Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 09:39:00 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6676461.stm
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean 1 (ORIGINAL)

Pages: 1 ... 33 34 35 36 37 38 [39] 40 41 42 43 44 45 ... 64   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean 1 (ORIGINAL)  (Read 32183 times)
0 Members and 646 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #570 on: December 30, 2007, 12:45:30 pm »

docyabut
Member
Member # 117

Rate Member   posted 04-26-2006 10:03 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brig there are many flood stories that were taken from other cultures. The story of atlantis was most likey taken from the disappearance of Tartesso.


Deucalion's parallels with Noah and with Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Sumerian Flood that is told in the Epic of Gilgamesh, are even clearer in the wine subtext in this myth. Though Deucalion is no longer allowed to be the inventor of wine as Noah still is, his name gives away his secret: deucos + halieus "new wine sailor". His wife, named "wine-red", just happens to be the sister of Ariadne who mothered with Dionysus, several wine-making progenitors of Aegean tribes.


Deucalion's flood is dated in the chronology of Saint Jerome to ca. 1460 BC, remarkably close to the archaeological date proposed for the Thera eruption. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #571 on: December 30, 2007, 12:46:37 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 04-26-2006 11:20 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tartessos was way too recent to have been mistaken for Atlantis, Docyabut. I think a lot of people around here make the mistake of zeroing in on their favorite theory to the exclusion of all else. Has there ever been a voyage into the Atlantis specifically to find Atlantis? Other than the ones the Russians did, I can't think of any other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #572 on: December 30, 2007, 12:47:27 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 04-26-2006 11:23 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's look at the Carolina Bays in more detail. I guess scientists actually don't like meteor theory cause they can't find any evidence of an asteroid hit. We'll see!

CAROLINA BAYS AND INLAND DUNES OF THE SOUTHERN ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN YIELD NEW EVIDENCE FOR REGIONAL PALEOCLIMATE
IVESTER, Andrew H., Geosciences, State Univ of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, aivester@westga.edu, GODFREY-SMITH, Dorothy I., Dept. of Earth Sciences, Dalhousie Univ, Halifax, NS B3H 3J5, Canada, BROOKS, Mark J., Savannah River Archaeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, P.O. Box 400, New Ellenton, SC 29809, and TAYLOR, Barbara E., Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Univ of Georgia, Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802
New optically stimulated luminescence ages from eolian landforms in the Coastal Plain of South Carolina document multiple episodes of inland dune and Carolina bay development. Ages from eolian sand rims on the southeast edges of Carolina bay wetlands indicate conditions were suitable for rim development—i.e., southwesterly winds were blowing across ponded water—during several intervals of the late Quaternary. In the upper Coastal Plain, dates from Flamingo Bay indicate the rim was active at 108.7 ± 10.9 ka BP and again at 40.3 ± 4.0 ka BP. The nearby Bay-40 had an actively forming sand rim at 77.9 ± 7.6 ka BP. Near the confluence of the Wateree and Congaree Rivers in the middle Coastal Plain, an eolian sand sheet was dated to 74.3 ± 7.1 ka BP. The surface of the sand sheet has been reworked to produce smaller-scale parabolic dunes, two of which were dated to 29.6 ± 2.4 ka BP and 33.2 ± 2.8 ka BP. Five dates from dunes on Sandy Island, between the Waccamaw and Great Pee Dee Rivers in the lower Coastal Plain, fall in the general range of 30 to 40 ka BP. These new ages, combined with previously reported dates from dunes and a bay rim in Georgia, are beginning to clarify the late Quaternary environmental history of the southeastern Coastal Plain.

2002 Denver Annual Meeting (October 27-30, 2002)

Session No. 123--Booth# 82
Quaternary Geology/Geomorphology (Posters) II
Colorado Convention Center: Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM-12:00 PM, Tuesday, October 29, 2002

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002AM/finalprogram/abstract_45547.htm 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #573 on: December 30, 2007, 12:48:17 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 04-27-2006 12:00 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CAROLINA BAY CHARACTERISTICS

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

Many of the articles mentioned earlier discussed the morphology of the Carolina Bays and several described the stratiqraphy of one or more bays. Nonetheless, because the terrestrial or extraterrestrial hypothesis which eventually becomes accepted must account for salient features associated with the bays, the characteristics are reviewed. Figure 2, a photomosaic of southeastern Cumberland County, North Carolina, illustrates many characteristic morphologic details of the Carolina Bays:

1. The Carolina Bays are ellipses and tend to become more elliptical with increasing size. Many bays, however, lack true bilateral symmetry along either the major or minor axis. The southeast portion of many bays is more pointed than the northwest end and the northeast side bulges slightly more than the southwest side. Known major axis dimensions vary from approximately 200 feet to 7 miles.

2. The Carolina Bays display a marked alignment with northwest-southeast being the preferred orientation. Although there are minor local fluctuations, deviations from the preferred orientation appear to be systematic by latitude Prouty, 1952.

3. The bays are shallow depressions below the general topographic surface with a maximum depth of about 50 feet. Large bays tend to be deeper than small bays, but the deepest portion of any bay is offset to the southeast from the bay center.

4. Many bays have elevated sandy rims with maximum development to the southeast. Both single and multiple rims occur, and the inner ridge of a multiple rim is less well developed than the outer rim. Rim heights vary from 0 to 23 feet.

5. Carolina Bays frequently overlap other bays without destroying the morphology of either depression. One or more small bays can be completely contained in a larger bay.

6. Some bays contain lakes, some are boggy, others are either naturally or artificially drained and are farmed, and still others are naturally dry.

7. The stratigraphy beneath the bays is not distorted Preston and Brown, 1964; Thom, 1970.

8. Bays occur only in unconsolidated sediments. Bays in South Carolina are found on relict marine barrier beaches associated with Pleistoncene sea level fluctuations, in dune fields, on stream terraces and sandy portions of backbarrier flats Thom, 1970. No bays occur on modern river flood plains and beaches. Bays exist on marine terraces as much as 150 feet above sea level in South Carolina but also occur on discontinuous veneers of fluvial gravels on the Piedmont in Virginia Goodwin and Johnson, 1970.

9. Carolina Bays appear to be equally preserved on terraces of different ages and formational processes.

10. Bays occur in linear arrays, in complex clusters of as many as fourteen bays, as scattered individuals, and in parallel groups aligned along the minor axes Figure 2.

11. Bays are either filled or partly filled with both organic and inorganic materials. The basal unit in some bays is a silt believed to represent loess deposited in water.

12. No new bays appear to be forming although Thom 1970 and Frey 1954 cite evidence for recent enlargement of existing Carolina Bays. Price 1968 states that most bays appear to be getting smaller by infilling.

13. Bays are underlain by carbonate, clastic and crystalline bedrock overlain by variable thicknesses of unconsolidated sediments in which the bays are found.

14. Ghosts of semi-obliterated Carolina Bays appear to represent former bays which were filled after formation by terrestrial sediments and organic materials.

15. Small bays deviate further from the mean orientation per region than large bays do.

16. No variation in the heavy mineral suite was found along a traverse of the major axis of one South Carolina bay, even though samples were taken from the bay floor, bay rim and the adjacent non-bay terrace Preston and Brown, 1964.

In summation, the remarkable regularity with which these characteristics recur suggests that further consideration of a unique, causal mechanism is warranted. With rare exceptions, such as the aligned lakes of the Arctic Coastal Plain Carson and Hussey, 1962, terrestrial processes do not create widespread, elliptical, aligned landforms. Whereas morphology and alignment are not conclusive proof of an extraterrestrial hypothesis, and although we recognize valid weaknesses in the existing meteoritic swarm or shower hypothesis, we believe that most of these objections should not serve as a deterrent for a re-examination of additional extraterrestrial alternatives.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbayint.html 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #574 on: December 30, 2007, 12:50:00 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 04-29-2006 12:29 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A RE-EVALUATION OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN OF THE CAROLINA BAYS*
by J. Ronald Eyton & Judith I. Parkhurst
Paper Number 9
April 1975
Luis E. Ortiz & Susan Gross, editors
Geography Graduate Student Association
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

* The authors would like to thank Professors Charles S. Alexander and Donald L. Johnson of the Geography Department of the University of Illinois for their interest in this project and for their critical review of the manuscript.


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

ABSTRACT

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

Controversy as to the origin of the Carolina Bays has centered on terrestrial versus extraterrestrial theories. Meteoritic impact has been considered the primary causal mechanism in extraterrestrial models, but alternatives such as comets and asteroids have not been adequately considered. Comets may explode during fall and produce depressions which would conform to the morphology of the Bays. Only a comet appears to satisfy the constraints imposed both by extraterrestrial requirements and observed terrestrial characteristics.


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

INTRODUCTION

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

Scattered along the eastern coast of the United States from southern New Jersey to northern Florida are approximately 500,000 elliptical depressions collectively called the Carolina Bays Figure 1. The process or processes forming symmetrical, oriented, shallow basins of different sizes has been disputed since the unique character of bay morphology was recognized from aerial photographs during the 1930's Melton and Schriever, 1933. To date at least sixteen hypotheses involving terrestrial or extraterrestrial processes have been postulated as causal mechanisms. Each theory explains some but not all of the observed morphological and stratigraphic characteristics, and each hypothesis has had varying degrees of acceptance.

Most hypotheses concerning the origin of the Carolina Bays use either marine or subaerial processes. Some use a single process, others require two or more processes operating simultaneously, whereas still others envision a series of processes operating sequentially. The terrestrial hypotheses have been reviewed elsewhere Johnson, 1942; Prouty, 1952; Thornbury, 1965; Price, 1968, and some of these theories have been proved mathematically or physically impossible whereas others are considered improbable. Nonetheless, several marine as well as subaerial hypotheses listed below still retain supporters. *

* Marine theories include sand bar dams across drowned valleys Glenn, 1895; swales in underwater sand dunes Glenn, 1895; submarine scour by eddies, currents and undertow Melton, 1934; progressive lagoon segmentation Cooke, 1934; gyroscopic eddies Cooke, 1940; 1954; and fish nests created by the simultaneous waving of fish fins in unison over submarine artesian springs Grant, 1945. Subaerial hypotheses include artesian spring sapping Toumey, 1848; peat burning by paleo-Indians Wells and Boyce, 1953; eolian deflation and/or deposition Raisz, 1934; Price, 1951, 1958, 1968; and Carson and Hussey, 1962; solution Johnson, 1936; Lobeck, 1939; Le Grand, 1953; and Shockley and others, 1956; periglacial thaw lakes tWolfe, 1953; wind deflation combined with perched water tables and lake shore erosion at a 90o angle to the prevailing wind Thom, 1970; artesian spring sapping and eolian deposition Johnson, 1936; and progressive lagoon segmentation modified by eolian processes stabilized by climatic changes Price, 1951, 1958, 1968.

Alternative hypotheses to terrestrial processes thus far have been limited to showers of meteorites impacting in the area Melton and Schriever, 1933; Melton, 1934, 1950; Prouty, 1952; and Well and Boyce, 1953. In this case the Carolina Bays represent scars which have not yet been obliterated by terrestrial weathering and erosion. Many people found a meteorite shower to be an appealing explanation because it can explain many attributes of bay morphology and the apparent uniqueness of the Carolina Bays. In addition, the area where Carolina Bays are abundant adjoins a large area from Alabama to Virginia, including much of Tennessee and Kentucky, where meteorites are abundant.

Meteoritic impact is no longer widely regarded as a plausible hypothesis. No meteoritic fragments have been found that are genetically related to the Carolina Bays. No known meteorite falls elsewhere in the world have resulted in approximately half a million depressions over a wide area. Studies of magnetic anomalies associated with individual bays are not conclusive MacCarthy, 1936; Prouty, 1952. Shatter cones and high pressure changes in quartz grains associated with known impact craters are absent. The heavy mineralogy of sediments within one bay did not differ from sediments beyond the bay rim Preston and Brown, 1964. The selective confinement of Carolina Bays to one physiographic province has also been cited as evidence against any extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Recent research in Virginia Goodwin and Johnson, 1970 located depressions similar in alignment and morphology to the Carolina Bays, 345 to 360 feet above sea level, on deeply weathered Piedmont fluvial gravels. If these depressions are truly Carolina Bays, terrestrial hypotheses can no longer include marine mechanisms, considerably restricting the previous list. No marine terraces are known to be at elevations over 350 feet above sea level along the Atlantic Coastal Plain Thornbury, 1965. If bays can no longer be restricted to a single physiographic province and the list of potential terrestrial hypotheses is correspondingly reduced to subaerial mechanisms, the extraterrestrial hypothesis gains more credence and warrants additional study.

We do not believe that any existing terrestrial theory fully accounts for all the observed morphologic and stratigraphic characteristics of the Carolina Bays, nor do we believe that extraterrestrial alternatives have been fully explored. The extensive literature on Carolina Bays provides a framework from which we intend to reexamine the extraterrestrial hypothesis. In particular, we propose to examine the physical and orbital characteristics of extraterrestrial objects available for impact, to determine necessary impact parameters which can be met by these bodies, and to assess the correspondence of Carolina Bay morphometry and impact mechanics.


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

CAROLINA BAY CHARACTERISTICS

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

Many of the articles mentioned earlier discussed the morphology of the Carolina Bays and several described the stratiqraphy of one or more bays. Nonetheless, because the terrestrial or extraterrestrial hypothesis which eventually becomes accepted must account for salient features associated with the bays, the characteristics are reviewed. Figure 2, a photomosaic of southeastern Cumberland County, North Carolina, illustrates many characteristic morphologic details of the Carolina Bays:

1. The Carolina Bays are ellipses and tend to become more elliptical with increasing size. Many bays, however, lack true bilateral symmetry along either the major or minor axis. The southeast portion of many bays is more pointed than the northwest end and the northeast side bulges slightly more than the southwest side. Known major axis dimensions vary from approximately 200 feet to 7 miles.

2. The Carolina Bays display a marked alignment with northwest-southeast being the preferred orientation. Although there are minor local fluctuations, deviations from the preferred orientation appear to be systematic by latitude Prouty, 1952.

3. The bays are shallow depressions below the general topographic surface with a maximum depth of about 50 feet. Large bays tend to be deeper than small bays, but the deepest portion of any bay is offset to the southeast from the bay center.

4. Many bays have elevated sandy rims with maximum development to the southeast. Both single and multiple rims occur, and the inner ridge of a multiple rim is less well developed than the outer rim. Rim heights vary from 0 to 23 feet.

5. Carolina Bays frequently overlap other bays without destroying the morphology of either depression. One or more small bays can be completely contained in a larger bay.

6. Some bays contain lakes, some are boggy, others are either naturally or artificially drained and are farmed, and still others are naturally dry.

7. The stratigraphy beneath the bays is not distorted Preston and Brown, 1964; Thom, 1970.

8. Bays occur only in unconsolidated sediments. Bays in South Carolina are found on relict marine barrier beaches associated with Pleistoncene sea level fluctuations, in dune fields, on stream terraces and sandy portions of backbarrier flats Thom, 1970. No bays occur on modern river flood plains and beaches. Bays exist on marine terraces as much as 150 feet above sea level in South Carolina but also occur on discontinuous veneers of fluvial gravels on the Piedmont in Virginia Goodwin and Johnson, 1970.

9. Carolina Bays appear to be equally preserved on terraces of different ages and formational processes.

10. Bays occur in linear arrays, in complex clusters of as many as fourteen bays, as scattered individuals, and in parallel groups aligned along the minor axes Figure 2.

11. Bays are either filled or partly filled with both organic and inorganic materials. The basal unit in some bays is a silt believed to represent loess deposited in water.

12. No new bays appear to be forming although Thom 1970 and Frey 1954 cite evidence for recent enlargement of existing Carolina Bays. Price 1968 states that most bays appear to be getting smaller by infilling.

13. Bays are underlain by carbonate, clastic and crystalline bedrock overlain by variable thicknesses of unconsolidated sediments in which the bays are found.

14. Ghosts of semi-obliterated Carolina Bays appear to represent former bays which were filled after formation by terrestrial sediments and organic materials.

15. Small bays deviate further from the mean orientation per region than large bays do.

16. No variation in the heavy mineral suite was found along a traverse of the major axis of one South Carolina bay, even though samples were taken from the bay floor, bay rim and the adjacent non-bay terrace Preston and Brown, 1964.

In summation, the remarkable regularity with which these characteristics recur suggests that further consideration of a unique, causal mechanism is warranted. With rare exceptions, such as the aligned lakes of the Arctic Coastal Plain Carson and Hussey, 1962, terrestrial processes do not create widespread, elliptical, aligned landforms. Whereas morphology and alignment are not conclusive proof of an extraterrestrial hypothesis, and although we recognize valid weaknesses in the existing meteoritic swarm or shower hypothesis, we believe that most of these objections should not serve as a deterrent for a re-examination of additional extraterrestrial alternatives.


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

OPPOSING EXPLANATIONS OF BAY CHARACTERISTICS

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

Early researchers, notably Melton and Schriever 1933 and Prouty 1952, inferred an extraterrestrial causal mechanism primarily from the regularity with which elements of bay morphology repeated themselves in the Carolina Bays. They concluded that the list of characteristics was best explained by impact of a meteorite shower Melton and Schriever, 1933 or its shock wave Prouty, 1935; 1952; MacCarthy, 1936. They speculated that the meteorite shower or swarm might be related to a degenerate comet perturbed into a low angle, northwest trajectory. This hypotheses accounts for such morphologic characteristics as maximum rim development offset to the southeast end of many bays, variable rim height, bay overlap, bays contained within bays, maximum depth offset southeast from the bay center, variability in bay size, and equal degree of preservation on surfaces of different ages. Because a single meteorite shower could not readily explain ghost bays, Melton 1950 subsequently modified his original impact hypothesis to include aperiodic meteorite showers, possibly beginning during the Cretaceous.

Critics of the extraterrestrial hypothesis have also used bay morphology and morphometry to refute an astronomical origin for the Carolina Bays Johnson, 1942; Price, 1968. The bays lack the elevated structural rims associated with known meteorite impact craters; craters tend to be deep and round whereas the bays are shallow ellipses; known meteor crater clusters, such as those at Campo del Cielo, Argentina Cassidy and others, 1965, do not result in thousands of depressions across a wide area; and, as noted previously, no known meteorites are genetically related to bays. Thornbury 1965, p. 43 added that aperiodic Mesozoic and Cenozoic meteorite showers are "difficult to visualize in view of the fact that the bays are present on terrace surfaces that are generally considered to be of Pleistocene age."

The only additional bay characteristic to receive considerable attention has been bay alignment, although a few stratigraphic, mineralogic, or ecologic characteristics have also been studied for individual bays Frey, 1951; 1954; Preston and Brown, 1964; Thom, 1970. Working in a localized area in South Carolina, Melton and Schriever 1933 found an apparent parallel orientation for the major axes of the bays. They assumed that all bays would display similar orientation because the meteorites in the shower would maintain roughly the same trajectory. Prouty, using a much larger sample of bays with greater areal extent, recognized the radial pattern in bay alignment.

The average local orientation of the bays varies from about south 55o east in the northwestern portion of the area to about south 15o east in the southwestern area. There is thus a divergence of about 40o in the elongation direction of the bays in the two extreme areas. . . . This divergence is due to the fanning-out effect of a group of bodies, the meteorites, passing through the resisting gaseous medium of the atmosphere Prouty, 1952, p. 186.

Prouty added that variance from the mean orientation for bays in a particular location was caused either by the effects of a "partial vacuum in the air pressure cone accompanying the fall of tandem meteorites" p. 187 or "mild" explosions of meteorites caused by atmospheric resistance. He suggested that small meteorites would be more affected by this phenomenon than large ones, causing small meteorites to deviate further from the original trajectory.

While some opponents of extraterrestrial hypotheses did not consider bay alignment, others ascribed orientation to a variety of terrestrial causes. For example, Cooke 1934 said that a unidirectional wind had generated near-shore currents which created parallel landforms, accounting for bay alignment and elongation. Johnson 1942 suggested that elongation and parallelism were caused by joint controlled artesian springs along the southeasterly regional dip of the strata. Thom 1970 postulated that southwest winds blowing across preexisting lakes generated currents which eroded the southeast and northwest segments of each lake, creating parallel elliptical landforms. Furthermore, based on evidence from northeast South Carolina, Thom concluded that mean orientations and standard deviations of Carolina Bays differed from beach ridges, dune fields, river terraces, and back barrier flats. Whether this relationship between geomorphology and orientation would remain consistent on a regional level is not known. The degree to which this apparent alignment is a function either of sampling or of bay size per geomorphic setting is also unknown. Small bays do differ more widely in their orientations than large bays do.


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

EXTRATERRESTRIAL BAY FORMING MECHANISMS

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

With the exception of MacCarthy 1936, who discussed the effects of the shock wave accompanying infall of meteorites, research on the Carolina Bays has been concentrated on terrestrial characteristics. No one has discussed the orbital characteristics of potential impacting bodies, the extraterrestrial mass required to produce half a million bays, the availability of extraterrestrial materials, the bay forming energies available related to different impact velocities and masses, and whether impact morphometry corresponds to Carolina Bay morphology.

Because the probability of inclusion of any body outside the solar system is extremely small, the solar system is commonly regarded as a closed system. If impact of an extraterrestrial body did form the Carolina Bays, the body or bodies must be contained within the solar system. Only three minor members of the solar system can possibly impact on earth: asteroids, comets, and meteoriods. If the Carolina Bays are the result of a singular extraterrestrial event, then bay forming impacts could have been caused by any one of these objects. Examination of the physical and orbital characteristics of these bodies, then, provides one method for selecting from extraterrestrial alternatives the most likely bay-forming mechanism.


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

ORBITAL CHARACTERISTICS

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

Tables 1, 2, and 3 indicate salient characteristics for the three extraterrestrial alternatives. Of the three, asteroids Table 1 appear to be the most predictable with respect to their physical and orbital characteristics. They have more regular orbits than either comets or meteoroids, albeit a few asteroids such as Icarus and Hidalgo have highly eccentric orbits and Hermes passed within 500,000 miles of Earth in 1937. Although it is difficult to determine the actual number of close encounters that have taken place, Wyatt 1966 assumed one impact per 60,000 years to be a crude estimate of the probability of impact by an asteroid one mile or less in diameter. Comets Table 2, on the other hand, have either parabolic or elliptical orbits, depending on whether or not they have been perturbed and whether the perturbation resulted in short or long period orbits. It is not possible to estimate the probability of impact for comets with parabolic orbits. but the probability is small based on the number of comets known to have parabolic orbits. Meteoroids Table 3, the mechanism most commonly invoked to explain the Carolina Bays Melton and Schriever, 1933; Melton, 1934, 1950; Prouty, 1952; and Wells and Boyce, 1953; consist of three types but have orbital characteristics similar to those of either asteroids or comets. Those meteoroids which create meteor showers but produce no finds are believed to be the remains of degenerate short period comets. Although they may be large in numbers with observed rates of 50 per hour, their mass is insufficient to survive atmospheric passage. Sporadic meteoroids which can survive atmospheric passage as stones or irons are probably fragments of asteroids, and fireballs, the remaining class, may be nuclei of small comets.

Meteoroids are the least regular in physical character and origin of the three extraterrestrial alternatives, yet they have been hypothesized as the extraterrestrial causal mechanism responsible for the formation of the Carolina Bays. The authors strongly believe that meteoroids are the least likely among the extraterrestrial alternatives. Although the shower hypothesis Melton and Schriever, 1933; Melton, 1934, 1950; Prouty, 1952; and Wells and Boyce, 1953 may account for a sufficient number of objects to form half a million bays, it is doubtful that there was sufficient mass to survive atmospheric passage. No finds have been recorded from the meteoroid streams and swarms which are responsible for meteor showers. The larger sporadic meteoroids which probably originated as asteroidal fragments may survive passage through the atmosphere, as attested to by the number of finds. Although they may travel in small groups or may break up into several dozen pieces in the atmosphere, it is unlikely that they existed in sufficient numbers to create half a million Carolina bays. In addition, the orbits of the sporadic meteoroids suggests that their impact on Earth is an individual random process very unlike the impingement of the shower meteoroids.

Only two classes of extraterrestrial alternatives remain. Based solely upon the characteristics previously discussed, Carolina Bays could be the result of either prograde asteroidal bodies perturbed out of orbit, or they could have been formed by collision with a relatively young comet nucleus moving either in prograde or retrograde motion. The probabilities of collision with a retrograde object are somewhat higher than the prograde or directly moving object, because an object perturbed out of a direct orbit will, when crossing planetary orbits, spend more time in the vicinity of the planets which are moving in the same general direction as the perturbed body. Further perturbations are likely and the object will most probably end up in orbit about the sun.


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

VELOCITIES

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

In addition to the previous physical and orbital characteristics, a discussion of the impact velocities on Earth is necessary to complete the picture. The minimum and maximum velocity range is easy to determine. Prograde motion, objects which just barely "catch up" to the Earth, will result in impacts on the surface of the Earth at escape velocity ~11km/sec. This is the minimum velocity expected for any impacting body. Objects which have come from the farthest reaches of our solar system may reasonably be expected to have velocities near the escape velocity of the solar system ~2km/sec. If the object exhibits retrograde motion, the impact velocity on Earth will be additive, equal to the velocity of that body plus the velocity of the Earth as it moves in orbit about the sun 30km/sec. For objects such as comets which have retrograde motion, a parabolic orbit and velocities near the escape velocity of the solar system, the maximum impact velocity would then be 30 + 42 = 72km/sec. A comet with a prograde orbit would then impact at 42 - 30 = 12km/sec. Meteoroids would impact at velocities ranging from the minimum 11km/sec to a maximum 72km/sec. This range is confirmed by observation of meteor velocities. A reasonable impact value for asteroids perturbed out of orbit in direct motion is 16km/sec.


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


TABLE 1: ASTEROIDAL CHARACTERISTICS
Characteristic Descriptions
Size - Frequency Diameter miles Frequency
> 200 3
100 - 200 15
50 - 100 50
25-50 400
12.5-25 2500
< 12.5 > 1000
Orbits location dominantly between Mars and Jupiter
motion direct
inclination typically up to 30o
eccentricities range is .1 to .3
Physical Attributes shape most small asteroids have elongated or irregular shapes
material colorimetric observations indicate material properties similar to the moon
other polametric studies indicate intricate micro-fracturing and possible dust mantles
Possible Origin The planetessimal forming process was interrupted from perturbations by the planet Jupiter. The larger asteroids are thought to be remainders of the original planetessimals. Smaller asteroids are the fragmented remains of earlier collisions.

after Wyatt, 1966; Hartmann, l973


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


TABLE 2: COMET CHARACTERISTICS
Characteristic Descriptions
Orbit - Frequency Short Period Long Period
total observations 94 472
prograde # 87 227
retrograde # 7 245
typical inclination 15o random
typical orbit elliptical 290 parabolic-182 elliptical
aphelion 5 A.U. infinity for parabolic orbits up to 2 light years for ellipses
Physical Attributes Nucleus density 1 . 00 - 1 . 3g/cm3
mass 1015 - 1019g
diameter < 1 - 10 km
composition OH, [OI], CH, CH2, NH, NH2, CN, C2, C3, H2O spectrophotometer mission bands
Possible Origin Comets may be the result of planetessimal formations at the outer edge of the solar system which were perturbed out of the solar system by the gas giant planets. The residing location of comets is called Oorts cloud, a reservoir of cometary material from which a comet by chance is perturbed towards the sun. Some of these comets may undergo further perturbation by Jupiter and become short Period comets.

after Hawkins, 1964; Wyatt, 1966; and Hartmann, 1973.


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


TABLE 3: METEOROID CHARACTERISTICS
Characteristic Descriptions
Types Sporadic Shower Fireball
meteorites are possible meteors only low velocity have inclinations from 0 - 30o; with aphelions under 5 A.U.
prograde orbits either prograde or retrograde orbits high velocity have higher inclinations and much greater aphelions
aphelion near asteroid belt aphelions range up to 100's A.U.
Physical Attributes density type
1.0g/cm3 shower
1.0g/cm3 to 8.0g/cm3 sporadic meteorites
.4g/cm3 to 1.2g/cm3 fireballs
Meteoritic Finds class frequency
stones Aerolites 92.8%
stony-irons Siderolites 1.5%
irons Siderites 5.7%
Possible Origin Most shower meteors are thought to be the non-volatile remains of degenerate short period comets. Meteorites are probably asteroidal fragments while fireballs are most likely to be small cometary nuclei or fragments of a cometary nucleus.

after Hartmann, 1973.


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

IMPACT MECHANICS

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

If the Carolina Bays are the result of impact of a fragmenting comet or asteroid, aspects of impact mechanics may lead to further conclusions concerning the likelihood of such an event. The basis for these impact studies are found in the energy relationships for terrestrial craters, both from impact and from nuclear explosion, and are well documented by Baldwin 1963. The results of these experiments can be stated as a simple cube scaling law where crater diameters are proportional to the cube root of the energy of the explosion. * For one such explosion Teapot-Ess a 300 foot crater was produced by a 1.2 kiloton nuclear device. The relationship for this blast is:


D = kWl/3 equation 1


where:

D = diameter of the crater in feet
k = proportionality constant
W = energy of blast in ergs 1 ton TNT = 4.16 X 1016

Solving for the proportionality constant:


3______________________
300' = k \/1.2 X 1034.16 X 1016


k = 8.1 X 10-5

* More exact relationships can be found using exponents other than 3.00 Baldwin, 1963. The authors feel, however, that simple cube scaling will suffice for a first approximation.

This relationship D = 8.1 X 10 5 X W 1/3 has been used for impact craters and for craters produced by other nuclear devices and appears to be legitimate. This expression, then, can be applied to the Carolina Bays to determine the size of object necessary to produce one average bay and the size of object required to produce all bays, assuming fragmentation. The energy, W, can be calculated by assuming all the kinetic energy to be available for the blast. The cube scaling law then becomes:


D = kl/2MV21/3 equation 2

where:


1/2MV2 = kinetic energy.

If assumptions are made concerning the velocity of impact V needed to form a particular size crater D, then the mass can be determined from equation 2 or rewriting as 3:


2D3/
M = / equation 3
/ k3v2

Further assumptions can be made as to the density of the material, and the size of the object represented as a sphere can be determined from equation 4 shown below:


1.5D3/
R = /
/ p3.141..k3v2


where:

D = diameter of crater in feet
p = density of impacting material g/cm3
k = proportionality constant of cube scaling
F = velocity of impacting body in cm/sec.

This model was used to determine the size of a single fragment necessary to create a Carolina Bay one-half mile in diameter and the original dimensions of the body needed to create 500,000 bays of the same size. This was done as a small computer program Appendix A in which different velocities, densities, exponents and proportionality constants for cube scaling could be changed. The results for impacting asteroids and comets are shown in Table 4. Only the values from the computer output for the upper and lower limits of the impact velocity are included. The resulting size range appears to fit the range of expected diameters for either comets or asteroids.


TABLE 4: IMPACT MECHANICS 1 FOR HIGH AND LOW VELOCITY ASTEROIDS AND COMETS
Impacting Body Impact mps Velocity km/sec Density g/cm3 Single Mass lbs kgm Fragment Diameter 2 ft m Entire Mass T MT Body Diameter 3 mile km
Asteroid 7 11 3.00 .118X106 .536X108 106.4 32.43 .608X1010 .268X1010 1.6 2.57
Asteroid 10 16 3.00 .579X105 .263X108 83.89 25.57 .298X1010 .131X1011 1.26 2.03
Comet 7 11 1.30 .118X106 .536X108 140.6 42.86 .608X1010 .649X109 2.1 3.4
Comet 45 72 1.30 .286X104 .130X107 40.67 12.40 .147X109 .268X1011 .61 .98

1 Cube scaling = 3.00, energy available for impact = 100%
2 Mean diameter of crater - 2640.0 ft 1/2 mile
3 Total number craters - 500,000


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

Other constraints on the fall and impact process can restrict the model. A limit can be set on the mass of an object which will pass through the Earth's atmosphere without retardation of velocity. Objects with masses of one ton or less will be decelerated until the original impact velocity has reached zero and the object will continue to fall at terminal velocity in the atmosphere. Objects greater than 1000 tons will not significantly decrease in velocity Hawkins, 1964, p. 90-91.

Further complications exist if the body breaks into fragments as required for bay formation. The mass of the objects Table 4 are appreciably greater than 1000 tons and will, on entering the atmosphere, maintain their original approach velocity. After fragmenting, the individual particles range in size from approximately one ton for a fast moving comet to fifty tons for a slow moving asteroid. If fragmentation occurs at a fairly high altitude, then considerable deceleration and loss of mass through ablation will probably occur. Fragmentation at lower altitudes would reduce ablation and deceleration considerably. Both instantaneous and continual fragmentation has been observed in meteor falls. It is expected that the higher velocity objects impinging on the Earth's atmosphere are more apt to break up Hartmann, 1973, p. 180.

Although the characteristics of fragmentation favors a cometary impact, the general impact model appears to satisfy the requirements for either a comet or an asteroid collision. Examination of the morphometric characteristics of the Carolina Bays may permit further differentiation as to the possible source of the impacting body.


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

CRATER MORPHOMETRY AND THE CAROLINA BAYS

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

The majority of lunar craters and known terrestrial cryptoexplosion features such as Gosses Bluff, Australia Milton and others, 1972, and the Arizona Meteorite Crater are commonly recognized as impact structures. Such features, similar in form to craters produced by chemical or nuclear devices, result from the release of energy at or below ground level caused by impact of a rapidly moving mass. These energies override the chemical bonds in the rock, causing severe deformation and brecciation plus formation of high-density Si02 polymorphs and shattercones Baldwin, 1965. If the velocity of the mass is sufficient over 6 miles per second, the impact results in a violent explosion, vaporizing some or all of the impacting particles.

Because impact craters are analogous to chemical and nuclear explosions, much crater research has concentrated on these more readily available, if smaller sized forms see Baldwin, 1963; 1965. Various morphometric crater characteristics have a fundamental relationship--expected logarithmic relationships between crater depth D and crater diameter d, between rim height RH and diameter, and between crater rim width RW and diameter. Impact craters ranging from several inches to hundreds of miles in diameter are plotted in Figure 3a. While Baldwin plotted both cubic and linear solutions, the shallow cubic relationship deviated only slightly from the linear solution Baldwin, 1965, p. 68-72. Therefore, only the straight line approximations are included in Figure 3a.


For a Carolina Bay with a major axis of one mile to be regarded as an impact crater, the expected depth should be approximately 1,000 feet, the rim height 150 feet and the rim width 1,000 feet. There are few field data available on the depths of Carolina Bays. However, from descriptions of bays with a major axis of approximately one mile, the depth is less than 1,000 feet by several orders of magnitude.

Actual measured data on any aspect or Carolina Bay morphometry are scarce. Measurements are confined to rim heights and rim widths for nine bays Prouty, 1952, p. 179-183 with bay length determined either from Prouty's text of U.S.G.S. topographic maps Table 5. Those bays such as Junkyard and St. Luke's Church, which are close to one mile in length along the major axis, have rim heights of less than ten feet, whereas the expected rim heights derived from Baldwin approximate 150 feet. The rim widths, on the other hand, are somewhat closer to the expected values. Baldwin's model predicted widths of almost 1,000 feet whereas Junkyard has a mean rim width of 575 feet and St. Luke's Church has a mean rim width of 300 feet.

According to Prouty 1952, p. 183, the maximum rim width for Junkyard Bay is 1,200 feet, whereas the maximum cited rim width for St. Luke's Church Bay is only 350 feet. In both cases the maximum rim widths occur at the southeast end of the bays where rims tend to be best developed. Observed rim width maxima sometimes exceed and sometimes do not approach the predicted rim widths from Baldwin's model. Part of this variation may represent field measurement error: the rim heights are low, the rim width slopes are quite gentle, and the outside perimeter of the rim is irregular, almost scalloped, causing wide fluctuations in rim widths over short distances.


TABLE 5: BAY MORPHOMETRY
Bay Name Location x RH feet x RW feet Major Axis feet
Lake Waccamaw Columbus Co., N.C. 23.0 2000 32,366
Junkyard Clarendon Co., S.C. 7.4 575 6,660
Polk Swamp Orangeburg Co., S.C. 7.4 378 13,590
St. Luke's Church S.C. county unknown 5.25 300 6,300
Grassy Allendale Co., S.C. 5.25 272 7,286
Big Horsepen S.C. county unknown 7.25 525 7,804
Bowman location unknown 6.0 750 10,230
Little Sister Marion Co., S.C. 4.5 350 10,560
Swallow Savanna Allendale Co., S.C. 7.8 523 3,150

after Prouty, 1952, pp. 179-183


Carolina Bays do not even closely approximate impact crater morphometric characteristics. The rim widths appear to be the only measure which even falls within the range predicted by the impact model. In an attempt to examine this phenomenon, a curve relating rim height and rim width was derived from Baldwin's curves and the values for the bays in Table 5 were plotted Figure 3b. For an impact crater to have a rim height of 7.5 feet, it should have a rim width of 100 feet. Junkyard Bay has a mean rim width of 575 feet with a mean rim height of only 7.4 feet. In all nine bays, rim width is considerably greater with respect to rim height than the model predicts. As impact structures, the Carolina Bays exhibit crater depths that are much too shallow for their diameter, rim heights that are too low for their diameter, and rim widths that are too narrow for their diameter. The rim widths are considerably wider than is expected with respect to the actual rim heights. Clearly, the bays are not impact phenomena of the type that created the lunar and terrestrial craters. Additional terrestrial Carolina Bay characteristics such as the absence of coesite and stishovite Si02 polymorphs, the lack of any meteorites genetically related to bays, and the elliptical, rather than circular form of the bays, also do not support any traditional type of extraterrestrial impact bay formation model.


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

A COMET AS THE BAY FORMING MECHANISM *

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

One other aspect peculiar to comets may be important to the genesis of the Carolina Bays. Because of the volatile content in a comet nucleus, a collision trajectory may not result in actual impact. Observations of meteors and fireballs indicate that some of these objects break up as they enter the Earth's atmosphere and sometimes explode in the air.

The 1908 Tunguska fall in Siberia is commonly regarded as the explosion of a very small comet nucleus. Hartmann 1973, p. 146 said that the explosion, estimated to be 1021 to 1023 ergs, knocked a man off his porch 38 miles away. Trees as much as nine miles from the impact site were felled radially outward by the shock wave, whereas trees at ground zero were merely denuded of their branches and left in growth position. Baldwin 1963, p. 37 added that trees in protected locations such as deep valleys remained standing and in some cases were still alive. According to Hartmann p. 146, by 1928 when trained observers first visited the site, they found the impact site to be pockmarked with a series of shallow, funnel-shaped depressions of variable width but not more than four or five meters in depth. No meteorites were discovered. Baldwin 1963, p. 37 noted that in 1928 the original forest vegetation was replaced with tundra except in the craters where swampy vegetation was already well established Hartmann 1973, pp. 146-147 summarized the evidence supporting a cometary origin for the 1908 fall:

1. The object evidently exploded in the air, since trees at "ground zero" stood upright but were stripped of branches. A loosely consolidated ice comet nucleus would be expected to volatilize and explode before it hit the ground.

2. The lack of meteorite fragments is consistent with our picture of a predominantly icy nucleus.

3. A 1961 expedition recovered soil samples that contained small spherules believed to be part of the object. The spherules would be consistent with the idea of an admixture of small grains of non-icy "dirt" in the dirty iceberg and their spherical shape could be the result of sudden melting during the explosion.

4. Observations of the motion of the object across the sky indicated that it was traveling toward the earth probably in retrograde motion at a very high velocity, perhaps 50 km/sec, which would be typical of a comet but not of ordinary meteorites. .

5. For weeks afterward, the night sky in Europe and Russia was anomalously bright. This may have been due in part to atmospheric interaction with tail and coma material although the comet was too small to have been noticed prior to the collision, being on the order 101g to 1011g in mass instead of about 1018g, typical of observed comets.

Multiple shallow craters of variable widths, a climax vegetation destroyed except where topographically protected, the absence of meteoritic finds, a high velocity but low angle trajectory, plus a shock wave felt at least 38 miles and heard 620 miles from the impact site suggest a cometary explosion before actual impact. Hartmann stated that the Tunguska fall was a small comet nucleus. If such a singular event happened once, it could happen at least once more.

*While a heading in the article concerning the original extraterrestrial hypothesis mentions the possibility of a cometary impact Melton and Schriever, 1933, p. 63, the article never explores such a mechanism as an alternative to meteoritic showers.


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

AVAILABLE COMETARY ENERGY

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

In a discussion of the energies needed to produce craters by nuclear explosions, Baldwin 1963, pp. 41-42 indicated that:

As the transition is made from an air burst to a surface burst to a subsurface burst, the energies which go to produce the crater become an increasing percentage of the total energy and the attenuation of the shock waves in the air becomes marked. The maximum blast effect of a 20 KT bomb are greatest for a height of air-burst of about 1,850 feet. Baldwin reports that calculations of the energy in the Tunguska air blast could be the equivalent of a 23.9 KT bomb.

In an attempt to see how a reduction of energy because of an air blast would affect the impact model, we re-ran the model using decreasing amounts of energy available for impact Figure 4. The diameter for the comet nucleus is within an acceptable range of sizes of available cometary material.


Impact of a shock wave caused by an air blast has considerable portent for structure of the bays. The shock wave would be extended for the duration of time each particle volatized and exploded. This could account for the elliptical structure of the bays. The elliptical structure would also be more pronounced if the trajectory of the comet as it approached the earth's surface was low. We have not been able to ascertain what the specific shape of the Tunguska craters were. Presumably , since descriptions refer to diameters, the depressions are probably rounded or sub-rounded rather than elliptical. However, the Campo del Cielo meteorite which fragmented in the atmosphere over Chile and Argentina produced individual craters which are elliptical to sub-rounded Cassidy and others, 1965, p. 1058, so ellipticity, per se, cannot rule out an extraterrestrial origin as was suggested by Price 1968, p. 104.

A shallow trajectory and air blast could also account for the apparent piling up of material on the southeast rims of the bays. Although a fairly speculative model at present, there is the precedence of the Tunguska fall. Further support can be found in the orientation of the bays.


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

BAY ORIENTATION

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

Many scholars Melton and Schriever, 1933; Johnson, 1942; Prouty, 1952; Price, 1968; and Thom, 1970 have variously interpreted the northwest-southeast orientation of the major axes of the bays. Melton and Schriever p. 63 said that the alignment is and should be parallel, because bays formed by a meteoritic shower of particles were on a common trajectory. Johnson, using mean orientation of 75 bays scattered from North Carolina to Georgia, said that the azimuthal standard deviation was too large for alignment to be a significant bay attribute. Later, when Prouty measured the orientation of Carolina Bays, he recognized a radial alignment with southern locations having orientations slightly west of north and northerly bays oriented almost due west.

We measured the azimuths of a 358 bay sample including fourteen counties from Georgia north to Virginia Table 6. The mean azimuths vary from 344.2o in southern South Carolina and 342.6o in southern Georgia to a mean azimuth of 294.9o in Virginia. In general these results appear to verify those of Prouty who stated that there was a systematic latitudinal variation in orientation. Systematic locational variation may have led Johnson to conclude that the overall standard deviation was too large to be meaningful.

While our mean azimuth 342.6o for Atkinson County, Georgia, is similar to Prouty's 345o for the same county, measurement error is a very real possibility. Measuring the precise orientation of an ellipse where overlap occurs is difficult. Although we omitted bays where we thought the orientation was too indistinct, some subjectivity in the actual alignment certainly occurred. Relatively small sample sizes, particularly in counties with wide azimuthal fluctuations, also affects the results. Nonetheless, a wide scatter in bay orientations in a localized area has a possible significance.


TABLE 6: CAROLINA BAY ORIENTATION
State County Number Measured Bays x Azimuth S/x +/-1 S/x in Degrees
Ga. Atkinson 27 342.6o 16.5 359.1 - 326.1
S.C. Allendale 10 341.4o 7.8 349.2 - 333.6
S.C. Barnwell 30 344.2o 5.1 349.3 - 339.1
S.C. Florence 2* 322.0o --- -------------
S.C. Georgetown 9 328.4o 6.5 334.9 - 321.9
S.C. Horry 38 312.3o 6.1 318.4 - 306.2
S.C. Lee 2* 319.5o --- -------------
S.C. Marion 8 316.5o 6.7 323.2 - 309.8
S.C. Sumter 3* 342.0o --- -------------
N.C. Bladen 98 311.4o 4.7 316.1 - 306.7
N.C. Carteret 9 300.4o 6.3 306.7 - 294.1
N.C. Cumberland 15 311.6o 8.5 320.1 - 303.1
N.C. Robeson 90 311.2o 5.8 317.0 - 305.4
Va. Powhatan 17 294.9o 20.3 315.2 - 274.6

*Sample size too small

The mean azimuths for the fourteen sample counties are plotted on Figure 5. They display radial alignment, but more significantly, they have an apparent focus in either southern Ohio or Indiana which indicates the possibility of a point source. Other than measurement errors, variations in mean orientation per county may indicate localized effects or not quite simultaneous explosions and the resulting shock waves. The azimuths tend to support the possibility of a cometary bay forming mechanism.


In addition to the radial orientation, Table 6 also indicates that certain counties, notably those furthest south and north, have much larger standard deviations than the counties in southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina. Some of this variation represents county sample sizes, because the counties with the smallest standard deviations are also the counties with the largest number of samples. Certainly, some portion of the markedly increased variation actually represents an increasingly divergent localized bay alignment.

If a comet nucleus on a low angle northwest trajectory was either fragmented or continuously fragmented as it approached the Earth, some fragments would be deflected further from the actual incoming trajectory. Continued ablation and further fragmentation of each segment of the nucleus, plus the effects of not quite simultaneous air blasts may account for the divergent azimuths in the sampled counties. Thus, bays furthest from the main trajectory could be expected to have much larger azimuthal standard deviations. Following the same logic, Bladen County, North Carolina, with the smallest standard deviation appears to be directly on the collision trajectory.

The increased variation away from the main trajectory may also account for the manner in which bays overlap. Bays in Cumberland County, adjacent to the inferred impact trajectory, tend to overlap either lengthwise along major axes or in complex clusters of as many as fourteen bays superposed in one area. Since Cumberland County is so near to the proposed collision trajectory, the complex bays and chains of bays may represent a rapid series of explosions and shock waves generated from further fragmentation of the remaining nucleus.

Lengthwise overlap along the main trajectory is to be expected because of the smaller variation in the dispersion of fragments. Where fragment dispersion is the greatest, less overlap should occur and bays should either be single or overlap along minor axes.


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

RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS OF A COMETARY MODEL

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

We have eliminated all but one of the extraterrestrial Carolina Bay forming possibilities on the basis of availability, orbital characteristics, physical attributes, and impact morphometry. We further refined the remaining possibility by suggesting that a bay forming comet did not need to be large to form half a million bays. However, it must have been volatile; it must have followed a flat northwest trajectory because rims are better developed in the southeast quadrant, and it must have been fragmented somewhere to the northwest and eventually explode near the surface but in the atmosphere. The physics of such a series of catastrophic atmospheric explosions added to impact velocities at possibly greater than 51 km/sec are very complex. To the best of our knowledge no one has speculated about the nature of, or the bay forming energies available with, such shock waves. Nor since 1936 MacCarthy has anyone speculated about the relationship between shock waves and Carolina Bay morphology. These two avenues of research are needed before a cometary bay forming mechanism could be widely accepted.

As happened when aerial photographs of Carolina Bays were first seen Melton and Schriever, 1933, we were immediately struck by the too remarkable regularity and uniformity with which bay morphology repeated itself. As physical geographers we doubted that either simple or complex sets of terrestrial mechanisms could conspire to create exceedingly regular forms on one portion of the Atlantic Coastal Plain without forming similar and equally widespread features elsewhere in similar coastal environments. It seemed to us that either the area is unique or the causal mechanism is not terrestrial. Furthermore, if the cause is not terrestrial, it almost certainly was a comet. Neither the impact of a large asteroid nor the splash effects of a meteoritic shower could form Carolina Bays. This section, then, represents pure speculation about some of the terrestrial constraints concerned with such a unique event and suggests possible directions whereby this model can be tested.

If Carolina Bays represent residual scars of a truly singular extraterrestrial event, the bays must be young--an attribute accepted by many terrestrial theorists as well. For example, Price 1968 indicated one or more periods of late Pleistocene bay development, whereas Thom 1970 indicated either a Farmdalian 28,000 - 22,000 B.P. or a Woodfordian 22,000 - 12,500 B.P. age. Age is a more critical factor when an extraterrestrial mechanism is invoked. Bays formed virtually instantaneously by explosions of cometary fragments are residual features. Subsequent modifications of such scars by normal terrestrial processes would rapidly obliterate all traces in unconsolidated sediments such as the Coastal Plain. Study of bays in Figure 2 suggests that bays remain quite distinct, essentially unaltered except for infilling; thus, the bays must be quite young--either late Wisconsinan or early Holocene.

Very few samples of buried peat in the bays have been dated. Thom 1970 had a 6600 B.P. radiocarbon date from the basal peat in one South Carolina bay although he cited a greater than 38,000 B.P. date from the basal peat in a North Carolina bay. It is difficult to equate the two results. The bays may be Wisconsinan in age. On the other hand, anomalous dates do occur, so little reliance can be placed on the few dates which have been acquired. Sequential samples along a vertical profile in several bays need to be dated and at least one date from the basal organic fill in a large sample of bays should be taken. Such a dating program will permit the Carolina Bays to be more precisely defined in time, and, more particularly, may indicate the possibility of simultaneous origin.

As was indicated earlier in the description of the Tunguska site, the vegetation in the area at the time the Carolina Bays formed may have been severely stressed by the shock waves from exploding cometary fragments. The larger vegetation would have been destroyed over sizable areas such as Bladen County, North Carolina, where well over half of the entire area is covered by bays. If such a shock occurred, perhaps a record of the event might be preserved by the pollen rain into the newly formed depressions. Assuming a rapid sequence of successional plants until equilibrium was restored, the basal organic fill in the bays might be one avenue by which a cometary origin could be tested.

When the shallow Campo del Cielo craters were examined Cassidy and other, 1965, the authors found a modern soil developed in crater ejecta with a pre-impact soil buried beneath the debris. Search for such a compound soil profile beneath bay rims is an additional research possibility which might support an extraterrestrial model. The problem is compounded because certain soils in the area have thick, residual, light-colored, silica sand concentrations in their A2 horizons Johnson, personal communication. Such a sand is an almost sterile end product of weathering. It would not weather significantly more, even if it were to be displaced up to the surface. This may be one reason why rim sands stand out so distinctly on aerial photographs even though the form is low and relatively indistinct on the ground.

Other than the physics of an unconfined near surface air blast, the single most critical problem for the extraterrestrial model suggested in this paper concerns the apparent selectivity of bay locations. Known extraterrestrial impact craters are randomly distributed with respect to geology. Known Carolina Bays are not. Until recently, when Goodwin and Johnson 1970 described bays in fluvial sands and gravels on the Piedmont in Virginia, all bays were believed to be confined to the Coastal Plain and better developed in sandy environments than in clay-rich ones Whitehead and Tan, 1969; Thom, 1970. Some of the sandy areas where bays occur are Pleistocene river terraces, others are in dune complexes, still others are associated with marine terraces of different ages. If cometary fragments exploded, the displacement depth would depend in part on the cohesiveness of the unconsolidated surficial sediments. Although the analogy from a bomb crater to a bay is not direct, Baldwin 1963, p. 183 said that a sandy loam texture yielded larger bomb craters than a clay-rich texture for an equal expenditure of energy. Depressions created in clay-rich soils would be smaller, more shallow, and far less easy to recognize on aerial photographs. Assuming Piedmont bays exist, current methods in remote sensing may detect bays which cannot be recognized on conventional black and white photographs.

Many excellent descriptions of bay morphology exist although explanations of the attributes differ. Therefore, throughout this section we have concentrated on non-traditional approaches to Carolina Bays and the possible relationships between the diverse approaches and an extraterrestrial causal mechanism. Bay morphology is also important. Various morphologic characteristics have been used in both supporting and refuting earlier extraterrestrial models. We can add little that is new in this regard except to note that cometary explosions in the atmosphere would not distort the underlying strata in the process of creating shallow depressions, nor would shock waves leave residual traces which could be identified in the mineralogy of the bays.


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

CONCLUSION

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

The proposed model with shock waves from cometary fragments exploding above the surface creating a series of similar landforms is conceptually very simple, and is far less complex than most of the terrestrial models postulated recently. For geometrically regular forms such as Carolina Bays we prefer a simple causal mechanism if it is feasible.

Examination of impact mechanics and Carolina Bay morphometry eliminates traditional impact phenomena resulting from meteoroid swarms or asteroids. However, the unique orbital and physical characteristics of a comet favor a model in which a high velocity retrograde comet or a low velocity prograde comet collided with the Earth. The incoming nucleus approached from the northwest and fragmented. The fragments, diverging from the main trajectory, volatized and subsequently exploded in the atmosphere near the surface. The resultant shock waves created shallow elliptical depressions which are best displayed in the sandy sediments of the Coastal Plain.

This model is not fully substantiated. But, given the terrestrial and extraterrestrial constraints used in this paper, a comet remains a viable alternative worthy of further consideration. We hope that the physics of such an event can be explored, and that these results support our contention. We believe that a multidirected research effort will eventually result in a consensus about a truly enigmatic set of landforms.


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

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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

Baldwin, R. B., 1963. The Measure of the Moon. Chicago: The University. of Chicago Press.

Baldwin, R. B., 1965. A Fundamental Survey of the Moon. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Carson, C. E., and Hussey, K. M., 1962. The Oriented Lakes of Arctic Alaska, Journal of Geology, vol. 70, pp. 417-439.

Cassidy, W. A., and others, 1965. Meteorites and Craters of Campo del Cielo, Argentina, Science, vol. 149, pp. 1055-1064.

Cooke, C. W., 1934. Discussion of the Origin of the Supposed Meteorite Scars of South Carolina, Journal of Geology, vol. 42, pp. 89-96.

Cooke, C. W., 1940. Elliptical Bays in South Carolina and the Shape of Eddies, Journal of Geology, vol. 48, pp. 205-211.

Cooke, C. W., 1954. Carolina Bays and the Shapes of Eddies. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 254-l.

Daniels, R. B., and ****, E. E., 1971. Stability of Coastal Plain Surfaces, Southeastern Geology, vol. 13, pp. 61-75.

Doering, J., 1960. Quaternary Surface Formations of Southern Part of Atlantic Coastal Plain, Journal of Geology, vol. 68, pp. 182-202.

Frey, D., 1951. Pollen Succession in the Sediments of Singletary Lake, North Carolina, Ecology, vol. 32, pp. 518-533.

Frey, D., 1954. Evidence of the Recent Enlargement of the "Bay" Lakes of North Carolina, Ecology, vol. 35, pp. 78-88.

Glenn, L. C., 1895. Some Notes on Darlington, South Carolina Bays, Science, vol. 2, pp. 472-475.

Goodwin, B. K., and Johnson, G. H., 1970. Geology of the Upland Gravels near Midlothian, Virginia, 11th Annual Field Conference Atlantic Coastal Plain Geological Association Guidebook, pp. 1-35.

Grant, C., 1945. A Biological Explanation of the Carolina Bays, Science Monthly, vol. 61, pp. 443-450.

Hartmann, W. K., 1973. Moons and Planets: An Introduction to Planetary Science. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., Inc.

Hawkins, G. S., 1964. The Physics and Astronomy of Meteorites. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., 1936. Origin of the Supposed Meteorite Scars of Carolina, Science, vol. 48, pp. 15-18.

Johnson, D. W., 1942. The Origin of the Carolina Bays. New York: Columbia University Press.

Johnson, G. H., and Goodwin, B. K., 1967. Elliptical Depressions on Undissected Highland Gravels in Northern Chesterfield County, Virginia [Abstract], Virginia Journal of Science, vol. 18, p. 186.

Johnson, H. S., and Du Bar, J. R., 1964. Geomorphic Elements of the Area between the Cape Fear and Pee Dee Rivers, North and South Carolina, Southeastern Geology, vol. 6, pp. 37-47.

Jones, V. L., 1956. Discussion of 'Were the Carolina Bays Oriented by Gyroscopic Action? by W. Schriever', Transactions, American Geophysical Union, vol. 37, pp. 112-117.

Krivov, E. L., 1966. Giant Meteorites. New York: Permagon Press.

LeGrand, H. E., 1953. Streamlining of the Carolina Bays, Journal of Geology, vol. 61, pp. 263-274.

Lobeck, A. K., 1939. Geomorphology: An Introduction to the Study of Landscapes. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.

MacCarthy, G. R., 1937. The Carolina Bays, Bulletin, Geological Society of America, vol. 48. PP. 1211-1225.

Melton, F. A., 1934. Reply to Cooke 1934, Journal of Geology, vol. 42, PP. 97-104.

Melton, F. A., 1950. The Carolina Bays, Journal of Geology, vol. 58, pp. 128-134.

Melton, F. A., and Schriever, W., 1933. The Carolina Bays - Are They Meteorite Scars?, Journal of Geology, vol. 41, pp. 52-66.

Milton, D. J., and others, 1972. Gosses Bluff Impact Structure, Australia, Science, vol. 175, pp. 1199-1207.

Preston, C. D., and Brown, C. Q., 1964. Geologic Section along a Carolina Bay, Sumter County, S. C., Southeastern Geology, vol. 6, pp. 21-29.

Price, W. A., 1951. Wind Caused Pattern, Science News-Letter, p. 327.

Price, W. A., 1958. Sedimentology and Quaternary Geomorphology of South Texas,Transactions, Gulf Coast Association Geological Society, vol. 8, pp. 41-75.

Price, W. A., 1963. The Oriented Lakes of Arctic Alaska: A Discussion, Journal of Geology, vol. 71, pp. 530-531.

Price, W. A., 1968. Carolina Bays, In R. W. Fairbridge ed., The Encyclopedia of Geomorphology. New York: Reinhold Book Corp., pp. 102-109.

Prouty, W. F., 1935. "Carolina Bays" and Elliptical Lake Basins, Journal of Geology, vol. 43, pp. 200-207.

Prouty, W. F., 1952. Carolina Bays and their Origin, Bulletin, Geological Society of America, vol. 63, pp. 167-224.

Raisz, E. J., 1934. Rounded Lakes and Lagoons of the Coastal Plains of Massachusetts, Journal of Geology, vol. 42, pp. 839-848.

Robertson, E. C., 1962. The Carolina Bays and Emergence of the Coastal Plain of the Carolinas and Georgia. United States
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #575 on: December 30, 2007, 12:51:48 pm »

Brig

Administrator
Member # 802

Rate Member   posted 04-30-2006 03:36 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certainly thorough. I have always felt the Carolinas craters were connected to the Atlantean legend in one way or another.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 9907 | From: Old Washington, Ohio , USA | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged |   
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #576 on: December 30, 2007, 12:53:36 pm »

Europa

Member
Member # 2616

Member Rated:
   posted 04-30-2006 11:50 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN OF THE GUANCHES


Into the West, unknown to man,
Ships have sailed since the world began,
Follow the ships through the wind-blown wrack,
Follow the ships that come not back...
R. E. Howard, The Sword of Conan


Introduction
The present article should be read in conection with the one entitled "Guanche Language Derived From Dravida?", which also figures in the present Homepage. Both are an abridged version of a far vaster work of ours on the Guanche problem.

The Guanches are the mysterious natives of the Canary Islands. They were just about exterminated by the Spaniards when these invaded the archipelago at the turn of the 15th century. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, the Guanches have long intrigued the anthropologists, for blond natives are rarity. According to the reliable Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Guanches "are thought to have been of Cro-Magnon origin... and had a brown complexion, blue or gray eyes, and blondish hair" (See Fig. 1).

Indeed, the Guanches are deemed to be related to the Berbers of neighboring Morroco, who are, likewise, tall, blond and blue-eyed when unmixed with the Arab majority. Other specialists, however, believe that the Guanches are related to the Celts of Western Europe, the early realm of these races. No matter what, the Guanches represent a unique opportunity of studying the early peoples of this region so intimately connected with Atlantis and the Garden of the Hesperides.

Isolated in their islands, the Guanches were prevented, until the advent of the Spanish, from sexually mingling with other races. So, they preserved their pristine Cro-Magnon genetic traits in a more or less pure fashion until that date. But, as we said, the Guanches were massacred by the Spaniards, and their remainder mingled heavily with the invaders, so that they essentially inexist today. But the blond, blue-eyed, tall stock has been preserved in part, and can still be seen in many individuals. As is known, blond traits are dominated by dark ones, and tend to disappear from the population. But they survive unseen, and may return in certain individuals called "recessives", who combine the proper genes.

Furthermore, the Guanches mummified their dead, and this material can be studied by the researchers, particularly concerning traits such as blood type and racial characteristics. This strange mode of disposing of the dead — which the Guanches shared with the Polynesians, the Egyptians and the Mayas — has been mooted out by several authorities as indicating a close affinity among these distant nations. The Guanches also left some sort of alphabetic inscriptions which have yet to be studied, along with their pottery and peculiar ruins. All in all, the archaeology of this most remarkable people is far from satisfactorily researched.

Many researchers have pointed out the resemblance of the Guanche natives with the Cro-Magnons and, particularly, with Cro-Magnoid types of regions such as those of Muges (Portugal) dating from the Mesolithic (c. 8,000 BC). Similar groups have been noted and studied Portugal, Spain, France, England, Sweden and Northwest Africa, precisely the realm of the Celto-Germanic and the Berber races.


Are the Canaries the Remains of Sunken Atlantis?
Many Atlantologists have proposed that the Canary Islands are the remainder of a sunken Atlantis, being the lofty volcanic peaks left behind when the lost continent foundered. However, the Canary islands rise directly from the deep ocean floor, from a depth of some 3,000 meters below the surface. Indeed, they are a part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, having been formed by submarine volcanoes at the end of the Tertiary Age (circa 2.5 million years ago).Their lavas consist of basalts and trachytes, the typical material of submarine, non-explosive volcanism typical of seabottoms.

Due to both their age and their origin, the Canarian volcanoes can hardly be invoked to account for the conflagration that wiped Atlantis off the map. Instead, this type of basaltic, submarine volcanism is nowadays perfectly well understood geologically speaking. Such volcanoes result from the upwelling magma that forms the Continental Plates, according to the theory of Plate Tectonics, and are a feature of all oceanic regions of the world. Hence, the claims made by certain Atlantologists such as P. Termier, I. Donnelly, C. Berlitz and many others that the Canaries or the Azores, or the Madeiras are the remains of sunken Atlantis do not hold water at all.


Are the Guanches Atlantean Relicts?
As we said above, though we can be certain that the Canaries, along with the other neighboring Atlantic islands, are not the residues of a sunken continent that foundered in the region, we have yet to explain the mysterious origin of the Guanches. However, where smoke is, there is usually fire, and we cannot simply ignore the recurrent legends that link this people to Atlantis.

But if they are not Atlanteans left behind when their continent sunk, the only possible explanation for the mysterious origin of the Guanches is that they primordially came from somewhere else. But, whence? Certainly not from neighboring Africa, the realm of the Black Man. No serious anthropologist has ever maintained that the blond Aryans originated in Africa itself. The standing proposals for the origin of the Berbers and, possibly, the Guanches themselves, are that they came from Arabia, after crossing the Sahara desert.

But, to start with, no one is sure that the Arabs or, even less, the Aryans, originated in Arabia or Palestine, and their own ethiological legends affirm that they came from beyond the Indian Ocean. Moreover, the Sahara desert poses a formidable barrier ever since the end of the Pleistocene, and it is highly unlikely that it could be crossed by hordes of migrants, unstocked with the food and water required for the task.

The Guanches were held in perfect isolation from Europe and other Old World civilizations until they were discovered by the Portuguese and Spanish at the end of the 15th century. This separation dates from prehistoric times that far predate the ones of Plato and Herodotus, and even those of Homer and Hesiod. So, if Guanche legends indeed relate to Atlantis and its doom, we can be certain that the golden realm was no idle invention of Plato or other Greeks, but originated in a very ancient tradition, dating from the dawn of mankind. This is precisely what we aim to prove in the present work on the origin of the Guanches.

We start by reviewing the ancient traditions linking the Canaries to the Garden of the Hesperides and the Islands of the Blest, and progress into the modern proposals purporting to show that the Canaries and the other neighboring islands are the remains of sunken Atlantis. Finally, we attempt showing their rather direct relationship between the Canaries, Atlantis and the Garden of Eden, the legendary site of the origin of Mankind.

If our conclusions indeed prove to be right and survive the wellcome attack of the critics, the whole of human prehistory will have to undergo a major revision. Hence, the importance of inquiring on the origin of the Guanches and their possible connection with Atlantis. The mysterious Guanches provide the key to the riddles that surround the origin of Mankind, and are the "missing link" connecting the Mediterranean and other neighboring civilizations to the Far Orient and the Indies, the true site of the Garden of the Hesperides. This garden, also known as that of Eden, is the place where Mankind and Civilization indeed developed, according to the holy traditions of many nations, and not only that of the Bible.


Evening Isles Fantastical
Classical writers often mention legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean in a way that closely evokes the legends of Atlantis. Homer mentions islands like Phaeacia, Scheria and Ogygia. The Argonautica, deemed to be prior to Homer's Odyssey, also speaks of legendary oceanic islands such as Aiaia, Thrinacia and Colchis. More than just delightful novels, these ancient sagas were indeed Sacred History, and were believed to derive from actual fact. The Greco-Roman traditions concerning the fabulous oceanic islands and their golden realms apparently derive from the far earlier ones such as the Epic of Gilgamesh of the Sumero-Babylonians or the Ramayana and the Mahabharata of the Hindus.

Many other classical authors also mention such fantastic islands of the ocean. This ocean the Greeks, ignorant of the other oceans, very naturally identified with what we nowadays call by the name of Atlantic Ocean, that is, "the Ocean of the Atlanteans". But when we read the ancient traditions closer, we notice that the fabulous islands of the Atlanteans were always placed "at the confines of the earth".

Moreover, the ocean in question is invariably described as "winy red" and is placed towards dawn and Orient. In other words, the ocean in question is the Indian Ocean, which the ancients called Erythraean, that is, "Red One". And Atlantis is the same as the Ultima Thule of the ancients, this being the name they gave to the "confines of the earth" which lay towards the Orient, in the Eastern limits of their world, and where they also placed the Pillars of Atlas, the twin and counterpart of the western Pillars of Hercules, in Gibraltar.


The Phoenicians and the Secret Route to the Indies.
The traditions concerning the legendary Atlantic Islands (or, rather, "Islands of the Atlanteans") were probably transferred from the Orient to the Occident by the ancient navigants and explorers such as the Phoenicians, the Minoan Cretans and the Etruscans. The Greeks had some knowledge of the ancient peripluses of the Phoenicians, the detailed accounts of the naval routes to such mysterious islands so often equated to the ones of Paradise and Atlantis.

In the desire to preserve the lucrative monopoly of their maritime trade with the Indies, the Phoenicians and their partners disguised their verbal maps under a veil of confusion intended to avert the possible competitors towards the wrong places and directions. It suffices to read such accounts, preserved in the writings of authors such as Avienus, Hanno, and Pytheas of Marseilles to observe the inextricable confusions that becloud the real distances, names and directions.

The same thing happens with the writers that speak of the Atlantic Islands in mythical terms. The accounts of authorities such as Herodotus, Plato, Diodorus, Theopompos and many others are no different from the accounts of the Odyssey and the Argonautica. They are full of allegories, metaphors, paradoxes and even downright lies that have led the experts to despair from ever making any sense out of them.

Such relates tell of seas riddled with clashing rocks, seamonsters and thorny sargassoes that dragged down the ships they caught, or in giant maelstroms and muddy shoals and doldrums that prevented the mariners from ever escaping death. They also tell of one-eyed giants and microscopic dwarfs, of strap-footed Titans and goat-footed satyrs, of terrible cannibals and of sorceress of all kinds. But some of these accounts were far more realistic and matter-of fact, and plainly alluded to real islands such as the Canaries and the Madeiras and, far more likely, to the Indonesian islands or even the Americas beyond.


Midas and the Satyr Silenus
The ancients believed, as did Plato and Herodotus along with the Greek geographers that a circular ocean — the one they called "Outer Ocean" or "Atlantic Ocean", and which included what we now call the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans— surrounded the world then known, which consisted of Eurasia and Africa. The historian Theopompos, a contemporary of Plato, relates a conversation between the legendary King Midas of Phrygia and the very wise satyr Silenus.

The satyr, entrapped and rendered drunk by Midas, told him of an Outer Continent (the Americas?) that outlay the ocean and which was inhabited by a people twice the size and twice as long-lived as the ordinary mortals. One part of their continent was permanently enwrapped by a red mist and was drained by two rivers, the River of Pleasure and the River of Grief. Once, these giants crossed the ocean intending to conquer the ancient world. But once they saw the misery of our world, they realized that it was useless to pursue their plan, and retired to their world in disgust.

The story of Theopompos is extremely interesting, for it embodies the essential elements of the myth of Atlantis. To start with, the attempted invasion of the giants closely evokes the similar one undertaken by Plato's Atlanteans. Plato too alludes to the Outer Continent, the Epeira Ges that delimited the Ocean on all sides, and which can only be the Americas. The Atlantean empire was indeed worldwide, and certainly encompassed the Americas, whose name comes not from a hypothetical Amerigo Vespucci, but far more probably relates to that of the Celtic Armorica.1

In the version of Theopompos, the Atlanteans are confusedly equated with the Long-lived Ethiopians of Homer, Herodotus and others. The Long-lived Ethiopians, often described as tall, blond, blue-eyed giants of twice normal size, are a recurrent feature of the ancient Greek legends. More realistic historians such as Pliny and Solinus correctly place these blessed giants in the islands of Taprobane, that is, in the Indonesian islands. But others, perhaps ignoring the true meaning of the antique traditions, place the Islands of the Blest and their beautiful, saintly giants, in the Canaries and the Madeiras where we also encounter them in reality.


The Mirror of Illusion (Maya)
As we shall see further below, these ancient "confusions" were planned, and the blue-eyed "Ethiopians" of the Canaries and Mauritania were planted there as a virtual replica or "mirror image" of the real ones, the fortunate Ethiopians of Trapobane. Indeed the metaphor of the "mirror image" of Atlantis created by the Ethiopians of the Canary Islands and of the Berber coast of Mauritania is not ours, but figures in many ancient symbols and traditions. This tradition concerns the Mirror of Illusion, the characteristic attribute of deceptive goddesses such as the Indian Mayâ ("Illusion") and the Greco-Roman Venus.

The motif of the Mirror of Illusion occurs even in the Americas and, particularly among the Gnostics such as the Cathars and others. The Phoenicians indeed held that the Pillars of Hercules of Gibraltar were a "mirror image" of those located in the Orient, as some of their coins specifically illustrate. Interestingly enough, Maya (the male avatar of the Mayâ) is the Great Architect, the luciferine deity of the Gnostics and the enlightened civilizer of humanity. Maya (masculine of Mayâ) is also the builder of legendary Lanka, the city and capital of the worldwide empire that was the actual archetype of Atlantis. In Fig. 2, we show two Phoenician coins illustrating the true Pillars of Hercules in the Far East, and their illusory reflection in Gibraltar.

As we shall see further below, Maya, the Supreme Smith of the Hindus, had his Guanche counterpart in Guayota, the Supreme God of the Guanches, and in Lug, their Celtic counterpart. Such coincidences can hardly be random. So, the only possible explanation lies in diffusion through direct contact among the civilizations in question, that is, those of the Guanches, the Celts and the Indonesian Aryans, known to the ancients as the Pious Ethiopians of Taprobane.

The Pillars of Hercules of Gibraltar and the Garden of the Hesperides of the Canaries in the Atlantic Ocean are an illusion or mirage, a mirror image of the true Islands of the Blest, in Indonesia. The Atlantic Atlantis, variously placed in the Canaries, the Azores, Tartessos (Spain), Mauritania (Morocco), or Crete is a sheer illusion created by the clever ancients in order to distract and to disillusion the inquisitive profanes of ever finding the Lost Continent and the true site of Paradise. So are the ones of the Syrtis (Libya), the Bosphorus, the Armorican coasts of Brittany, the Irish Isles, and so on.


The Ancient Conspiracy
The reader may wonder what proof do we have to substantiate our of a conspiracy of the ancients to hide the whereabouts of Atlantis-Eden? The ancients well knew the true site of Eden or, more exactly, of the ancestral Paradise whence we all came from, and which was the site where Mankind and Civilization first started. And they also knew that this paradisial region was destroyed by the Flood at precisely the date given by Plato, that of 11,600 years ago.

But they could not tell its true location, for this was the matter of the secret of the ancient Mysteries, and this divulgation was considered a grievous crime of profanation, often punished with death, as in the case of Socrates and, possibly of Plato himself. So, the true location of Paradise was only dealt in a sort of coded language based on allegories, riddles and puns that were intelligible only to the initiated in those secrets.

Well, the evidence we gave above is just a small sample of several hundreds of compelling evidences like the ones we present below and elsewhere. Our strongest evidences for Atlantis and its true location in the Far East are both geological and anthropological. They include racial characteristics, blood types, myths, traditions, customs, techniques, artistic motifs and, above all, the linguistic, cultural and religious affinities. The last two are just about the strongest and most unequivocal of all links between different nations derived from a single stock.

In an article parallel to this one we present the philological comparison of the Guanche language to Dravida, the sacred, pristine language of the Dravidian populations of India. As can be seen in that article, the two languages, though isolated from each other by untold millennia, are remarkably similar both in phonetics and in grammar. No serious linguist will idly dismiss the cogent parallels we present there, particularly as the linguistic affiliation of the Guanche tongue is an unsolved riddle so far.

For reasons of space and scope, these two articles are kept concise and non-technical. But even then, we believe that the evidence presented is compelling enough to convince all that take the trouble to follow them in detail. Moreover, as we just said, there are simply no viable alternative theories that explain the riddle of Guanche origins in a satisfactory way. In our view — which we argue in detail here and elsewhere — this people formerly lived in Indonesia or, more exactly, in the now sunken portion of it which now forms the South China Sea. When their land sunk away, at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, they were forced out by the cataclysm, and moved to the Canaries, possibly in the wake of other seafaring nations such as the proto-Phoenicians and proto-Cretans.


The Twin Ethiopias of Homer and Others
From earliest times — as instanced in Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus and elsewhere — the Greeks spoke of two Ethiopias placed at the two opposite ends of the world. One corresponded to the region near Gibraltar we are presently discussing, and the other one was located beyond the Ocean (Indian), in Taprobane (Indonesia). The idea of "burnt faces" (aethi-opes) connected with the Ethiopia is not indeed an allusion to the dark coloration of this people, but to the fact that they were expelled from their homeland as the result of the fiery cataclysm that sunk Atlantis away. This catastrophe was indeed caused by the giant volcanic conflagration of Mt. Atlas, which mythically "charred" their physiognomies. In reality, this darkening was the result of the admixture with the darker neighboring nations of Indonesia, precisely as reported by Plato and others.

Emigrating from the charred remains of their sunken continent — the formerly paradisial Land of the Dead that would later become the Islands of the Blest — the Canarians (and other Atlantean nations as well) moved to the opposite side of the world, where they would attempt to rebuild their lost Paradise. Hence, the twin Ethiopias of Homer and others, and the duplicity of Pillars of Hercules, of Mt. Atlases, of Gardens of Hesperia, and so on.

Even the Ocean that encircled the earth with its ring was likewise parted into two complementary moieties ascribed to the omnipresent Atlanteans. More exactly, it was parted into two parts, one which we now call Atlantic Ocean, as did the ancients, and an eastern half that had its name changed from Atlantic Ocean into Indian (or Erythraean) Ocean. This name, which means "red" in Greek, is the mystic name of the Atlantean peoples such as the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and even the Guanches themselves. Indeed, the "Reds" are the Chams or Chamites of the Bible, a name not unconnected with the red races just mentioned and with that of the Guanches as well.2


The Atlantis of the Orient
Many authoritative writers of antiquity place Mt. Atlas and the Atlanteans, along with the Garden of the Hesperides in the Far Occident, in the region of Mauritania and the Canaries. But no lesser authorities than Hesiod and Eurypides, among many others, place Atlas and his Pillar of Heaven in the Far Orient, at the extremities of the world and of the day, where we also find the other legendary islands associated with Atlantis and its foundering.

The Hesperides (or Atlantides) were the seven daughters and lovers of Atlas. Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven, was the personification of Mt. Atlas, just as his seven beloved daughters were the ones of the Seven Atlantic Islands that figure in many traditions, and which are no other than the ones of Indonesia. It is only natural that the giant would want to place his girls right next to the place where he stayed up the heavens, for carnal reasons, if not prompted by fatherly love. Hence, the Garden of the Hesperides of the Far Occident in an illusion not unlike the "Mt. Atlas" of Mauritania or its Canarian replica, the Teyde (or Teide) volcano.

The Mt. Atlas of Mauritania, the one we know under that name, is not indeed a volcano, and, hence, cannot at all explain the traditions concerning the conflagrative destruction of Atlantis and the fall of the former heaven when its Holy Mountain collapsed. If Mt. Atlas indeed collapsed — as volcanoes are wont to do after gigantic explosions — and if Atlantis sunk along with its environing lands, how are we to expect to find its mountain unscathed, as is the case of Mt. Teyde in the Canaries, and of Mt. Atlas, its Mauritanian counterpart.


Theopompos' Atlanteans and the Mysterious Hanebut
It is time to return to Theopompos and his cryptic Atlanteans. The "red mist" that beclouded the Meropean continent is another traditional feature that we systematically encounter in the legends concerning such mysterious regions. Ultimately, the dark "mist" is the smoke cloud that resulted from the volcanic cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis and which, indeed, blocked away sunlight, obscuring the entire region for a large time.

This darkening of the sun is a sad reality, well known to the inhabitants of the region of Indonesia, volcanically the most active in the whole world. In Hindu myths, the city associated with the cataclysmic explosion and the smoke cover is called Dhumadi. This name means "Covered by Smoke", in Sanskrit. This etym (or etymon or etymology) closely recalls the legend of Sodom and Gomorra, likewise covered by a pillar of smoke "that rose up to the very skies".

Indeed, Dhumadi was the archetype of Atlantis and, as we explain elsewhere, of Sodom and Gomorra and other such cities destroyed by a volcanic conflagration. In Egypt we encounter the same tradition under the name of the mysterious Hanebut. The name means, in Egyptian, "the Dwellers of the Misty Regions".

The Hanebut were a real people, and their region was frequently visited by the Egyptians, who traded with them across the ocean. As the Egyptians only sailed the Indian Ocean, it is clear that the region in question lay beyond that ocean, in the region of Indonesia. It was there that the mysterious country of the nebulous Cimmerians was located, as well as the Pillars of Hercules and, more exactly, those of Atlas as well. Plato places Atlantis just in front of the Pillars of Hercules. So do many other ancient authors, disguising its true identity under names such as Cimmeria, Hades, Taprobane, Cassia, Punt and Hanebut.


The Celts and the Elusive Cimmerians
In Homer and others, such peoples that lived in perpetual, smoky darkness, were called Cimmerians. The Cimmerians or their equivalents are a recurrent feature of all traditions. The Germans and the Celts also spoke of such a misty region, which they called by the name of Nefelheim, "the Abode of Mist".

The Nephilim — the fallen Titans or Giants of the Bible, whose sin with the Daughters of Men led to the cataclysm of the Flood — in all probability derive their name from a radix neph meaning "nebula", "mist", as in the Greek nephele, the German nefel, the Sanskrit nabha, the Dravida nep, etc. Even in Egyptian we encounter the radix in the name of the Hanebut (or Hau-nebhu-t).

Homer (Od. X:508; XI:14) tells how the Cimmerians lived "enshrouded in mist and perpetual darkness which the sun never pierces". He places their region in Hades, beyond the Ocean, next to Mt. Erebus. Erebus is the very entrance to Hell, the terrible chasm left behind when Mt. Atlas foundered underseas, becoming a giant volcanic caldera.


The Celts are the Cimmerians of Taprobane (Sumatra)
The Cimmerians are deemed to be the ancestors of the Celts and the Scythians, two other races of blond, blue-eyed, gigantic Ethiopians. They are identified with the Cymry or Cimbri, a Germanic tribe which invaded Rome and almost defeated the empire at about 100 BC. The Cimmerians were deemed to have come from the Palus Maeotis, a legendary region often connected with the sinking of Atlantis (palus = "marshes", in Latin).

One of the triads of the Celtic Mabinogion tells how:


"Hu Gadarn originally came with the tribe of the Cymry to the Britannic Isles. They came from the Country of Summer, which is called Defrobani... They crossed the Misty Ocean (Tawch) and arrived in the Britannic Isles and Armorica, where they settled."

Here is direct evidence that the Cimmerian Celts (Cymry) indeed came from Taprobane (Sumatra), here misspelt as Defrobani. The Country of Summer (Gwlad or Haf) can only be situated at the Equator and can hardly be identified with the Hyperborean regions of the Far North, where this people also settled after fleeing their destroyed homeland. Hu Gadarn is the Celtic equivalent of Noah and of Aeneas, leading his people away from their destroyed Paradise, into the Promised Land.
Indeed, the Hyperborea whence the Celto-Iberians originally came is the realm of Apollo (the Sun), "the land beyond the Boreas". And the mythical Land of the Sun can hardly be believed to lie in the Arctic or, even less, in the Antarctic regions, as some authors will.

Actually, the Hyperboreans were held to live in the mysterious Thule, the divide of the world that lay beyond the ocean. And the word Ocean meant, for the ancients, the Indian Ocean, and never the Atlantic, which they never sailed. Thule is the same as the island of Long-Lived Ethiopians. And these Ethiopians are indeed the Hyperboreans, both legendary races being identical in being composed of tall, blond, blue-eyed Ethiopians. Both lived in the far off region of Taprobane (Indonesia), a place, the above authorities add, "which lies beyond the Aquilon".


Boreas Is Not Indeed the North Wind That Blows From The Alps
Boreas is not indeed the North Wind that blows from the Alps into Mediterranean Europe, but a figuration of the monsoon winds that blow in the northern regions of Indonesia. The name of Boreas given to the North Wind that blows in the chilly regions beyond the Alps is a replica, a "mirror image" of the true Indonesian archetype. The Hindus worship Boreas, the North Wind, under the name of Varaha (or Vayu), from whose name that of Boreas ultimately derives.

So, the mythical Hyperboreans, the mysterious "peoples that live beyond the Boreal winds" are not those who lived in the Alps, above Europe, but the ones who lived beyond the monsoon winds that blow in the northern coasts of Indonesia and nearby regions. This fact is attested by too many ancient authorities to be dismissed easily, except by solid contrary evidence

The reality of the North European Hyperboreans could never be established in realistic bases, and their postulation has only led to paradoxes and difficulties. But when we accept the assertions of Pliny, Solinus and other authorities such as the ones we have been quoting, everything starts to make sense. Besides, how could Apollo, the Sun god, make his abode in the gelid Alps, instead of the equatorial Indonesia, the true Island of the Sun of the ancients?


Pliny, Boreas, and the Hyperboreans
Now, the Aquilon is the Latin name of the North Wind, the very same one that the Greeks called by the name of Boreas. Here, it is identified with the monsoon winds of the East Indies. Hence, we see that the true location of Hyperborea or Thule was the island of Taprobane, the true abode of the blest, long-lived Ethiopians. The passage of Pliny (Hist. Nat. 4:26) on the Hyperboreans is worth quoting:


"Beyond the Aquilon one finds a blessed nation called, according to tradition, the Hypeboreans. Among them, men reach an extreme age. Many marvels are told of this people. Some say that the hinges of the world and the limit of the course of the stars lie in their region... The country is bathed in sunlight and enjoys a pleasant temperature..."
"Discord is there ignored, and so is disease. People there do not die but from the satiety of living. After a festive banquet, full of the joys of old age, the one who wants to die jumps into the seas from a lofty rock. Such is for them the happiest way to die. One cannot doubt the reality of this country, described by many authorities."


Pliny, in the above passage, also adds that Hyperborea was the realm of Apollo and that the Hyperboreans sent, from the island of Delos, the first-fruits of their crops to Greece, to be dedicated to the Sun God. The descriptions of Hyperborea in the many authors mentioned by Pliny are indeed those of a tropical Paradise not unlike the Garden of Eden and the Islands of the Blest. When one pauses to ponder, there is only one place in the world that fits the description of Atlantis, of Eden, Aztlan, Atala, and of other such Paradises turned Hell. That place can only be the Indies, as can be surmised from the dozens of traditional accounts. A posteriori, this conclusion of ours is so obvious it hurts.

Apollo and the Hyperboreans
It is interesting to note that Plato, in his detailed description of Atlantis, makes an obscure reference to the lofty rocks from which the Blest Ethiopians used to throw themselves into the waves, in an immitation of the primordial deed of Atlas and Hesperus, who also fell from such a lofty cliff. Actually, these cliffs were the legendary Leucades, whose name is a reference to their being covered by the white bones of the dead who went by throwing themselves from their tops.3

Pliny's Hyperborea also evokes the description of the island of Emain Abalach (Avalon) in Celtic poems. There:


Treason is there unknown and so is sadness.
There no pain, no regret, no death, no grief,
No disease, no weakness, ever afflict anyone.
For such is the fortune of Emain.

Another a similar Celtic poem adds:


What a wonderful country is this one!
There the young never grow old at all!

What is to be retained from the above discussion is the fact that Avalon, Hyperborea, Thule, Taprobane, Eden, Paradise, Emain Abalach, the Garden of the Golden Apples, the Garden of Idun and so on are all one and the same thing. Their connection with the "first fruits" is an allegoric reference to the fact that Atlantis was indeed the very first site of human civilization, the same as the legendary Paradise or Garden of Eden.
These pleasant, luxurious gardens all lay at the extremity of the world which, from the Celtic perspective in Brittany, could only be the antipodal Indonesia, located on the side of the world opposite to their own misty islands. This Paradise was destroyed by a cataclysm, and they were forced to leave it, emigrating to the far Occident, under the leadership of Hu Gadarn, the Celtic Noah, the Judeo-Christian hero of the Flood.

The sinking of this realm is told in the legend of the Flooding of Ys, another central tradition of Celtic mythology. And their sunken Paradise became the Land of the Dead, the "Tomb of Glass" (Glastonbury) or "Island of Glass" (Ynis Wydr) that we encounter so often in their Celtic legends. This dismal Hades is the same as the Cimmeria of the Greeks, the Hanebut of the Egyptians, the Sheol of the Jews and the Nefelheim of the Germanic Nations.


How the Guanches Got to the Canaries
Many writers who investigated the problem of the Guanches were puzzled by the fact that the natives of the Canaries detested the sea, and never sailed it at all. So, it is pertinent to ask, after them, how did the Guanches get to the isolated Canaries in the first place? The answer seems to be rather simple, after all. They were brought as passengers in the ships of seafaring peoples such as the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Minoan Cretans, and so forth. Indeed, the ancient records are full of references to the "ships of Tarshish" being used by passengers and migrants of several different nations.

When the White Ethiopians who survived the Atlantean cataclysm emigrated to the distant Occident in their ships — under the guidance of admirals like Aeneas, Hercules, Phoroneos, and Hu Gadarn and, perhaps, Noah, Canopus and Jason — they settled in colonies along the way, on every coast and every island that looked promising. The legends are certainly founded in actual fact, and these fleets of ocean worth vessels are the ones allegorized as the Ark of Noah in the Bible or as the Argonavis in Greek legends.

It was thus that Mauritania was settled by the Berbers, Lebanon by the Phoenicians, Crete by the Minoans, Italy by the Etruscans, the British Islands and Brittany by the Celts and, of course, the Canaries by the Guanches. Many of these emigrants were, as is usually the case, mere passengers who never knew how to sail or, even less, how to design and build sea-worthy ships strong enough to sail the open, rough ocean, a feat very hard to accomplish in antiquity. Such huge sailships — the "ships of Tarshish" of Biblical traditions — are attested from remotest antiquity, for instance in the Gerzean ceramics of pre-Dynastic Egypt, which date from about 5,500 BP or so.

In this way, the Guanches were stranded on the Canaries, and the enigma which has defied solution for millennia is naturally explained. The ancient peripluses like those of Hanno and Himilco relate similar expeditions and even the establishment of such insular colonies. Such is also the meaning of myths like the one of Aeneas and his fleet fleeing from the destroyed, sunken Troy or, also, of the Biblical relate of Noah and his clan repeopling the Islands of the Nations, and founding the different nations of mankind.


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


1 Many authorities refute the usual derivation of the name of America — originally applied to Brazil and South America — from the name of Alberigo Vespucci, whose name was later altered into that of Amerigo in order to comply with the fanciful etymology. Alberigo was an obscure scribe, and would hardly deserve the honor. The name of Armorica was that of the Brittany in Roman times. It is usually derived from the Celtic ar-mor meaning "over the seas". Many legends connect Armorica with the sunken realm of Ys, the Celtic counterpart of Atlantis.

More likely, the true origin of Armorica's name is from the Dravida ar-mor-ika, meaning "remains of the land sunken under the seas". The name of America, which the Conquistadores learnt from the American natives, likewise seems to come from the Dravida am-mor-ika, meaning just about the same or, more literally, "remains of the marshy land sunken under the seas". Interestingly enough, these meanings are rather close to that of the epeira ges (or "outlying land") of Plato and others, and which embodies the idea of a mountainous fringe left behind when the flatter land sunk away. This name, as applied to the Americas, was an extension of that of Indonesia, whose actual situation indeed corresponds to actual fact.
Back

2 The "Reds" are one of the Hindu four castes, Brahmans (or priests), Kshatryas (or warriors), Vaishyas (or bourgeois) and Sudras (or serfs). These also correspond to the four primordial races of humanity, personified in the Bible by Noah and his three sons. In modern terms, these also correspond to the real four races of humanity: whites, reds, yellows and blacks, which are precisely the heraldic colours of the four castes (varnas = "colours").

The name of the Phoenicians derives from "red" (phoinikes) in Greek. The radix cham is of obscure origin, and is said to mean "black", as usually interpreted in connection with the Egyptians, who called their country Khamis or Khemis. But this is wrong, and the true etym is "red" or, rather, "candent", as in the Latin chama ("flame"). In contrast to what many authorities affirm, the land of Egypt is whitish, rather than black, due to the sand it embodies even in the irrigated regions. The idea is that the Chams, formerly white as the Guanches, were "charred" by the volcanism that destroyed their land, and became the Ethiopians, that is "the fiery faced" (aith-opes). But, as we already said, this darkening of the originally blond Atlanteans was the result of "too much admixture with mortal blood", as Plato discloses in his Critias.

Ultimately, the radix cham or, rather, kham or khem, derives from the Dravida, where it means "red", "fiery", "flaming", "gold". It designated the red races which formed the bellicose Kshatrya caste, and which was mainly composed of the Dravidian races. The name was also applied to the wild red dog of the Indies (Cuon alpinus), with which the Reds identified themselves. Hence, the fact that the Chamites were often equated to "dogs". The name was applied to the Canaries ("Isles of the Dogs") because of the Chams, rather than the dogs, as Pliny falsely alleges. Same thing with Khemis (Egypt), "the Land of the Chams". The very name of the Guanches derives from Guan-che or, rather, Kham-che, meaning the nation (che or ge) of the Chams". The reader interested in more details on this should consult our article on the Dravidian origin of the Guanche language.
Back

3 The name of the Leucades derives from the Greek leukas, the feminine form of leukos ("white", "shiny"). Legendarily, their name is ascribed to Leukates, a boy who, desired by Apollo, threw himself from the cliff in order to escape the relentless persecution of the god. Sometimes, the cliff is directly associated with Apollo Leukadios, who had a temple at its summit. The Leucadian Rocks became famous as the place from which non-corresponded lovers or those wishing purification committed suicide, a ritual known as katapontismos. Leukates is the obvious twin of Apollo, the two being the aliases of Atlas and Hesperus, who also found a similar death.

The Leucades were also obscurely identified with the Elysian Fields, the Greek counterpart of Eden or Paradise and, more exactly, of the Islands of the Blest which are no other than Atlantis. It is interesting to note that the name relates to the radix luk- meaning "fiery","shiny","white", and which partakes of the name of Lucifer, Lug and other such luminous, fallen deities.

All such gods are invariably connected with Atlantis, and are said to inhabit volcanic peaks, which indeed deserve the name of "luminous". Such is the case of the Teyde volcano of Tenerife, whose name means "The Luminous One". Coincidentally or not, the fact is that the Teyde volcano is the legendary abode of Guayota, the luminous All-Creator of the Guanches. Guayota is the perfect counterpart of the above mentioned luminiferous gods, as well as of other chthonian, smithing gods such as Hephaistos and Maya, the great architect of Lanka. Lanka was the archetype of Atlantis, in Hindu traditions, and of all such fallen Paradises, including the Celestial Jerusalem.
Back


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

Copyright © 1997 Arysio Nunes dos Santos. Fair quotation and teaching usage is allowed, as long as full credit is given to this source, and its home address is given in full.

http://www.atlan.org/copyright/1997/articles/guanches/

Long live Professor Santos.
 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #577 on: December 30, 2007, 12:55:20 pm »

Jaime Manuschevich

Member
Member # 3005

Rate Member   posted 05-03-2006 07:07 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not have doubts that Professor Arysio Nunes dos Santos, although is a nuclear physicist, also he is an expert in religions and mythology. I share much of the details with treats in these subjects. In the first place, I share with him who Atlantis was not in Atlantic Ocean and that somehow approaches to determine that the Atlantic Ocean speaks the myth.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Reversal of the Oceans and the Cardinal Directions
It is to this "reversal" of the Cardinal Directions just mentioned that Plato and Herodotus make reference, along with other ancient authorities. Interestingly enough, even the Amerindians — who came in, at least in part, from Indonesia into South America via the Pacific Ocean impelled by the Atlantean Cataclysm — often confuse the direction of their primeval homeland, which they sometimes place in the east, sometimes in the west.
(…) So, we able to conclude that Atlantis can legitimately be localized either in the ocean we presently call by that name, or, even more likely, in the ocean where the ancients placed their legends and their navigations, the Indian Ocean. This ocean they named Erythraean, Atlantic, and so on, names which are indeed related with that of Atlantis, "the land of the Reds", the Primordial Phoenicia or Erythraea, whose names mean "the red one".
It should perhaps be emphasized that it is the name of the Atlantic Ocean (or "Ocean of the Atlanteans") that derives from that of Atlantis, and not vice-versa. And that name far predates Plato, being mentioned, f. i., by Herodotus, who wrote his History fully a century before Plato wrote the Critias. Moreover, as Herodotus explains, the name of "Atlantic Ocean" originally applied to the Indian Ocean, rather than the body of water now so named. So, it is on that side of the world, and not on ours that we should expect to find Atlantis.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like he, I concluded that many of the rites of Atlantis are present in the modern religions: the resurrection, the sacred water, the ritual sacrifice, etc. I also concluded that Atlantis were the Paradise. Also, I concluded that many of the peoples that old also have their origin in Atlantis and I share that these were scattered by the Earth after the disaster.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 The cataclysms of fire and water of worldwide extent of which we speak in this essay are strictly scientific. They are widely attested in the geological record, being generally accepted by modern Geology. So are the massive extinctions of all sorts of species, and particularly of the large mammals which took place at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. Some 70% of the former species of great mammals which existed in the former era became extinct then, including, in all probability, two species of humans, the Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons, which became extinct more or less at this epoch.(...)
The Pleistocene — a name which is Greek for "most recent" — is also called Anthropozoic Era or Quaternary Era or, yet, the Ice Age. During the Pleistocene and, more exactly, during the glacial episodes that happened at intervals of about 20 thousand years, sea level was about 100-150 meters (330-500 feet) below the present value. With this, a large coastal strip — the so-called Continental Platform (with a width of about 200km = 120 miles) — became exposed, forming land bridges that interconnected many islands and regions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I share with him who the disaster of Atlantis happened to comprise of the base of all the modern religions.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All nations, of all times, believed in the existence of a Primordial Paradise where Man originated and developed the fist civilization ever. This story, real and true, is told in the Bible and in Hindu Holy Books such a the Rig Veda, the Puranas and many others. That this Paradise lay "towards the Orient" no one doubts, excepting some die-hard scientists who hold that the different civilizations developed independently from each other in such unlikely places such as Europe, the Americas or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was in the Orient, and beyond, that agriculture (of rice and grains) and animal domestication were invented. These two crucial inventions allowed Man’s fixation to the soil, and the resulting prosperity led to civilization and the founding of the first cities. It is exactly this fact that is related in the Bible, that attributes the foundation of the first city — called Henok or Chenok, ("the Abode of the Pure", in Dravida) — to Cain (Gen. 4:17). This end at the completion of its alloted time is what is meant by Henok’s lifespan of "365 years".

This name ("Pure Land")of the very first one of all cities is the same in Hindu traditions (Shveta-dvipa, Sukhavati, Atala, etc.). Even in the Amerindian traditions, Yvymaraney "the Land of the Pure", is the legendary birthplace of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of Brazil, just as Aztlan is the land of origin of the ancient Mayas of Yucatan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not differ either of the data of a disaster in the region of India, as well as there are details of many others in that period, product of the phenomenon that he himself indicates.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 What Happened During the Pleistocene?
(…) If conditions are right, as they were then, this downfalling water is retained in glaciers that end up covering the temperate regions with a shroud of ice that is one or two miles thick. Sea level consequently drops by 100-150 meters or even more, exposing the shallow bottoms of the sea.

When the Ice Age ends, the process is reverted. The glaciers melt away, and their meltwater quickly drains into the sea. In consequence, the bottoms previously exposed as dry land become submerged once again.

As we see, the world works as a kind of flip-flop or swing, forever oscillating between the extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly enough, it is Life itself that equilibrates the balance, introducing a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to freeze or to sizzle. For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called Hothouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling Venus, whose atmosphere is almost pure CO2. In gelid Mars, whose atmosphere (and Life) was almost all lost in a tremendous cataclysm — probably caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size — the opposite swing took place. (…)

Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 contents of the atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow more luxuriously, fixing the excess carbon dioxide in themselves, and alleviating the situation. The opposite process happens if the CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced for some reason. Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter — mainly the plankton in the seas, rather than the tropical forests — decreases, liberating CO2. This increases the atmospheric content, tending to increase earth’s temperature back to its normal value.

However, this compensation only works within rigid limits, and any excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age. Like with flip-flops and balances, the transition is enhanced by positive feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations that are, again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again. For instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 is decreased, and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase earth’s temperature, and vice-versa.

Moreover, an ice cover effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature consequently drops, and the glaciers further increase, until they cover all the temperate regions of earth. In the absence of Life, we have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. As we said above, Venus is as hot as hell, whereas Mars is completely frozen up, as if to vividly exemplify to us all the two extremes of lifeless conditions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nevertheless, I do not share with him the cause of that gigantic change. To the inverse one, I concluded that those catastrophes are the consequence and noncause of the climatic change.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only the mechanism for the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age— which is a certain fact, but is so far unexplained by Science — is new and our own. We propose that this dramatic event was caused by a huge explosion of the Krakatoa volcano (or perhaps another one), which opened the Strait of Sunda, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But, according to my work of investigation, the concrete data in many other fields contradict their affirmation that Atlantis was in India. Here I expose briefly some examples. Celtas comes from Anatolia, not of India. The discovered oldest chariots are not in India but in Eastern Europe. The horses were domesticated in Central Asia. The Dravidian culture did not exist in 11,500 years ago.

[ 05-05-2006, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: Jaime Manuschevich ]

--------------------
Jaime Manuschevich
 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #578 on: December 30, 2007, 12:56:41 pm »

...
New Member
Member # 2948

Rate Member   posted 05-03-2006 08:14 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alchemy is a strange art. If one such as you people wish to discover the truth of atlantis seek Alchemy and more specifically the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. Alchemy is real. I make herb spyarics all the time. It is part of plant alchemy. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #579 on: December 30, 2007, 12:57:48 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 05-09-2006 11:30 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

SECOND PART
CHAPTER 11: The Sargasso Sea

THE NAUTILUS didn't change direction. For the time being, then, we had
to set aside any hope of returning to European seas. Captain Nemo kept
his prow pointing south. Where was he taking us? I was afraid to guess.

That day the Nautilus crossed an odd part of the Atlantic Ocean. No one
is unaware of the existence of that great warm-water current known by
name as the Gulf Stream. After emerging from channels off Florida, it
heads toward Spitzbergen. But before entering the Gulf of Mexico near
latitude 44 degrees north, this current divides into two arms; its chief
arm makes for the shores of Ireland and Norway while the second flexes
southward at the level of the Azores; then it hits the coast of Africa,
sweeps in a long oval, and returns to the Caribbean Sea.

Now then, this second arm--more accurately, a collar--forms a ring of
warm water around a section of cool, tranquil, motionless ocean called
the Sargasso Sea. This is an actual lake in the open Atlantic, and the
great current's waters take at least three years to circle it.

Properly speaking, the Sargasso Sea covers every submerged part of
Atlantis. Certain authors have even held that the many weeds strewn over
this sea were torn loose from the prairies of that ancient continent.
But it's more likely that these grasses, algae, and fucus plants were
carried off from the beaches of Europe and America, then taken as far as
this zone by the Gulf Stream. This is one of the reasons why Christopher
Columbus assumed the existence of a New World. When the ships of that
bold investigator arrived in the Sargasso Sea, they had great difficulty
navigating in the midst of these weeds, which, much to their crews'
dismay, slowed them down to a halt; and they wasted three long weeks
crossing this sector.

Such was the region our Nautilus was visiting just then: a genuine
prairie, a tightly woven carpet of algae, gulfweed, and bladder wrack so
dense and compact a craft's stempost couldn't tear through it without
difficulty. Accordingly, not wanting to entangle his propeller in this
weed-choked mass, Captain Nemo stayed at a depth some meters below the
surface of the waves.
Previous: Chapter 10 (continued) Next: Chapter 11 (continued)

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/twentythousandleagues-317.html 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #580 on: December 30, 2007, 12:58:55 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 05-09-2006 11:32 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECOND PART
CHAPTER 11: The Sargasso Sea (continued)
The name Sargasso comes from the Spanish word "sargazo," meaning gulfweed. This gulfweed, the swimming gulfweed or berry carrier, is the chief substance making up this immense shoal. And here's why these water plants collect in this placid Atlantic basin, according to the expert on the subject, Commander Maury, author of The Physical Geography of the Sea.

The explanation he gives seems to entail a set of conditions that everybody knows: "Now," Maury says, "if bits of cork or chaff, or any floating substance, be put into a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near the center of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is the center of the whirl."

I share Maury's view, and I was able to study the phenomenon in this exclusive setting where ships rarely go. Above us, huddled among the brown weeds, there floated objects originating from all over: tree trunks ripped from the Rocky Mountains or the Andes and sent floating down the Amazon or the Mississippi, numerous pieces of wreckage, remnants of keels or undersides, bulwarks staved in and so weighed down with seashells and barnacles, they couldn't rise to the surface of the ocean. And the passing years will someday bear out Maury's other view that by collecting in this way over the centuries, these substances will be turned to stone by the action of the waters and will then form inexhaustible coalfields. Valuable reserves prepared by farseeing nature for that time when man will have exhausted his mines on the continents.

In the midst of this hopelessly tangled fabric of weeds and fucus plants, I noted some delightful pink-colored, star-shaped alcyon coral, sea anemone trailing the long tresses of their tentacles, some green, red, and blue jellyfish, and especially those big rhizostome jellyfish that Cuvier described, whose bluish parasols are trimmed with violet festoons.

We spent the whole day of February 22 in the Sargasso Sea, where fish that dote on marine plants and crustaceans find plenty to eat. The next day the ocean resumed its usual appearance.

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/twentythousandleagues-318.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #581 on: December 30, 2007, 01:00:01 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 05-09-2006 11:34 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECOND PART
CHAPTER 11: The Sargasso Sea (continued)
From this moment on, for nineteen days from February 23 to March 12, the Nautilus stayed in the middle of the Atlantic, hustling us along at a constant speed of 100 leagues every twenty-four hours. It was obvious that Captain Nemo wanted to carry out his underwater program, and I had no doubt that he intended, after doubling Cape Horn, to return to the Pacific South Seas.

So Ned Land had good reason to worry. In these wide seas empty of islands, it was no longer feasible to jump ship. Nor did we have any way to counter Captain Nemo's whims. We had no choice but to acquiesce; but if we couldn't attain our end through force or cunning, I liked to think we might achieve it through persuasion. Once this voyage was over, might not Captain Nemo consent to set us free in return for our promise never to reveal his existence? Our word of honor, which we sincerely would have kept. However, this delicate question would have to be negotiated with the captain. But how would he receive our demands for freedom? At the very outset and in no uncertain terms, hadn't he declared that the secret of his life required that we be permanently imprisoned on board the Nautilus? Wouldn't he see my four-month silence as a tacit acceptance of this situation? Would my returning to this subject arouse suspicions that could jeopardize our escape plans, if we had promising circumstances for trying again later on? I weighed all these considerations, turned them over in my mind, submitted them to Conseil, but he was as baffled as I was. In short, although I'm not easily discouraged, I realized that my chances of ever seeing my fellow men again were shrinking by the day, especially at a time when Captain Nemo was recklessly racing toward the south Atlantic!

During those nineteen days just mentioned, no unique incidents distinguished our voyage. I saw little of the captain. He was at work. In the library I often found books he had left open, especially books on natural history. He had thumbed through my work on the great ocean depths, and the margins were covered with his notes, which sometimes contradicted my theories and formulations. But the captain remained content with this method of refining my work, and he rarely discussed it with me. Sometimes I heard melancholy sounds reverberating from the organ, which he played very expressively, but only at night in the midst of the most secretive darkness, while the Nautilus slumbered in the wilderness of the ocean.

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/twentythousandleagues-319.html 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #582 on: December 30, 2007, 01:01:46 pm »

Desiree

Member
Member # 2991

Member Rated:
   posted 05-09-2006 11:37 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, by the way, is the book that inspired Ignatius

Donnelley's research, which, of course, inspired the modern Atlantis craze. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #583 on: December 30, 2007, 01:02:43 pm »

Tom Hebert1
Member
Member # 2835

  posted 05-10-2006 04:45 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Fascinating account! So do you suppose Jules Verne was psychic? 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #584 on: December 30, 2007, 01:03:47 pm »

Jaime Manuschevich

Member
Member # 3005

Rate Member   posted 05-10-2006 07:03 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Tom Hebert1:
Fascinating account! So do you suppose Jules Verne was psychic?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your commentary seems to me brilliant. I think that there are people whom they do not know clearly defined the line between the fantasy and the reality...
 
 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 ... 33 34 35 36 37 38 [39] 40 41 42 43 44 45 ... 64   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy