh coast
* 6 m (20 ft.) on the Krueng Raya coast
* 5 m (16 ft.) on the Sigli coast
* 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft.) on the north coast of Weh Island directly facing the tsunami source
* 3 m (9.8 ft.) on the opposite side of the coast of Weh Island facing the tsunami

Erasmus: Erasmus. Thailand

The tsunami heights in Thailand
* 6–10 m (20–33 ft.) in Khao Lak
* 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft.) along the west coast of Phuket island
* 3 m (9.8 ft.) along the south coast of Phuket island
* 2 m (6 ft. 7 in) along the east coast of Phuket island

Patong Beach Thailand Patong Beach Thailand

* 4–6 m (13–20 ft.) on the Phi Phi Islands
* 19.6 m (64 ft.) at Ban Thung Dap
* 5 m (16 ft.) at Ramson
* 6.8 m (22 ft.) at Ban Thale Nok
* 5 m (16 ft.) at Hat Praphat (Ranong Coastal Resources Research Station)
* 6.3 m (21 ft.) at Thai Mueang District
* 6.8 m (22 ft.) at Rai Dan

Thai Navy Boat 2 km Inland Thai Navy Boat 2 km Inland

The tsunami in Khao Lak was bigger due to offshore coral reefs and shallow seafloor which caused the tsunami to pile-up. Scuba divers caught by the tsunami near the offshore islands like the Similan Islands and the Surin Islands report being caught in violent swirling currents.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. An interesting point of view. To be underneath the tsunami, rather than being in front of it.

Fishing Boat Sri Lanka Fishing boat stranded in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

Thai Navy boat stranded almost 2 km (1.2 mi) inland: Thailand

Erasmus: Erasmus. India
In Velankanni India, pilgrims near the Catholic Basilica were struck by the tsunami around 9:30 AM on Sunday. The receding tsunami waters swept away hundreds of pilgrims on the beach, people in the shrine’s compound, nearby villages and hundreds of shops and homes. Approximately 600 pilgrims died. Rescue teams extricated more than 400 bodies in the sand and rocks in the vicinity.

 

Erasmus: Erasmus. Maldives
The Maldives are comprised of approximately 1200 low-lying islands and atolls at a distance of approximately 2500 km from the earthquake epicentre. Most of the islands are less than 1 m above sea level Approximately 280 of the island and atolls are inhabited.
After the tsunami, concern developed that the country might become uninhabitable due to the damage to the water supplies. An estimated 62,000 groundwater wells were contaminated by seawater, and by wastewater and sewage, rendering them useless. Efforts to pump-out and clean wells were compounded by the fact that, in many cases, ground water aquifers were also contaminated. Seawater contaminating affected soils made agricultural fields unsuitable for farming in the medium to long term.

The highest tsunami wave measured was 4 m (13 ft.) at Vilufushi Island. The tsunami arrived approximately 2 hours after the earthquake. Human casualties were low. This is generally attributed to the coral reefs reducing the strength of the tsunami wave.

Erasmus: Erasmus. Somalia
The tsunami traveled 5,000 km (3,100 mi) west across the open ocean before striking the East African country of Somalia. Around 289 fatalities were reported in the Horn of Africa, drowned by four tsunami waves .


Erasmus: Erasmus. Australia
Tidal surges also occurred along the Western Australian coast that lasted for several hours, resulting in boats losing their moorings and two people needing to be rescued.

Kinkajou:Kinkajou. So tell us more about the tsunami and the deaths that it caused

Erasmus: Erasmus. . Here is a list of casualties for the main affected countries.

Casualties Listing
Casualties Listing in Tsunami

Tsunami Deaths

Tsunami Deaths: Percent Dead by Age, Sex and Extent of Damage

 

 

The mortality profile by age is U-shaped for males, which is consistent with the hypothesis that strength and swimming ability played a key role in determining survival in the face of the tsunami. In contrast, the age profile for females is much flatter.


Mortality is lowest for adult males in their twenties. Within this age group males are about 10 percentage points less likely to die than females. Gender gaps are narrower among children (<15) and among adults 45 and older, who have the highest mortality.


Death is less likely if a person from a physically stronger demographic group was available to help – such as a prime-age male – and that death was more likely in the presence of people in even more need of assistance – such as older women.

The picture that emerges is not one in which household members panicked blindly, but rather one of families in which stronger members sought to help those they could – in some cases successfully,

The worst-affected areas were low-lying communities within a few kilometres from the coast, and these were largely destroyed. Further inland, uphill and in topographically sheltered areas, flooding damaged many structures and deposited enormous quantities of debris. In the latter areas a larger proportion of the population survived. Dense vegetation behind villages endangered human lives and increased structural damage.

Distance to coast was the dominant determinant of impact (casualties and infrastructure damage). Existing coastal vegetation in front of settlements also significantly reduced casualties.

Distance to  Shore related to Death Rates
Distance to Shore related to Death Rates

 

 

 

Erasmus: Erasmus.

The height and in the reach of the tsunami waves were a complicated function of slope, wave type, water depth and coastal topography. This is responsible for observation that in some locations, points of water approached from more than one direction. This also creates variability in impact of the tsunami waves. In some areas, it scoured the land surface removing buildings and almost all vegetation. In other areas it left deposits of mud and sand while leaving buildings intact.

 

Goo: Goo the Numbat. So the effects can be very variable, ranging between removing everything, and depositing everything.
Dr Axxxx: Dr Axxxx.  A very succinct way of describing the damage.

Kinkajou:Kinkajou. To tell us about some of the other ways in which a tsunami affects the human population.

 

Environmental impact.

Severe damage occurred to native flora and fauna ecosystems such as mangroves, coral reefs, forests, coastal wetlands, vegetation, sand dunes, rock formations, animal and plant biodiversity and groundwater. Saltwater poisons fresh water supplies and poisons soil. There are approximately 20 coral reef atolls in the Maldives that could be rendered uninhabitable for decades due to seawater contamination of fresh water supplies. Aquifers were contaminated through porous rock.

 

 

A picture showing the recovery of vegetation in the Indonesian district of Aceh

Vegetation Recovery
Vegetation Recovery
Detected vegetation area. Grey area showed vegetation, which was detected by visual photo interpretation.  The graphs show the impact continuing over a decade later - on vegetation.

 

Most drinking wells recovered to pre-tsunami drinking water quality within 1 to 2 years after the tsunami event.
Salted-over soil becomes sterile, and it is difficult and costly to restore for agriculture. It also causes the death of plants and important soil micro-organisms. Thousands of rice, mango, and banana plantations in Sri Lanka were destroyed almost entirely and will take years to recover.

Sea grass beds in the coastal provinces play a critical role in fishery production, and as a food source. Based on surveys conducted by the Thai government, three to 10 percent of the sea grass beds were damaged, which required about six months to regenerate.

Banda Aceh Shorefront Banda Aceh Shorefront

Economic impact

Local economies were devastated. The two main occupations affected by the tsunami were fishing and tourism.  
The impact on coastal fishing communities arises from the damage to boats (up to 2/3 of fishing fleets) ,fishing gear and industrial infrastructure. Over 51,000 vessels were lost to the tsunami.

The earthquake and tsunami also changed the depth of the seabed in the Malacca Straits. Some areas with pre-tsunami water depths of up to 1200 m, are now only 30 m deep making shipping impossible and dangerous. Compiling the navigational charts may take months to years.


Piracy initially dropped off after the tsunami which killed the pirates and destroyed their boats. There was a 72% drop in the number of piracy incidents between 2004 and 2005, from 60 to 17 incidents. Levels remained relatively low for some years. However, between 2013 and 2014, piracy incidents rose dramatically by 73% to exceed pre-tsunami levels


 

Humanitarian response

German tsunami relief mission visiting Mullaitivu in Sri Lanka's Northern Province.


A great deal of humanitarian aid was needed because of widespread damage to the infrastructure, shortages of food and water, and economic damage. Epidemics were of particular concern due to the high population density and tropical climate of the affected areas. The main concern of humanitarian and government agencies was to provide sanitation facilities and fresh drinking water to contain the spread of diseases such as cholera,  diphtheria,  dysentery,  typhoid and hepatitis A and hepatitis B.

Humanitarian Response Humanitarian Response

In the days following the tsunami, significant effort was spent in burying bodies hurriedly due to fear of disease spreading.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. It is obvious that tsunamis are incredibly lethal and devastating to wide areas of the planet, even geographically distant areas of the plant. Earthquakes and floods would seem to take second place to tsunamis as regional or planetary disasters.


Erasmus: Erasmus. And there is more. The changes in the distribution of masses inside the Earth due to the earthquake had several consequences. It displaced the North Pole by 25 mm (0.98 in). It also slightly changed the shape of the Earth, specifically by decreasing Earth's oblateness by about one part in 10 billion, consequentially increasing Earth's rotation a little and thus shortening the length of the day by 2.68 microseconds.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. Wow!

Goo: Goo the Numbat. So let’s get back to how a tsunami may be relevant to the events of the Great Flood.
Kinkajou:Kinkajou. I think it is this incredible destructiveness that focuses researchers to explain the great flood as being a tsunami rather than as simply a flood. Tsunamis are capable of destroying whole human communities over a wide geographic region. However their action is limited to coastal areas and river valleys associated.


Erasmus: Erasmus. . But To propose that there may be tsunamis with a wave height of 100 to 200 m as a cause of the Great Deluge (Great Flood), is to suggest extinction level planetary devastation. There will be no humans surviving in any regions with tidal waves (tsunamis) of this height.
It is not just about the height of the wave. The amount of debris loosened by the tidal wave acts to seriously entangle and drown most terrestrial life forms.


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. So do you have any ideas on the mechanism that created the Great Flood?
Erasmus: Erasmus. I think we have some clues as to the causes of the Great Deluge from the “ Book of Enoch” and from the Bible. Firstly, God and the Angels knew that the Great Flood was coming.. They knew the likely areas that would be affected.

So this implies that they understood the mechanism of the creation of the “great flood”. It implies that they were in agreement with the likely impact on human population at least to some extent . To decimate the human population, especially the human population which had inbred with the children of the angels was an important goal.

To destroy the appearances of “technological civilisation” on the planet, was an important goal. To destroy the children of the angels was an important goal.

But there is an awareness that there is a difference between the children of the Angels (the watchers) and the children of “God”, (the children of Adam and Eve).

 

 


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. Any conclusions you can draw from this?


Erasmus: Erasmus. The degree of knowledge about the coming of the “Great Deluge” (Great Flood) implies that God and the Angels either caused the event to happen or had become aware of the likelihood of the event happening and had decided not to interfere with the progression of the development of the “Great Deluge” (Great Flood).

The lead time required to allow a specially regarded member of the community (Noah) to build a boat (the Ark) would be of the order of at least 6 to 12 months, possibly more, depending on how many members of the community were involved.


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. Yes we tend to look at the people mentioned in the Bible (e.g. Noah) as individuals. In reality, men such as Noah are actually revered local members of their community, elders as it were. So I think it would be unlikely that it would be Noah himself building the boat. It is far more likely that Noah and members of his tribe/followers built the boat together.


Erasmus: Erasmus. Yes, considering the size of the boat, it seems unlikely to me that it would require 1 - 20 man years of work to build, especially considering that none of these people would have the skill/expertise required to build a boat of dimensions that are significant even within today’s world.


And remember, you cannot buy timber from the local sawmill or hardware shop. Each piece of timber fitted to the boat would need to be hand sawn to shape. Cutting a single keel beam of say 60 m from an 80 m tall tree, is a job that will require a team of people to complete in any appreciable time. It would also require a team of people and a team of draft animals to move the tree.


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. In short as I said, the building of a boat is a community enterprise is not an individual enterprise.
Erasmus: Erasmus. My personal opinion is that God and the Angels instigated the “Great Deluge” (Great Flood) . They had decided that they needed to hide the development of human civilisation on the planet.


The appearance of the “confounding of speech of humanity”, suggested that they had failed in their goal of hiding the outbreak of human technological civilisation. The appearance of the “confounding of speech” of humanity suggests introduction of the Paill Spectrum bio- agent into the human community by external agencies capable of the bio-engineering required to develop such a specialised destructive neural agent.


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. I think the ability to destroy memory and cognition is especially useful in limiting the outbreak of a burgeoning technological civilisation.


Dr Axxxx: Dr Axxxx.  A nice touch in the circumstances, as it were..
Kinkajou:Kinkajou. So what other clues were there?
Erasmus: Erasmus. The timeframes and knowledge of the impending “Great Deluge” (Great Flood) suggest a mechanism such as a meteoroid impact as a likely causative mechanism. In fact the book of Enoch mentions what I think are two meteoroids – Leviathan and Behemoth, at this time. I believe that these were some of the trigger agents of the “Great Deluge” (Great Flood) .
(see our calculations in the Deluge web-pages).


All the circumstances of the Great Flood suggest an ability to control where the two giant rocks hit the planet to control the effect on human population of the planet. The appearance of two rocks at the same time, hitting planet Earth in semi-critical areas, also suggest the ability to control the movement and impact sites of the two giant rocks.


All these things suggest that it is the angels who initiated the meteorite impacts, not external agents. However the confounding speech witnesses the appearance of a biological agent which is likely on historical evidence to exceed the capacity of "God and the Angels" to develop.

Also the purpose behind introduction of such an agent suggests that EBEs rather than "God and the Angels" are responsible for the development and release of this agent. To me it suggests that the plan of God and the Angels to hide the development of technological human civilisation on planet Earth had failed. I believe however that the destruction of the children of the Watchers was achieved.


The key question here was in what way were the children of the watchers different from the children of God and he Angels? Why treat them differently.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. A meteorite impact would have a very complicated effect on the planetary weather. All sorts of things would happen in different places.


Erasmus: Erasmus. I believe so. The energy of an impact would create tsunami waves across wide areas of the planet. My guess is that two key areas were targeted first , based on the reference in the book of Enoch - to Leviathan and Behemoth.. Leviathan would likely be targeted to impact within the Indian Ocean. My next guess is that Behemoth would likely be targeted on the Antarctic continent. This would direct tsunami type waves up into the Tigris/Euphrates Delta where Eden was located.

This this would result in the release of substantial energy – vaporising water into the atmosphere which would then circulate around the planet in the upper atmosphere at speeds of up to several thousand km per hour creating substantial rain across the planet.


Several meters of rainfall (say 5 m) in the areas surrounding the Mediterranean basin would result in flooding of the Mediterranean basin to a depth of 10 to 15 m for a very substantial period of time. The water has essentially no where to go - the only outlet to open Ocean being at Gibraltar.


Such an intensity of rainfall (the Bible says for 40 days and 40 nights), would result in widespread flooding in many valleys that would normally be described as draining well, but which are not drained sufficiently well to cope with multiple metres of rainfall in relatively short period of time.

Remember, 100mm of rain across a good sized housing allotment of 1000 square metres generates 100 cubic metres of water. That a lot for a suburban block of land. Imagine this same effect across thousands of square kilometres. There would literally be an ocean of water on the move across normally dry landscapes. And debris buildup from high winds and the suddenness of the event would likely create dams of timber debris exacerbating the drainage situation.


Tsunamis affect coastal regions and river valleys connecting to seas and oceans. Flooding however affects river valleys where burgeoning human communities are commonly located, the critical factor in deciding the location of human settlement usually being the proximity to water supplies.


Flooding also affects what are poorly draining areas, depending on the speed of the inflow.


Dr Xxxxx: Dr Xxxxx. I personally saw an area flood that looked like the water would extend away / fall away from it. Half an hour later the metre of water in the shopping centre car park was gone, but the cloudburst rain just exceeded the natural drainage from the area. So what areas flood can be very complex and perhaps hard to predict sometimes. It’s not just waterways that flood.


Erasmus: Erasmus. Back to the Deluge. The impact on the Antarctic continent would melt significant quantities of ice, raising the world sea level. There is evidence that the world sea level did rise rapidly 10,000-12,000 years ago for no obvious reason.

Arabian Gulf Depths Arabian Gulf Depths

 

Looking at the depth of the Arabian Gulf would suggest that the water level rise of 10 m would have been sufficient to swamp the rivers of Eden at the Tigris Euphrates Delta region. Frankly even three metres in a delta zone would likely submerge an entire delta region. (We based our calculations on the effect of meteor strike using 3m as a basic requirement to knock off human habitations.

As I see it, the main source of water to raise the world’s ocean levels is the melting of the ice stored on top of the land masses on Earth. Today this largely is just the Antarctic continent. But 12,000 years ago many of the northern land masses would have been covered with a substantial depth of Ice.

Goo: Goo the Numbat. How deep was the ice during the ice age?

Erasmus: Erasmus. At the height of the recent glaciation, the ice grew to more than 12,000 feet thick as sheets spread across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and South America. Corresponding sea levels plunged more than 400 feet, while global temperatures dipped around 10 degrees Fahrenheit on average and up to 40 degrees in some areas. Greenland and Iceland would have been deeply ice covered as well.

Paleo-climatic research shows that the Greenland ice sheet loses mass as the earth’s temperature rises and increases ice mass when the earth’s temperature cools. These changes occur independent of sea-level change. In short, the changing sea-level is not the cause of many of the ice sheet contractions and expansions. There are no major ice sheet changes that occur independent of earth’s temperature change.

Increasing snowfall occurring when the climate warms has not been sufficient to counteract the loss of ice sheet mass – in particular increased melting of the ice around the margins of the ice sheet.

Iceberg Iceberg


Data suggests that the ice sheet shows a rapid response to rapid changes in solar radiation (forcing). In particular, regions near the ice margin have responded within decades. However, major changes of central regions of the ice sheet are thought to require centuries to millennia.


Paleoclimatic research evidence suggests nearly total ice-sheet loss may result from warming of more than a few degrees above mean 20th century values, but this threshold is poorly defined (perhaps as little as 2 C or more than 7 C), for Arctic ice masses. The research evidence is also insufficient to allow predictions of how rapidly a major shrinkage or nearly complete loss of the ice sheet could occur.

Comet Strike Comet Strike

 


There is a theory called the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) (a.k.a. Clovis Comet hypothesis) that proposes that fragments of a large (more than 4 kilometres in diameter), disintegrating asteroid or comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia around 12,850 years ago, coinciding with the beginning of the Younger Dryas cooling event.
Kinkajou:Kinkajou. A 4 Km diameter asteroid even if it were to fragment is a planet buster. We need to get away from the idea that one event happened. It would be reasonable to assume extra-terrestrial human involvement in the creation of the impact agent. It would be far safer and more effective to use multiple smaller meteor / comet like impact agents.
Erasmus: Erasmus. Multiple meteor air bursts and/or impacts are claimed to have produced the Younger Dryas (YD) boundary layer (YDB), depositing peak concentrations of platinum, high-temperature spherules, melt glass, and nanodiamonds, forming an isochronous datum at more than 50 sites. The Younger Dryas was first recognized in Denmark in 1901 by Nikolaj Hartz and Vilhelm Milthers, and the term was coined in 1912.


In 2009, a paper in the journal Science asserted that nanodiamonds were evidence for a swarm of carbonaceous chondrites or comet fragments from air burst(s) or impact(s) that set parts of North America on fire, caused the extinction of most of the megafauna in North America, and led to the demise of the Clovis culture.


Another group of scientists reported evidence supporting a modified version of the hypothesis—involving a fragmented comet or asteroid. The evidence was found in lake bed cores dating to 12,900 YBP from Lake Cuitzeo in Guanajuato, Mexico. It included nanodiamonds (including the hexagonal form called lonsdaleite), carbon spherules, and magnetic spherules. Lonsdaleite occurs naturally in asteroids and cosmic dust and as a result of extra-terrestrial impacts on Earth.

The theory suggests that  comets initiated the Younger Dryas cold period about 12,900  BP calibrated (10,900 14C uncalibrated) years ago.

Younger Dryas Boundary sites 53 Younger Dryas Boundary sites

Orange dots represent 28 sites with peaks in both platinum (Pt) and other impact proxies such as high-temperature Fe-rich spherules. Red dots represent 24 sites with impact proxies but lacking Pt measurements.

 


This theory also suggests a brief impact winter and abrupt climate change contributed to the extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna.


Dr Axxxx: Dr Axxxx.  The mainstream and accepted cause of the end of the last ice age describes the significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic "Conveyor" in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. Although initially sceptical, Wallace Broecker—the scientist who proposed the conveyor shutdown hypothesis—eventually agreed with the idea of an extra-terrestrial impact at the Younger Dryas boundary, and thought that it had acted as a trigger on top of a system that was already approaching instability.

 

 

 

Kinkajou:Kinkajou. A similar hypothesis was popularized by Minnesota congressman and pseudoarchaeology writer Ignatius L. Donnelly. In his book  Ragnarok, Donnelly argued that an enormous comet struck the Earth around 6,000 BCE to 9,000 BCE, destroying an advanced civilization on the "lost continent" of Atlantis. He claimed the planet suffered not only from the cometary flood, but from cometary fire, and a cometary rain of stones.

Erasmus: Erasmus. The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis : Evidence

In 2017, scientists reported a Platinum anomaly at eleven continental sites dated to the Younger Dryas, which is linked with the Greenland Platinum anomaly.

In 2019, scientists reported evidence in sediment layers with charcoal and pollen assemblages both indicating major disturbances at Pilauco Bajo, Chile in sediments dated to 12,800 BP. This included rare metallic spherules, melt glass and nanodiamonds thought to have been produced during airbursts or impacts. 


This has been interpreted as evidence that a strewn field from the Younger Dryas impact event may have affected at least 30% of Earth's radius.


Also in 2019, analysis of age-dated sediments from a long-lived pond in South Carolina showed not just an overabundance of platinum but a platinum/palladium ratio inconsistent with a terrestrial origin, as well as an overabundance of soot and a decrease in fungal spores associated with the dung of large herbivores, suggesting large-scale regional wildfires and at least a local decrease in ice age megafauna.

 

In 2019 research at White Pond near Elgin, South Carolina, conducted by Christopher Moore from the University of South Carolina and 16 colleagues, used a core to extract sediment samples from underneath the pond. The samples, dated by radiocarbon to the beginning of the Younger Dryas, were found to contain a large platinum anomaly, consistent with findings from other sites, A large soot anomaly was also found in cores from the site.


In 2020, a group led by Andrew M. T. Moore found high concentrations of iridium, platinum, nickel, and cobalt at the Younger Dryas boundary in material from Tell Abu Hureyra. They concluded that the evidence supports the impact hypothesis.

 

 

 

Goo: Goo the Numbat. And What are the Opinions to the Contrary?

Erasmus: Erasmus. Disputed evidence
Claims for impact debris
In 2016, a report on further analysis of Younger Dryas boundary sediments at nine sites found no evidence of an extra-terrestrial impact at the Younger Dryas boundary. Also that year, an analysis of nanodiamond evidence failed to uncover lonsdaleite or a spike in nanodiamond concentration at the YDB.

Scientists have asserted that the carbon spherules originated as fungal structures and/or insect fecal pellets, and contained modern contaminants  and that the claimed nanodiamonds are actually misidentified graphene and graphene/graphane oxide aggregates. 

Iridium, magnetic minerals, microspherules, carbon, and nanodiamonds are all subject to differing interpretations as to their nature and origin, and may be explained in many cases by a purely terrestrial or non-catastrophic factor.

An analysis of a similar Younger Dryas boundary layer in Belgium yielded carbon crystalline structures such as nanodiamonds, but the authors concluded that they also did not show unique evidence for an impact. Researchers have also found no extraterrestrial platinum group metals in the boundary layer, which is inconsistent with the hypothesized impact event.

Evidence for / against widespread fires
In 2018, two papers were published dealing with an "extraordinary biomass-burning episode" associated with the Younger Dryas Impact. The claims of extraordinary fires are disputed.

Marlon et al. suggest that wildfires were a consequence of rapid climate change. Radiocarbon dating, microscopy of paleobotanical samples, and analytical pyrolysis of fluvial sediments in Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island by another group found no evidence of lonsdaleite or impact-induced fires.

Research published in 2012 has shown that the so-called "black mats" are easily explained by typical earth processes. It was suggested that because these markers are found within or at the base of black mats, irrespective of age or location, they probably arise from processes common to wetland systems and not as a result of catastrophic bolide impacts. ( A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition).

NASA digital elevation model with the ice sheet removed to show the surface of bedrock in the region around the Hiawatha Glacier.

Impact Crater Greenland

Impact Crater Greenland: Impact crater in Greenland: Hiawatha crater


A 2018 paper presented evidence for a possible impact crater of unknown age (then thought to be some point during the Pleistocene) under the Hiawatha Glacier in Greenland. Some scientists suggest the 'definitive' interpretation and conclusion that a large impact crater underneath the ice has been discovered is a severe over-interpretation of the existing data.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. What does the Science / Maths say is possible?
Erasmus: Erasmus. So some calculations:
Total Earth Surface Area: about 509 600 000 square km (197 000 000 square miles).
Land area of planet Earth:
148 326 000 km2 (57 268 900 square miles), this are 29% of the total surface of Planet Earth.

Oceanic area of planet Earth: 361 740 000 km2 (139 668 500 square miles), this are 71% of the total surface of the Earth.
I have chosen 3m as the world ocean level rise as I think it is a sort of minimum level to achieve global effects on human habitation. I would guess that human habitation is likely as not within a few metres of ocean or river/ delta levels. Water is heavy and is easiest to be had "nearby". Walking up hills is difficult, especially carrying water, so the preferred habitation sites would be near to the level of a water supply.


So To Increase the world ocean level by 3m requires the melting of 361 740 000 *.003*1.1 Km3 of ice = 1.194*106 km3 ( remember ice is 10 % less dense than water)), so this equates to 1.074*106 km3 of water.

 

There is plenty of ice around to do this much melting. If we use the Antarctic continent as a calculation base, we would only need to melt :
This would be the melting of 1.074 *106km3/13.77 *106 km2 of ice = 78m of water equivalent ice= 89 m of ice itself. And remember at the last Ice Age, there were many areas of ice on the planet, not just Antarctica.
>> POSSIBLE


At its thickest point the Antarctic ice sheet is 4,776 meters deep today . It averages 2,160 meters thick.
In the last ice age 12.000 years ago, the ice sheet in northern continents was up to 4000m thick.

Let’s just look at how much energy is required to achieve this.
To melt 1.194*106 km3 of water treatment on water equivalent) ( equivalent to ice)
would require 334/J/g
Now we use water, not ice as a measure of basis of calculations
This is 1.194*106 km3 water *1e9(km3>m3)*1e3(m3>dm3) *1000(dm3>g)* 334 J=
3.99*1023 J

The "megaton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 petajoules (4.184×1015 J).

Therefore, you would have for 400 meteorites giving 2,380MT per meteorite. These are big enough. Any bigger and they would be planet busters.

Erasmus: Erasmus. So let’s do the maths on the asteroid impact required to achieve these energy levels.


The average asteroid hits earth at 18km/s while the average comet strikes earth at 52 km/s


I would choose a stony comet perhaps with a good percentage of water as the impact vehicle. I would want something relatively less homogeneous and less like a bullet than an iron meteorite. It would be safer to have a fragmented impact, a lighter and more fragile bullet like a water/stone meteorite, but at a higher speed to get the energy and penetration to surface required.


So let’s use 50 km/s as the speed

A Meteor has kinetic energy of ½ mv2
What are joules in kg and m? 1 J is equal to 1kgms?2.
So Ek= ½ m.v2
So ½ m (50.103)2 = 3.99* 1023 J
M=32 *1012 kg
Most stony crust rocks have a density of 2.7 g/cm3> 2.7*106 kg/m3 giving a “stony” volume equivalent 3.2 *1010 m3 (Volume * Density = Mass ) or restated Volume = Mass / Density =11.85 *106
So 4/3 Pi r3 = Volume = M
So radius = Cube root( 11.85*106* ¾ * 1/Pi)= cube root (2.83*10exp6)= 1.254 *10exp3 m
So the maths says NOT POSSIBLE. To melt this much ice would need a meteor 1.254 km in radius. This is probably a dinosaur buster at this size. >>
DOES NOT WORK OUT for a single meteorite or even two meteorites.

 

Erasmus: Erasmus. So let’s redo the maths with 40 impact events.
I.e. 1 high speed meteor a day for 40 days.
So radius = = Cube root( 11.85*106 /40* ¾ * 1/Pi)= cube root (0.07076*10exp6)= .414 *10exp2 m per impact vehicle.
So the maths says NOT POSSIBLE. To melt this much ice would need 40 meteors of 414m in radius. This is probably a dinosaur buster at this size. >>
DOES NOT WORK OUT

 

Erasmus: Erasmus. So let’s redo the maths with 400 impact events. I.e. 10 meteors a day for 40 days.
So radius = = Cube root( 11.85*106 /400* ¾ * 1/Pi)= cube root (7.076*103)= 19.2 m radius per impact vehicle.
So the maths says POSSIBLE. To melt this much ice would need 400 meteors of 38-39m diameter or in 19m radius. This is Possible. You can target a lot of ice areas in a lot of places with impacts that are not ground impacting bursts, minimising planetary damage and maximising ice melt.
YES : DOES WORK OUT
Each meteor gives over 1000 MT of force. You really do not want anything bigger.


And there would be supplementary factors as well.



Kinkajou:Kinkajou. If ice comets were used, there would not be much debris to provide evidence of what was done. In considering practical matters, an interstellar spaceship, likely to be of a size I would guess to be 10,000 tonnes and capable of acceleration of 1G-10G would have no problems doing course corrections for rocks of this size within an hour. Spaceships would likely be larger than this because a good size and thickness impact ablation shield at the front end of the spaceship would need to be of several thousand tonnes itself.

Goo: Goo the Numbat. Having some steerage control – perhaps by automated gravity drive engines - and our gravity site suggests these may not be that difficult to construct with computer linkage to the mother ship would allow last minute course corrections to guarantee strike at planned point of impact.

The predecessors would not need a lot of tech for this. An engine with a tank of oxygen could generate electricity and then gravity. And this is probably a lot lower tech than having a fusion power engine on each rock. You just need 100 generators with fuel and a computer linkage for steerage and control, and the mother ship can sit back and observe guide events form a distance , not a mad scramble of last-minute course corrections essentially dive-bombing planet earth.

Even a solar panel melting and then vaporising ice would give the potential for thrust and course corrections to be made.


Multiple impacts in a short time would be needed to maximise environmental meltdown.


Steering meteors to impact at the edges of continental ice sheets would break up continental ice and break off large islands of ice, currently sitting on the ocean floor near continental margins. Guaranteeing melting of the ice continents as they become released into the ocean. The result, a progressive ocean rise over time with ice continents move into the ocean and melt.


Erasmus: Erasmus. A progressive ocean rise over time as albedo changes from volcanic dust and sulphur effects encourage melting.
Massive rainstorms across the globe as impact created wind tsunamis hurtle around the globe carrying vaporised moisture.

In short, YES : DOES WORK OUT

Meteor Strike Meteor Strike

 

 

Erasmus: Erasmus. The Tunguska impact is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a comet or weak asteroid about 50 meters across, because of thousand square kilometres of forest that were leveled. An event like this is thought to occur only at every thousand years. If only 10% of the Earth’s surface is significantly populated, then the risk of a Tunguska -sized impact on a populated area is approximately one in 10,000 years or 1% per century.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. In impacts larger than the Tunguska event, there would be global fallout – dust lofted into the upper atmosphere, smoke from fires and global climate change sufficient to disrupt worldwide agriculture and threaten mass starvation. For a global event, the entire population the world is endangered regardless of where on Earth the impact takes place – be it inhabited or uninhabited areas, northern or southern hemisphere of the planet or over land or ocean.


Conclusion


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. The Tunguska impact is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of an air burst meteor.

There is insufficient energy in meteor strikes to cause a melting of the ice sheets of approximately 12.000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age to create ocean water level rise of more than 3m.

There is insufficient energy in meteor strikes to vaporize enough water to be the only cause of the global deluge.

Goo: Goo the Numbat. It is likely that a combination of factors caused the Great Deluge:
Multiple distributed meteor strikes with a proportion of these meteorites being stone/ water type bodies with impact speeds more typical of comets than of meteorites.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. Distributed fires and vulcanism and perhaps global sulphur emissions from volcanoes along with black dust being factors in albedo change on in planet earth , exacerbating greenhouse changes and promoting global warming.


Goo: Goo the Numbat. Changes in currents are likely to have occurred with a net pro-melt effect. Break up of icesheets from land mass edges.

 

Erasmus: Erasmus. Sizing up The Threat
Most estimates suggest that an impacting stony asteroid about 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) across or larger marks the threshold energy for causing a globally devastating event.

However, there is much uncertainty associated with making this size estimate, and realistic guesses fall between 0.5 and 5.0 kilometres (0.3 and 3 miles). It is unknown how our planet’s ecosystem and our society would cope with the damage triggered by a significant asteroid impact.


For example, asteroids in near-Earth space typically encounter our planet with velocities of about 20 kilometres (12 miles) per second. Comets, however, encounter Earth with much higher velocities, typically 30 to 60 kilometres (19 to 37 miles) per second. Because the damaging effects are dependent on the kinetic energy of the impact (a comet smaller than 1 kilometre (0.6 mile) across could pack a punch with sufficient energy to initiate a global climate disaster.


An Asteroid strike would be complicated by secondary mechanisms of damage.
1.Triggering earthquakes across the planet, resulting in increased atmospheric dust, reduced sunlight
2. Triggering tsunamis
3. Triggering rain and flooding
4. Impacting global food production


So a single asteroid strike can have significant effects far beyond the direct effects of likely placed explosive energy.
Given their greater numbers in near-Earth space, asteroids probably account for 75 percent of the total hazard. Comets comprise the other 25 percent.


From the recent lunar cratering record, from the record of more than 100 now identified terrestrial craters and from our preliminary reconnaissance of near-Earth space, we can estimate that the impact of a 1.5-kilometer asteroid (or equally energetic comet) probably occurs on Earth once every million years on average. Alternatively you could say that such an event would have a one in 10,000 chance of occurring over the hundred years of your lifetime.


Erasmus: Erasmus. Sizing up the Threat from Near-Earth Objects (NEOs)

Meteoroids with energies equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb strike the atmosphere annually.

Over the next three centuries, there is a 1 in 30 chance that a Tunguska-like impact will result in some human casualties and a 1 in 3,000 chance for a larger, global-scale impact.

 


Kinkajou:Kinkajou. Probabilities

NEO scientists Clark Chapman and David Morrison estimated the chances of an individual dying from selected causes in the United States:

* Motor vehicle accident: 1 in 100
* Murder: 1 in 300
* Fire: 1 in 800
* Firearms accident: 1 in 2,500
* Electrocution: 1 in 5,000
* Passenger aircraft crash: 1 in 20,000
* Flood: 1 in 30,000
* Asteroid/comet impact: 1 in 40,000
* Tornado: 1 in 60,000
* Venomous bite or sting: 1 in 100,000
* Fireworks accident: 1 in 1 million
* Food poisoning by botulism: 1 in 3 million
* Drinking water with EPA limit of TCE*: 1 in 10 million

Post Glacial sea Level Rise
Post Glacial Sea Level Rise



Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 metres as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 metre per century.

 

Note from Current records of earth's history:
CO2 Concentration Changes Do Not Drive Sea Levels ( in the past).

 

Goo: Goo the Numbat. But all things being equal, will CO2 cause sea level changes in the future.

Erasmus: Erasmus. I would worry more about solar radiative forcing changes and in particular about increased UV spectrum solar florescence in context of a sustained solar maximum type event.

 

 

 


 


 

 

 

 

 

Erasmus