Earth Wobble 12,000 Years Ago Creates Green Sahara, page 1

For much of the past 70,000 years, the Sahara has closely resembled the desert it is today. Some 12,000 years ago, however, a wobble in the Earth's axis and other factors caused Africa's seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States. Lush watersheds stretched across the Sahara, from Egypt to Mauritania, drawing animal life and eventually people.

(Emphasis mine).

Source: ngm.nationalgeographic.com...

Question 1: What caused this wobble of the Earth's axis 12,000 years ago?

Question 2: What was the nature of this axis wobble - a "polar axial shift" (i.e. latitudes change with new pole and new equator) or a "polar axial tilt" (i.e. latitudes do not change as present pole and equator remain)?

Question 3: How would either of the scenarios in question 2 affect climate?

Question 4: Why would the Sahara then return to desert?

Thanks.

Kind regards,

Scott Creighton

PS - I will shortly be posting here on ATS a new theory concerning the design of the Great Pyramid of Giza that will turn our ideas as to how the ancients designed this structure quite literally on its head. Look out for it.

its called precession its a wobble in the earths axis that has been known about for a long time

en.wikipedia.org...

the reason for the desert to change back is simple its a slow swing, it swong to a point that the rains were re-directed its since then been swinging away from that point so the rians moved away again

reply to post by noobfun

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Hello Noobfun,

Thanks for your reply. You write:

Noobfun: its called precession its a wobble in the earths axis that has been known about for a long time

SC: I'm fully familiar with precession and its cause but precession does not cause a "sudden wobble". The long, slow circular wobble of Precession merely has the effect of shifting the background stars when observed at heliacal rising over some 26,000 years (or thereabouts). It also has the effect of shifting the months in which the seasons change - that is to say in 13,000 years from now winter in the northern hemisphere will take place in June and summer in December (vice-versa for the southern hemisphere). Precession does not, however, change the actual climate of a region although it may be linked to other longer-term cycles such as the 41,000 year Milankovich cycles that may infuence climate change.

Unlike northern and southern Temperate Zones, the climate of the Sahara Desert varies little throughout the year and has been like this for over 70,000 years (almost 3 full precessional cycles) but something occurred around 12,000 years ago to briefly alter that climate so that the Sahara became green.

I do not think this can be attributed to precession so I ask what else could have caused this?

Thanks again.

Scott Creighton

reply to post by Scott Creighton

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Hi Scott

The 'wobble' referred to is simply the normal change over millennia in Earth's axial tilt. This in turn affects insolation which then affects the positioning of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the ITCZ determines where the tropical rains fall.

See, for example:

www.absoluteastronomy.com...

www.sciencedaily.com...

As the tilt changed so the rains moved first north - and the Sahara and Arabia turned green - and then back south - leading to the current desertification.


See also:

findarticles.com...

reply to post by Essan

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Hi Andy,

Many thanks for your repsonse and the links you provided. The article in the OP does not make it clear that the "wobble" they refer to is the theorised Milankovich model of orbital motion/inclination of obliquity.

I have read through the links you posted and whilst they start from a premise of a "chaotic system" they still work to explain the dynamics of the solar system (from birth) from a conventional view - which is fair enough. I do not think the articles provide evidence that the Earth's axis has always tilted within the Milankovich theorised parameters - it merely models the theory and asumes that there has been no wild fluctuations of the obliquity. That may be correct - but it may not.

I am interested in exploring the possible scenario of the effect of a small, high-speed asteroid striking one of the Earth's oceans (as per Dr Barbiero's theory) - whereas the model presented in your links does not show the effects of such a scenario (uniformatism punctuated by catastrophism). And - as we have previously discussed - we know that the Earth can indeed shift its axis (however small) as a result of catastrophism.

I still hold the view that a shift of the Earth's axis in remote times may indeed have occurred, thereby preventing the Earth from resuming (i.e. tipping into) its normal 100,000 year glacial cycle. The present inter-glacial, I believe, is quite an "unnatural" period (we should be in an ice age right now) as is the cause that probably brought it about.

Kind regards,

Scott Cregihton

^^^ yes, I agree Desert Dawg...

There could well have been a climate shift due to an asteroid impact affecting the oceans/currents. Aside from La Nina and El Nino , there may also be the disruption of the salt/thermal ocean conveyors which have been mentioned quite a bit in the global warming debate, but which might also be subject to disruption in the case of a large meteor strike.


--------------


In reply to Scott Creighton's post, and work in general, I'd like to say bravo! I only wish I had come here before! I've only had time to read a few posts here over the past few weeks, and they are all well thought out/presented and right on the money IMHO.

As for the wobble, a large or very large impact event would be a good possibility I think, and I even have what I think could be a possible candidate: The Taurid Complex

On the other hand, while the orbits of some particles are quite dispersed, it is still likely that the Taurid stream has a narrow and dense core consisting of particles concentrated near the orbit of the stream's parent object, which is presumably related to Comet 2P/Encke. As the orbits of the material constituting this narrow, dense core have been subject to perturbations over thousands of years, it may be inferred that intense bombardment episodes have resulted at epochs when the material reaches Earth intersection. Dynamical calculations show that, as a Taurid-like orbit precesses, the northern daytime intersection occurs just a little (a few centuries) before the southern nighttime one, and the southern daytime one just before the northern nighttime one. That is, the four intersections occur in two pairs, and the influx of material to Earth is enhanced during epochs lasting a few centuries and spaced by a few millennia. The term "coherent catastrophism" has been used by astronomers at Armagh and elsewhere to describe the idea that there are strong patterns in the influx of extraterrestrial material to Earth.

Google also has some promissing looking links on the subject.

I have a hunch that this "cycle of cataclysm" may be connected to ,and one in the same same as the one uncovered in The Mars Mystery: The Secret Connection Between Earth and the Red Planet by Graham Hancock, which examines Cydonia and the geometry of the Pyramids/structures in that region, much like you have done with Giza here. I think it's worth a read if you have not already read it.

In the book they also say the Cydonia site's geometry points to a warning from them to us (or whoever was here on Earth at the time when the complex was built) of a coming cataclysm (perhaps this was the "codex from the stars"), and suggest that both Cydonia and Giza were sites constructed by very closely related civilizations from what I remember (It's been a while since I read it!). If I remember correctly Giza is mentioned quite a bit in the book and many parallels drawn between the two sites.

They conclude by proposing the Taurid Complex as one of the more likely candidates for the source of this cataclysm, and I believe they could be right.

There have been many eventsin history which could be connected to the Taurid Complex such as this one:

>Let me first summarize from a preprint of a paper that Duncan Steel
>gave me. The paper is titled "The Tapanui region of New Zealand: a
>Tunguska' of 800 years ago?" by Duncan Steel and Peter Snow. Some of
>this will be practically verbatim: First they provide some evidence
>supporting the fact that the Earth is struck quite frequently by
>astronomical objects. The frequency of encounters with an object capable
>of producing a Tunguska-like explosion is of the order of every few
>centuries or so (Morrison and Chapman, 1989), although the data on which
>these rates are based are fuzzy.
>
>They suggest that the southern part of the South Island of New Zealand
>may have been the target of such a projectile about 800 years ago or so
>and that scientific study of the region is warranted.

source


and this one:

personal.eunet.fi...

which looks quite interesting, although I have not have time to read it through and look at any evidence it presents.

Hope that gives you some new ideas, and perhaps new directions to look in. If I can be any help on the meteor side of things, feel free to U2U me.

All the best,
C.H.U.D

You'll enjoy SkyFloating's write-up on Forbidden Egyptian archeology as well as the writings of Scott Creighton.

A good place to get started is: www.abovetopsecret.com...

There are subject titles on both sides of the page.
Just scroll down a bit.

I enjoyed your write-up as well, thanks for posting.

The Taurid is a new one on me, but I'm reading and learning.

Nice part about ATS is that it's not all politics nor is it all doom and gloom....

reply to post by Desert Dawg

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Thanks Desert Dawg,

Glad to hear you enjoyed my post.

The Taurids are a subject that not many seem to know about - it's mostly the meteor observing types (like me) /meteor researchers/hard core astronomers who are aware of them, which is a bit of a shame, since they are potentially such an important part of our history that has been forgotten. I think they definitely deserve more attention.

Just to give a little background on the Taurids, their parent comet which is 2P/Encke is thought to have once been a part of a giant comet that broke up 20 - 30 kyr ago according to this source.

As an aside, we are just now encroaching on the outer edge of the Taurid meteor stream, and will be well and truly "in the thick of it" by the end of the month/start of November. Because it's such an old and "fragmented" shower and the cometary debris is so widely spread, the shower peak is spread out over a few days, so if you go out and spend some time looking once it's dark around the start of November, you'll see some actual Taurid meteors for yourself. Perhaps even a bright fireball if you watch for long enough.

They are very distinctive, since they all have very low entry velocities compared to other meteor showers, and the meteors are often pure white (although they can also show other colors too). As a bonus, the best time to observe them is just after midnight local time wherever you are, unlike the better known showers like the Leonids, Perseids and Geminids which are most active just before dawn. Taurid meteors can be seen throughout the night, from the moment the light starts to fade till the first light of dawn.

The one downside, is that rates are usually quite low. You can expect to see perhaps 8-10 every hour in a good year under ideal conditions. Realistically, expect to only see perhaps 4-5 per hour during peak. However, despite the low numbers, individual meteors can be spectacular, and more than make up for the lack in quantity! Just to prove it, here is footage of one from NASA's 2001 Leonid MAC mission


Thanks for the links also Desert Dawg. Had a brief browse, and found a few threads which look interesting. It's one area that I need to learn more about, and am becoming more and more interested in as more pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.

reply to post by Scott Creighton

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I suspect that the cause included one or more of the Milankovich cycles, a shift in the Intertropical Convergence Zone and a complex of other phenomena interacted to cause the climate shift. Changes in ocean levels, recession of the pleistocene glaciers, etc. almost certainly contributed to the change.

This is very interesting and possible theory. It is about the same time that the Clovis-man, mammoths, sabre tigers and more pre-historic animals suddenly became extinct. New evidence also points to an asteroid impact or explosion in North America 12000 BC.

Asteroid 12000 BC

Hi Scott,
I would like to offer some of my thoughts on this subject.
It seems that evidence from different sources and different fields of science is starting to connect. I don't know how many of these are related or how much more there is yet to find but it is becoming very intriguing.

For much of the past 70,000 years, the Sahara has closely resembled the desert it is today. Some 12,000 years ago, however, a wobble in the Earth's axis and other factors caused Africa's seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north

National Geo.

This is interesting, normally "a wobble in the Earth's axis" would mean precession but here it seems to imply an isolated motion changing Earth's climate. As for a catastrophic event some 12-13,000 years ago there is no shortage of evidence that something big did happen, "Carolina Bays" More CB Info, or Google "12,900 Years" "Younger Dryas Black Mat". The amount of information is overwhelming and it all indicates an event that nearly wiped out all life in North American, YouTube video conf. but how it happened is still in debate, Bay origin controversy.

There is plenty of evidence that a comet was involved in the Clovis event, The Clovis Comet, but there are problems with an impact theory. Out of all the evidence collected what is missing is proof that an object impacted the Earth, ie. a crater, impacting object fragments or shocked quartz, and if this is all related to the anomalous wobble in Earth's axis then it posses an even bigger problem. The amount of energy needed for an impact to alter the Earth's axis would most likely mean a global extinction event and would definitely leave a mark. I think there is a theory that can explain not only the evidence from the Clovis event, Younger Dryas Black Mats and The Carolina Bays but could also cause a change in the Earth's axis without global extinction.

If Earth had a close encounter with a very large comet we could expect a lot of debris from the tail falling to Earth. If the plasma energy from the comet was discharging in the form of lightning this would explain the iron & carbon nanospheres , nanodiamonds as well as the elliptical depressions on the east coast known as the Carolina bays. Various img links. YouTube video 1 & 2. If this was a small planet sized comet the tidal effect could have cause the Earth's axis to tilt is such a way as to conserve most of it's angular momentum. This would give the appearance of the stars falling from the heavens and the Sun standing still, or not rising depending on which side of the planet the observer was on, then resume rotation with an added wobble.

I believe there were some who witnessed this event that survived and their testimony lives on in some of the ancient legends. Although ancient myths will never be accepted as proof they can be used, as they were intended, to help us better understand the past.

reply to post by Scott Creighton

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I've seen this discussed by Graham Hancock in a couple of his books.

The belief is that periodically an event happens to shift the Earths axis. If it is large enough, it can shift the entire mantle around the core of the Earth. Poles become populated land, other populations die out in the shift to extreme cold.

I believe he formed this theory from evidence of ancient civilizations, ancient maps created of inaccessible areas recently proven to be accurate and folklore from religious tales describing the events which would occur during this shift, such as the great flood, earthquakes, eruptions and so on.

I don't believe he ever really discussed what the cause of this shift would be, but since then it has been suggested that there is a large mass in our solar system which we haven't yet seen and which would effect our gravity and rotation as it approaches.

I saw something a while ago where reliable astronomers were suggesting that the behavior of the planets does suggest that there is an unseen large mass making its force known in this way.

Some believe (and I happen to be one of them) that as this planet approaches Earth on its course, we'll see an increase in tectonic activity. I think it is due to appear soon, and will be in an alignment with the planets around 2012.
Some have suggested that the Mayan 2012 "End of the World" prediction is just this massive planet arriving in line with the other planets, and this could be a switching moment which could cause the Earths mantle to shift off the current axis.

This is what I have gathered form bits and pieces here and there.

But, whatever happens, there is no doubt that another planet arriving in our solar system, with its own gravitational forces, would have a severe effect on the Earth. Just as the moon and sun effect us.

Have you ever heard of a guy named James DeMeo? He has some amazing theories about the Sahara.

He calls his book Saharasia
www.orgonelab.org...

If you haven't heard of him, maybe you haven't heard of Wilhelm Reich either. He kind of got 'Tesla'd' in that he has gone unnoticed by so many.

www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org...

reply to post by Devino

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Hello Devino,

Many thanks for your post and links.

The work of Dr Flavio Barbiero shows how even a very small asteroid crashing into one of the Earth's oceans can ultimately induce a shift in the Earth's polar axis. And, of course, if such did happen, we are likely never to find an impact crater. You can read Barbiero's paper here:

www.grahamhancock.com...

Also, recently my research into the Great Pyramid at Giza with the author, Gary Osborn, has revealed some intriguing possibilities concerning a possible shift of the Earth's polar axis in remote antiquity. You can read this here:

The Great Pyramid and the Axis of the Earth - Part 1
www.grahamhancock.com...

The Great Pyramid and the Axis of the Earth - Part 2
www.grahamhancock.com...

Hope you find this of interest.

Regrads,

Scott Creighton


[edit on 10/2/2009 by Scott Creighton]

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