An impact event involving thousands of impactors will produce a multitude of effects. The comet will generate a large blast and significant thermal energy if it detonated in the atmosphere. Analysis of the oval shapes of the Carolina Bays seems to indicate this breakup occurred over the ice sheets of Canada. This might destroy much of the life on the ice sheets. Individual impacts from smaller fragments that hit the Earth would generate very localized blast and thermal effects, in general out a few miles from the impact points. But because there appeared to be so many fragments, the actual affected area over land could be extensive (say Wisconsin to the Carolinas). If the larger fragments struck around Canada, they might produce blast debris. The level or thickness of this debris would taper off with distance and would primarily cover the Northern Hemisphere. But if these large impacts could rupture and push the large ice sheets into the ocean, they would raise water levels globally and flood much of the Earth.

One other point also comes into play. In a glacial period of an ice age, the mass of the ice sheets several miles thick puts significant weight on the crust of the Earth. The crust of the Earth deforms under this weight. The rest of the Earth readjusts. The bottom of the oceans are pushed upwards. When the ice melts or is displaced, the Earth will readjust back. But this takes time, several hundred years and many massive earthquakes later. What this means is that if the ice sheets are quickly pushed into the ocean, the level of water rise will be greater until the Earth can readjust. This amplifies the water level rise, the flooding.

I could agree with most of Allen West assessment. I would probably disagree with the wildfires racing across grasslands in the southern North America, unless evidence turns up showing comet fragments struck that area. Although he refers to the Younger Dryas event, that event may not be all that concrete and appears to not be global in scope. The Younger Dryas might be just Earth's rebound to a Great Flood. The Earth might naturally try to slide back into the glacial period if it was abruptly altered by a large impact event.

A large impact event of this type would produce a variety of threats. It has the potential of creating a global cataclysm destroying much of the life on this earth. Also for this type of impact, the geological destruction might be minimal. Weather pattern disruptions focused on Northern Hemisphere and in comparison to all the other types of damage from this impact, the effects might be minimal.

A large impact event of this type would produce a variety of threats. It has the potential of creating a global cataclysm destroying much of the life on this earth.

Source
A more clearly-defined accelerated phase of sea level rise occurred between 14,600 to 13,500 years before present (termed "meltwater pulse 1A" or "MWP-1A" by Fairbanks in 1989), when sea level increased by some 16 to 24 m (see Figure 1). Although the meltwater was previously believed to have come chiefly from Antarctica, a recent reconstruction by Tarasov and Peltier of ice sheet retreat using a glacial model calibrated by a variety of data points instead to a largely North American source. Furthermore, diatom fossils in sediments from fjords in East Antarctica show that ice melting there began perhaps 3000 years later, thus ruling out Antarctica as a likely source.

The rate of sea level rise slowed between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago during the Younger Dryas cold period and was succeeded by another surge, "meltwater pulse 1B", 11,500-11,000 years ago, when sea level may have jumped by 28 m according to Fairbanks, although subsequent studies indicate it may have been much less. Meltwater from glacial Lake Agassiz (southwest of Hudson Bay) draining catastrophically into the North Atlantic via Lake Superior and the St. Laurence seaway was once thought to have initiated ocean circulation changes leading to the Younger Dryas cold period. Regional removal of ice sheets, however, occurred nearly 1000 years later, and hence draining of Lake Agassiz could not likely have caused the Younger Dryas cold reversal. This cold spell may have instead been triggered by increased outflow into the Arctic Ocean, the Fram Strait east of Greenland, and ultimately the eastern North Atlantic, between 12,900 and 12,800 years before present, as suggested by the glacial model of Tarasov and Peltier. On the other hand, Leventer et al. indicate that the timing of deglaciation in eastern Antarctica roughly coincides with the onset of meltwater pulse 1B.

BFFT said: I need to do some research..but do we not have large amounts of black soot at the 12k years BP level? Consider: how did this soot form?

In the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Science, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is interviewed about his work at the 11,000-year-old site of Gobekli Tepe ("navel hill") in Turkey.

According to Andrew Curry, the author of the Science article, Gobekli Tepe is situated on the most prominent hilltop for miles around. It consists of at least 20 underground rooms that contain a number of T-shaped stone pillars that are 8 feet tall and weigh about 7 tons. The pillars are engraved with images of animals, including leopards, snakes and spiders.

This is not a place where people lived. It's as far away from water as you can get in this region. Instead, it's a place of ceremony. And, according to Schmidt, it's "the first manmade holy place."

To find such a large ceremonial center at such an early time period suggests that it was the need for communal rituals that first brought people together. Agriculture, pottery, domesticated animals and cities all came later.

Perhaps it was religion and not technology that fomented the Neolithic Revolution and led to the rise of civilization.

Archaeologist Steven Mithen, in his book After the Ice, writes that it was at Gobekli Tepe "that the history of the world had turned."

Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
reply to post by Essan

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Hey Essan - What do you think about BFFT's comments in regards to your post?

And can you plese link to the paper tha you took that excerpt from, who actually authored it?

In regards to your insisting on calling it a hypothesis, you are alone there. Every geological science paper I have seen that discusses it -- after West got involved and put in his research and data -- calls it a THEORY in the scientific use of the term.