Killer Comet: What the Carolina Bays tell us

by Antonio Zamora

The Carolina Bays have posed a mystery since their discovery in the 1930's. They look like they were made by impacts, but they were not created by impacts of extraterrestrial bodies. Solving the puzzle of how the bays formed provides clues that can be used to confirm that the Earth was hit by a comet 12,900 years ago. The Glacier Ice Impact Hypothesis and the evidence provided by the Carolina Bays clarifies how the large animals that lived in North America and the Clovis people who hunted them died. The whole extinction event took place in less than ten minutes. The Younger Dryas cooling period that followed could have been triggered by the material ejected above the atmosphere by the comet impact..

87 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2013

Reviews

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very short book describing an idea of how the Carolina Bays were formed. It's very clever. The Bays have puzzled everyone for a long while.

Zamora links their formation with the Younger Dryas Impact, about 13k years ago. (This impact is likely what killed the mammoths/megafauna.) The comet impact itself hit a glacier and threw many thousands of gigantic ice boulders into the upper atmosphere (also into outer space). These ice boulders, as they fell back down, crashed into somewhat liquefied ground (from the high water table, loose soil, and earthquaking), creating the Bays.

Zamora gives an excellent explanation and very solid evidence for this idea. I found it very convincing. A satisfying explanation to an ancient mystery. Very cool stuff.

[James Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book in the ones about something that happens around 12,000 to 13,000 years ago that results in massive changes to human civilization as it was then. The book discusses megafauna (very large animals), the Clovis people and just what caused the Younger Dryas which resulted in lower temperatures, the extinction of virtually all mega fauna in North America and it's severe impact on the humans living here at that time.

The book takes the approach that whatever impact Earth at that time, which was probably a comet and its pieces, hit the thick glaciers of the time and sent numerous shards out which did further damage go the ground and sent up water which became ice crystals and in the end lowered the temperature which was what killed off the megafauna and damaged the Clovis population.

Some of the material in the book is rather complicated but it's message is clear. Human civilization was making progress when things went very, very wrong very quickly.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A touch repetitive but an interesting viewpoint regarding the Carolina Bays. Admittedly, I had never heard of them before and due to any terra-forming done due to agriculture along with the construction of roads and commercial and residential buildings, they are only seen via aerial LIDAR mapping.

Zamora forwards the theory that a comet or meteorite impacted the Laurentide Ice Sheet about 12,900 years ago resulting in massive chunks of ice being thrown into the atmosphere - instead of rock. As the ice took the impact, there was no visible ground site since the comet/meteorite did not completely penetrate the ice sheet. The heat energy resulted in streams of water trickling through the two miles of glacier ice while the ice shards would impact at enough of an angle to create the elliptical Carolina bays as well as the Nebraskan rain lakes/basins.

He also proposes that the ground tremors - likely significant even with the ice taking the damage - would still have caused soil liquefaction which may have overwhelmed any Clovis settlements at the time if not destroying them outright when the ice chunks impacted. Then there are the smaller particles of ice/water which rose high into the atmosphere and flash froze possibly reducing the amount of sunlight which could be the cause of the Younger Dryas Ice Age. Less sunlight means less plants means less herbivores means less predators. And all the above means less food for humans hunter/gatherers in pre-history America.

Is it true? This is only one side of the possible story. There is no counterpoint included in the book. I also don't know how long it would take for frozen water high in the atmosphere to work it's way back to the Earth much less how much of an impact it would have on restricting sunlight.

I will admit that it was interesting to find out about these geological puzzles . . . and reading about the possible cause.

2020-256

[john Calkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Carolina Bays are unremarkable landscape features of the Eastern U.S. that show up again as the rainwater lakes in Nebraska. The land in between was likely covered with them as well but have been destroyed by farming, erosion, and general civilization. However, they only existed on soft soil, not on hardpack or rock. Over a half million are visible from space using special photography, and the guess is that several times that number once existed. So how were these elliptical depressions formed? There have been many theories, but "Killer Comet" makes the claim that a comet smashed into the thick glacier that once covered Michigan and much of the surrounding parts of the U.S. and Canada. The fractured ice was thrown into space only to rain down as flying icebergs hundreds of miles from the crash site. Smaller bergs and pieces covered the entire fallout area 6' deep. Much of the megafauna of North America was wiped out, as were the Clovis People. The planet was cooled off for centuries as the ice slowly disappeared from the land and atmosphere. This short book makes its case eloquently and convincingly, refraining from hyperbole while painting a vivid description of what the event must have been like. I found the book convincing and exciting. Science changes its mind all the time, but I like to think that the mystery of the Carolina Bays has been solved. Great reading for science buffs.

[Lloyd Schley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting idea and a well written book. There is one small caveat. The Carolina bays have been dated to different events ranging in age from 10,000-12,000 to 100,000. Unless that can be explained you just have a good story.

[David Hyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool

I am fascinated by prehistory and the story of mankind. Much of what we believe is based upon the thinness of information. Books like this are humbling when compared to our desire for stasis and certainty. .

[Brian D Hoag · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Final Chapter indeed.

I have occasionally encountered Dr. Zamora's work over the years. This book puts it all together. It is also a challenge to visual artists to show us what it would look like.