http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== The Saginaw Impact Manifold Abstract: We posit that a manifold of events unfolded during the late Pleistocene, triggered by an oblique extraterrestrial impact into the North American Wisconsinian Ice sheet. A novel component of the manifold is distal ejecta, which we propose was distributed as a blanket which occasionally contains "Carolina bay" landforms. All previous researchers have considered the Carolina bays to be landforms created in situ within pre-existing strata, whereas our conjecture holds that they are depositional features within a 1 to 10 meter-thick distal ejecta blanket. The elliptically-shaped bays exhibit an "inferred orientation", allowing identification of a plausible impact site using a triangulation network. Numerous previous attempts by others to identify an impact site by triangulation have failed to produce a focus, owing to ballistic physics and fluid mechanics effects not considered. A numerical model was developed to generate trajectories reflecting those effects on an ejecta curtain wall. We identified and documented ~80 Carolina bay "fields", and found their orientations correlated well with the model's predicted results. From the resulting triangulation we further propose that the impact occurred across the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The great-circle distances separating the proposed impact location and all known Carolina bays also correlate well; their geographic distribution is along a narrow and highly symmetrical pair of arcs, east and west of the proposed impact location. We suggest that these correlations present a strong argument in favor of the hypothesis. Among the problematic aspects include the impact area's well-documented history as a glacial landscape, the common acceptance of gradualistic sedimentary processes as causal for our proposed ejecta strata, as well as the "corner-case" celestial mechanics of the required cosmic impact. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inspiration The inspiration for our conjecture was an observation in the paper The Goldsboro Ridge, an Enigma, R. B. Daniels, E. E. Gamble, Wheeler, et al : The Goldsboro ridge is a unique feature on the Sunderland surface and requires special explanation whatever its origin. It must be either an erosional remnant of a once more extensive sediment or a depositional feature....The Goldsboro sand overlies the Sunderland Formation conformably. The contact is always abrupt but there is no evidence of deep channeling, basal coarse material, and evidence of weathering at the contact. Even the Carolina Bays do not disturb the underlying Sunderland materials.... The sand in the bay rim is not different from the Goldsboro sand. Therefore, these Carolina Bays are merely surface features associated with the formation of the ridge. Introduction In an AGU submission <../interdisciplinary/index.html> in 2006 (AGU 2006 T41A-03) and its referenced web-based documentation here on PerigeeZero.org, we presented our case that an extraterrestrial impact occured into the North American Wisconsinian Ice sheet. Recent work by others (Firestone, et al ) has added significant support to such a hypothesis. Our efforts and hypothesis diverge from the Firestone group in several major areas. We suggest that the entire assemblage of sand distributed within any given Carolina bay structure is ejecta, not simply a few scattered grains. We propose that a massive crater is existent, as necessary to derive such an extensive ejecta blanket. Finally, our conjecture holds that the impacting object was a hydrated silicate object, likely a cometary body, which impacted the earth on a shallow angle, nearly tangential. We are considering an object which struck the earth out of solar orbit, or one that was traveling in a terrestrial earth orbit for a time prior to the impact. All previous attempts at identifying an impact site by triangulation of the bay's inferred bearings have failed to produce a focus. We propose this to be caused by three variables not considered. First, that the impact was an oblique impact <../YDB/ObliqueImpacts/page64/page64.html>, which would infer a chaotic focus. Secondly, the earth is a spherical playing field. Third, the earth rotates significanlty during any realistic ejecta loft time. We attempt to evaluate the spherical efffects in the /Systmatic by Loft <../YDB/InferredAlignment/page104/page104.html>/ discussion. Earth's rotation generates west-to-east ground-velocity vectors differences between the impact site and the ejecta landing site will be resolved when the ejecta strikes the earth, which we discuss in the /Systematic by Latitude <../YDB/InferredAlignment/page107/page107.html>/ section. We presented a poster at the December 2009 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco which detailed some of our concepts as they pertain to the Carolina bays and their role in identifying a possible Ice Sheild impact crater. A comprehensive review of the conjecture and our Heuristic Argument is discussed in this section. A PDF file of the submission in slide presentation form is available for download HERE . Links are available to two videos on You Tube (*Part 1 *& *Part 2 *) in which we discuss the poster at the AGU meeting. Please note that since the meeting, we have refined the impact location to the Saginaw Bay area of Michigan. A challenging aspect of a Carolina bay Impact hypothesis involves the lack of an identifiable impact structure. Given the relatively the shallow angle of incidence and the hydrated nature of a cometary impactor, the geological signature of the proposed impact structures is unconventional: both shallow and oval. Additionally, the conjecture holds that terrestrial material ejected from such an event would be distributed in a "butterfly" pattern as a thin sheet whose surface occasionally contains "Carolina bay" landforms. Our analysis correlates numerous proposed P:Z ejecta material emplacements - including the Carolina bays and the Goldsboro Ridge - to an impact that struck the Wisconsin-era ice shield. We have heuristically and empirically identified the Saginaw Bay area of Michigan as the likely impact location. At the present time we have yet to identify adequate evidence on the ground to validate the impact identification. At the same time, there exists much of evidence to support its geomorphology as entirely glacial in nature. Unique landscapes - Unique Geological Enigmas The Goldsboro ridge is a unique feature on the Sunderland surface and requires special explanation whatever its origin. It must be either an erosional remnant of a once more extensive sediment or a depositional feature. The Goldsboro Ridge, an Enigma <../YDB/Distal%20Ejecta/goldsboro_ridge/goldsboro_ridge_paper/index.html>, R. B. Daniels, E. E. Gamble, Wheeler, et al Dr. Daniels and his team went on to examine each of the two possibilities presented to them: sedimentary or depositional, without arriving at a satisfactory solution. The paper closes with the comment "But, until much more is known about all the middle Coastal Plain, the Goldsboro ridge will remain, in the last analysis, an enigma." The enigma continues today, and applies by extension to the vast swarms of Carolina bays, such as those lying imbedded in the brow of the Goldsboro Ridge. Our hypothesis offers a truly "special explanation" for this continuing enigma. Would it not be proper that such a juxtaposition should exist in science? A cosmic impact "at our back door" in the Saginaw area may be suspect, as that landscape is filled with geological anomalies. We discuss some of these anomalies in the Saginaw Bay Chapter <../YDB/Saginaw_Bay/index.html>. The Saginaw Bay watershed contains the largest contiguous freshwater coastal wetland system in the United States.[/Saginaw River and Bay Area of Concern / -U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]. Flowing out of this area of Michigan to the southwest , the Kankankee River and it's enigmatic torrent constructed what was at one time the second largest marshland and swamp in the US, after the Everglades (before man "fixed" it). /Flow/ seems to hold sway in another historical precedence: O-Sag-e-non or Sag-in-a-we from the Ojibwa language, which means "to flow out", is a possible origin for the name "Saginaw". Wikipedia® Entry Younger Dryas Boundary or Bölling-Allerød? While our initial manifold presentation focused on the YDB, please note that we have moved the proposed date of the impact back two thousand years, to approximately 15k years ago, at the start of the Bölling-Allerød period. Our move is motivated by several constraints imposed by a Saginaw Bay impact. Researchers are confident that the "Saginaw Lobe" of the ice sheet was removed prior to 14kya, as indicated by dated flows into the area from the Michigan and Erie lobe outwash. We propose that the impact event was responsible for that removal at a time inconsistent with the continued presence of the Michigan and Huron/Erie lobes. Furthermore, our scenario suggests that the "crater" in the Wisconsin ice sheet fills with liquid water and is eventually drained disruptively to the south in an event know as the Kankakee Torrent <../YDB/Saginaw_Bay/Torrents/index.html>, at ~14.7 kya. Anyone with casual knowledge of that massive torrent event would probably assume it was from the Lake Michigan lobe moraine lake, but it was not - it was sourced out of south-central Michigan, in the area of Union City. The YDB is identified as a "sudden" climate change. A review of the Greenland Ice records show that a similar swift change was seen at the advent of the Bölling-Allerød period, but in the latter case, the change was a rapid warming, coincident with a significant increase in snowfall across Greenland. Can an impact could stimulate warming rather than suppress it as in a "nuclear winter" event? Perhaps. Our rational is this: Initially, the injection of significant impact energy, both through the atmospheric friction and impact energy release as heated material, could warm the atmosphere. While that alone would likely dissipate in a short period of time (as would a cloud-cover- induced nuclear winter), such an impact would distribute a sheet of ejecta across a significant component of the Wisconsin ice sheet. The resulting change in albedo of the sheet could trigger a warming event that could last for hundreds of years while the sheet melted back (which it did, btw). The water vapor injected into the atmosphere at impact could have been responsible for the snap upward of snow accumulation 15 kya. Our explanation would relegate the YBD to a natural relaxation back to pre-impact conditions, eventually to be overtaken by the general warming trend that began 19 kya due to solar cycles. The following graphic from the National Academy of Science's pamphlet /Abrupt Climate Change: Uinevitable Surprises / identifies a sudden change at 15kya. ClimateChangeCentralGreenland Climate changes in central Greenland over the last 17,000 years show a large and rapid shift out of the ice age about 15,000 years ago, an irregular cooling into the Younger Dryas event, and an abupt shift out of the event (a warming of about 8° C in a decade) toward modern values. A Heuristic Argument Our analysis correlates numerous proposed distal ejecta material emplacements - including the Carolina bays and the Goldsboro Ridge - to an oblique impact event that struck the Wisconsin-era ice shield. We demonstrate how our analysis of the sequences, orientation and geometry of the proposed crater and distal ejecta support our conjecture. Our methodology for determining the origin of the posited "ejecta" has been heuristic. Alignment were proposed to locations across the US, and a geometric centroid was determined by averaging the first pass triangulation points. Using that centroid, an east-west line was drawn along the latitude of the average, and using our "surrogate crater <../YDB/InferredAlignment/page104/page104.html>" conciet, we searched to the east to identify a likely landform to investigate as an impact crater. Our first investigation target was Lake Michigan <../YDB/lake_michigan/index.html>. When that structure was comfortably maintained as a glacially carved lake basin, we moved further east to the Saginaw Bay <../YDB/Saginaw_Bay/index.html> area of Michigan. Ovoid Shapes Are Generated in Splatter Formations In a series of experiments <../Morphology/ejecta/experiments/index.html>, simulated ejecta of various sizes and composition were propelled onto a flat surface, impacting at shallow angles. The ?droplets? were transformed into oval-shaped geometries. * Parameters affecting the geometric shape of P:Z ejecta ?bays? * Angle of incidence: shallower angles will yield a higher length to width ratio * Hydration ratio of slurry: wetter mixes slump more than stiffer, dryer material * Host bed: flat surfaces vs. complex terrain determine veneer retention * Size of droplet: Effect scales linearly, with child bays seen within parent bodies Ejecta as a sheet would generate a field of varying sizes bays in general alignment. Large emplacements have bays imbedded in them, possibly due to varying density regions in the slurry droplet. Geometry scales to kilometers in size. These characteristics are tightly constrained by the formative processes and circumstances, resulting in a simple, well-defined and unique set of identification criteria to identify these formations. The stylistic geometry and anomalous, unstratified, and homogeneous nature of these landforms are seen as being most indicative of set membership. The samples below show some of the experimental results obtained during our research. Please reference the Ejecta Experiments <../Morphology/ejecta/experiments/index.html> section as well as a video made of the process. field_perspective_sm painted_ejecta_model *Samples of splatter produced by experiment * Carolina bays Interpreted as Depositional Artifacts in a Veneer of Ejecta While interpretation of the Carolina bays sands as distal ejecta structures would be controversial due to its dependence on a truly massive deposition of ejecta, the creation of the stylized Carolina bay geometry can easily be seen in the simple paint splatter. Others have probed and researched the bays and their contents, but those investigations have always considered that the bays were formed within or excised from a hosting strata of sand or gravel which itself was created by well-understood fluvial and eolian deposition. In our interpretation, the region was overlain by as much as a 10 meter thick "sheet" of ejecta slurry from the central Michigan impact. The bays are a surface feature of that veneer of strata. This interpretation helps to explain the creation of bays seen at significantly varying elevation while being quite close to each other, often even overlaying each other. Also explained is a mechanism that could create bays on ridges; the ridges themselves being comprised of ejecta deposition. This is our interpretation of the structure know as the Goldsboro Ridge in NC. The Distal Ejecta <../YDB/Distal%20Ejecta/index.html> section of the Saginaw Manifold disucsses this further. splat33.661840 "Systematic by Latitude" 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). iii Most attempts at following the inferred orientation of the bays back up the trajectories' bearing have failed to produce a focus. We propose this to be caused by at least two variables not considered. First, that the impact may have been a "train-of-craters" event, which would infer a chaotic focus, and secondly, that the earth rotates during any realistic ejecta loft time, which we attempt to evaluate with the attached kml file. A third variable is the proper accounting for the west-to-east ground-velocity vectors that will be resolved when the ejecta re-enters the lower atmosphere and strikes the earth. During the time period extending from the moment of the source impact to the eventual deposition of the distal ejecta, we see the de-coupling of the spatial coordinate reference systems in multiple dimensions. The decoupling is driven by the spherical nature of the "playing field" when trajectories cover significant distances. The common term applied to the effect is the Coriolis Force, which is a kinematic force applied to an object to "force" it along a great circle route as a object proceeds along its trajectory. For example, if an object is launched with sufficient velocity on an azimuth of 90 degrees from latitude 45 north (i.e. due East), it will follow a great circle route as it begins to "circle" the earths spherical surface. The cartesian coordinate "bearing" of our example object begins to "turn" south, and eventually the object will cross the equator on an azimuth 45 degrees increased, or 135 degrees. But the above analysis does not account for the fact that the earth is also rotating during any real-world loft trajectory period. Using the /Goolge Earth/ facility, we evaluate the effect on the cartesian cordinate system of azimuths and bearings when the Earth's rotation is considered. During our modeled 12 minute loft time, the Earth will rotate three (3) degrees of longitude from the west to the east [regardless of your location on the earth]. Therefore, the landing location of the ejecta will actually be three degrees westward of the initial "target". Coriolis_Suragate_Concitekmz *The Google Earth facility is employed with the attached set of kml* When the ejecta is deposited at the eventual location, it will still bear the original flight azimuth/bearing. If those geometries are followed back along the trajectory, the will focus on a location three degrees west of the original launch location. Thus, we feel justified in applying the conceit that, from the perspective of the distal ejecta landing site, the inferred bearing would point back to a suragate impact crater. The suragate would offset on the global map by one degree of longitude westward for every four (4) minutes of loft time. Please consider, also, that the loft time is a variable affected by both the launch velocity and its loft angle. A trajectory can be generated for a given landing location using shallow lofts (and short transit times) as well as higher loftings which would take longer to get to the same location. For more detailed discussion, please visit the chapter /Discussion of Corolis Force Effects <../YDB/InferredAlignment/index.html>// / Characteristics of Oblique Impacts Please also reference the sub-section on Unique Impacts <../YDB/ObliqueImpacts/index.html> Imaging of the surfaces of solar system terrestrial planets and moons has show that approximately 5% of all craters are created during low angle of incidence - oblique - impacts. These events create a set of recognizable characteristics: oval shape, butterfly ejecta pattern, "no-fly" ejecta area up field, and "blow-out" rim down field. mars_de_orbit_cratersvenus_grahamButerflyTrain Oblique impacts have shown to generate ejecta in a stylized ?Butterfly? pattern, spreading laterally from along the length of the crater. In the specific case of the ice-sheet covered impact area, excised terrestrial minerals, along with cometary minerals and glacial ice would be intermixed and distributed as a wave of ejecta. Velocities of the ejecta are seen as being 25-50% of the impactor?s, ~2 to 4 km/sec, yielding ejecta fields beyond 1000km downrange. We call special attention to the work of Schultz and Stickle (Lost Impacts <../YDB/ObliqueImpacts/LostImpacts/index.html>), which explains how shallow angle of incidence (oblique) impacts generate "impact" structures that are significantly different from the classic, better understood, crater planforms. Our proposed PZ impactors, being delivered out of terrestrial orbits, would generate impacts at angles of less than 5 degrees - nearly tangential. The craters generated would manifest themselves as quite shallow and as elongated ovals. A comet captured into a terrestrial orbit, as we propose, would be subjected to tidal forces when it comes within the Roche radius. This often fragments the progenitor body into a string of impactors. The SL-9 event demonstrated the concept, and train crater impact signatures have been seen on several planets and moons, including our own. Identification of Ejecta Source Location As modeled here, the Coriolis effect increases with flight time by ~ 0.25 degrees of longitude per minute of flight time. The modeled ejecta loft time of 6 to 10 minutes would generate a bearing offset to a location 4 to 16 degrees westward in longitude, from the perspective of the landing site on the East Coast of the USA. To enable a visual alignment in Google Earth, we invoked the conciet of placing a surragate "copy" of a large oblique crater outline at various longitudinal offsets to the west, and tested for possible fits between the great circle routes from the surrogate craters' perimiters and the eventual ejecta emplacement sites. In the graphic below, we use Google Earth to select the four best Great Circle routes to match the ejecta orientation noted at the Eloree field. From these four, an "optimum" great circle route was computed back to a point representing the latitude and longitude average of the chosed impact sites. FindingBestFitGC Here is a portrait of our current proposal for an impact site, as derived from the coriolis-adjusted bearings to the Carolian bays. The yellow paths represent the inferred alignments extended back along a great circle line form the field. The green paths are computed great circle lines using a 5.5º eastward offset from each field to adjust for 22 minutes of earth rotation during the loft. RotateTriangulationPortrait *Saginaw Bay Solution to Carolina bays' orientation, with focus back to a suragate crater location. * Heuristically Modeling a Saginaw Bay Cosmic Impact *Please reference the chapter on Saginaw Bay <../YDB/Saginaw_Bay/index.html>* Our current focus for a proposed Ice Sheet impact scenario is the area across central lower Michigan; effectively the Sagiaw Bay area.* ** Correlation of Data *The flight lines, distances and bearings of the Carolina bay fields examined have been analyzed for correlation to the proposed surrogate impact crater site. From our initial bearing analysis, we identified an optimum loci as an average of all "first pass" Coriolis bearings. That value was further rounded for simplicity to a value of 43.5 North Latitudes and 89.5 West Longitude. Our current proposed impact site at Saginaw Bay represents approximately a 22 minutes loft time offset (equating to 5.5 degrees longitude rotation) , which generates a working impact centroid at 43.5 North Latitude and 84 West Longitude. Our first correlation considers the geographical great circle distance from each field back to the proposed impact centered at Saginaw Bay. As shown in the graph below, a very high degree of correlation is seen. The fields are ordered left to right as athey are positioned clockwise around the crater location.This suggests several things. First, an ejecta curtain was lofted with a fairly consistent loft angle and velocity. The distances do increases slightly as the landing fields progress progress radially along the butterfly pattern, suggesting that down-range ejecta was slightly more energetically lofted. lastly, the fields to the west are highly correlated distance-wise with their counterparts to the east. The shortest distance seen are in the New Jersey & Maryland areas. Radial_Distance_Chart *Great Circle Distance between the proposed crater centroid and each of the evaluated Carolina bay fields. *The correlation above suggest that the bays are geographic distributed along a narrow and highly symmetrical pair of "butterfly" arcs centered on the triangulated Saginaw impact location. such a distrubution is suggested in much of the current research on oblique impacts <../YDB/ObliqueImpacts/index.html>. Additionally, the identified down-range "no fly" zone is apparent in the distribution. The following graphic displays the arcs in Google Earth, and also demosnstrates the symmetrical nature of their locations around the implied impactor's azimuth. EjectaRIng_Portrait *Carolina bay locations distributed in butterfly arcs symmetrically around Saginaw Crater* For each of the evaluated Carolina bay fields, we measured an inferred arrival bearing for the ejecta. These measurements can be validated by reviewing each field in Google Earth using the provided kml elements. Three sets of great circle bearings were generated from each Carolina bay fields back to 1) the surrogate crater centroid (43.5 N, 89.5 W); 2) a point to the NE representing the north-eastern limit of the crater ejection rampart ( 44.5 N, 88.6 W); and 3) a point to the SW representing the south-western limit of the crater ejection rampart ( 42.5N, -90.5 W). These great circle lines can be imported into Google Earth using the SaginawCoriolisBearings.kmz file. A challenging aspect of our initial empirically-derived 22 minute loft time is not immediately supportable with a common trajectory model, which force a loft apogee that is unrealistically high for a skewed landing. At a more realistic 30 - 45 º, the loft time from the two available ballistic programs we have used are in the range of 400 to 600 seconds. The "Systematic by Loft" model was numerically extended by applying the "Systematic by Latitude" conjecture. The topic is discussed in more detail in the Inferred Alignment by Latitude <../YDB/InferredAlignment/page107/page107.html> section. The numerical model developed here is considered by us to be very simple and elegant. The only variables being perturbed are the average velocity of the ejecta during its flight (with loft time as the tuning proxy) and the terminal velocity of the falling droplet of ejecta ( with the pellet's coefficient of drag Cd as the tuning proxy). At each field of bays, we extract the latitude and longitude as test case input constants. The model was heuristically focused on the Saginaw Bay proposed structure and it's three control points (NE, Centroid and SW); those latitude and longitude values are similarly applied as constants across all calculations. The 42 bay location "fields" represent many thousands of individual bays, and the solution sets are resolved against all fields simultaneously, with all bearings falling within the control points. While it woudl seem palusible that the ejecta at any given location may actually have a density or velocity different from other locations, the model did not have to leverage such fine tuning to arrive at simultaneous solutions for all 42 fields. deSkew_Corelation_Chart *De-skewed Alignment Correlation Plot *The above graph presents the correlation results when our de-skewing algorithm is applied at a given location using a user-provided /Google Earth Path/ line as a bay orientation estimate. The process is detailed in the Bearing Calculator - <../YDB/InferredAlignment/BearingCalc/HelpLine/index.html> *Line <../YDB/InferredAlignment/BearingCalc/HelpLine/index.html>* section of the website. The graphic below presents results from our ~40 bays when the only provided datum is a single /Google Earth Placemark/ point . The numerical model creates a set of three predicted bearings for ejecta landing at that location. The three bearings correlate to the oval Saginaw crater's centroid, and two outer rampart locations near the ends of the crater's major axis. This second process is detailed in the Bearing Calculator - <../YDB/InferredAlignment/BearingCalc/HelpPoint/index.html> *Point <../YDB/InferredAlignment/BearingCalc/HelpPoint/index.html>* section of the website. * *Predicted_Corelation_Chart *Predicted Bearing Alginment Correlation Plot *The following plot shows the sensitivity of the two input variables for a broad range of tested solutions in which all ~40 evaluate Carolian bay field sites correlated to the Saginaw crater site. We suggest that a realistic range for loft time is in the range of 6 to 10 minutes, as confirmed by ballistic modeling programs. We note the asymptote of the terminal velocity to ~300 meters/sec within that range.* * PredictedSolutionsSensitivityGraph *Sensitivity Plot of Model Variables* With an identified and positively correlated impact site, we turn our attention to validating the proposed area of the Lower Michigan Peninsula. More detailed discussions are presented in the Saginaw Bay <../YDB/Saginaw_Bay/index.html> section of our site. We have identified a significant number of anomalies across the central lowlands of the Saginaw Bay area. We are quite aware of the long-standing acceptance that the area was scoured out by the Wisconsinian Ice sheet. Ironically, we are actively considering it based on the reason we dismissed the lake Michigan area as an impact site: The bedrock across the central lower Michigan Peninsula is composed of later, more solidified carbonate rocks, whereas the older underlying rocks are softer shales and sandstones built up prior to the origins of life and the calcium deposits derived from shells. While the ice age glacial sheets were removing vast quantities of strata from around the basin's periphery, they were unsuccessful in breaching the carbonate layers towards the center of the basin, with one major exception - Saginaw bay. Confirmation of this area as an impact will likely take generations of research. Using visualization tools, however, we suggest there is a high correlation from a geometry perspective. The graphic here presents the area in Google Earth, with two overlays: a color-ramp digital elevation mapping layer, and an appropriately sized and rotated oval shape file overlay. FittingOvalSB *Oval shapefile Overlay and DEM Image of the Saginaw Impact Site *The database of evaluated bays continues to expand. The following graphic depicts the "de-skewed" trace-back trajectories yielding the Sagianw focus. Saginaw_Portrait *Sagianaw Predicted Trajectories De-Skewed from Measured Orientations* We note the strong trend correlation across the northern and souther boundaries, as well as the overlap into the Kankakee Torrent flood plain in the southwestern end. Experimental and planetary imaging has identified oblique oval craters as typically displaying the deepest excavation at the uprange end of the crater, which here falls in the northeast directly over one of the deepest parts of the Huron basin - the Bay City Basin. From that point, the land rises gently across the peninsula, reaching its greatest elevation at the southwest end of the oval overlay. Another common attribute of an oblique impact is the existence of a slight ridge - likely rebounded strata - tracing al line down the center of the structure. In our situation, the Charity Islands rise up form the bay directly along the oval's centerline. Please note that fully expect that the Huron lobe of the Wisconsinian Ice sheet would have eventually advanced into the excavated crater from the east, bulldozing the collapsed 1km high ice crater ramparts and leaving the existing set of terminal moraines behind as it deglaciated at the onset of the Holocene. Two videos filmed by George Howard are available on YouTube. Our AGU poster is referenced to discuss the distal ejecta conjecture and the Carolina bay inferred alignments. Click on the images below to watch the video. Note that since the AGU Fall Meeting we are now proposing an impact in the Saginaw area vs the Lake Michigan basin, as discussed in the 2nd video. AGU_videoPresentation AGU_videoPresentation2 *YouTube videos by George Howard* Summary: Catastrophism has few followers when applied to the deposition of unconsolidated strata, especially when considering locales such as costal plains, where classical fluvial and eolian mechanisms are well established gradualistic processes. Our conjecture holds that a catastrophic deposition of pulverized ice, sand, gravel and cometary fragments created a horizon of unconsolidated sand up to 10 meters deep in a set of butterfly arcs across the continental US. In areas presenting favorably flat hosting terrain with a relatively high water table and rainfall, the upper surface of this strata contains Carolina bays. In areas of flat terrain that are usually dry, these deposits would quickly be worked into dunes and other common eolian features. Lastly, on rough terrain (greater than 1 meter elevation change over 100 meters), we expect the blanket to be sloughed off quickly. Possible source impact sites for ejecta landing in the Carolina bays geography were modeled. Considering the orientation of the bays. as modified by relative ground speed and Coriolis effects on the ejecta, our triangulation analysis suggests an impact by a cometary body at ~ 43.68°N , 83.82°W. Using the conceit offset of 22 minutes loft time, this implicates the depression today seen as Saginaw Bay. Further refinement by applying terminal velocity and Coriolis effects at the deposition location, loft times in the range of 5 to 10 minutes are supportable. We maintain that the high degree of correlation demonstrated in our analysis and charts across ~100 disparate locations in the continental U.S. provide strong support our hypothesis of an ejecta blanket event. Further research is proposed to verify the true nature and extent of this unique and enigmatic sand horizon. We are actively soliciting collaborators who would would be in a position to assist in validating the hypothesis by comparative testing of the implicated soil horizon. Perigee: Zero ® , Contents © 2006 - 2010 by Cintos Contact Us