Solar Super-Flare Effects

"Doesn't sound like myopia is a starter here"

Agreed.

The postings by William are quite the eye opener and offer an interesting window of possibilities as to what happened to Clovis. The question now is .....Was it a solar caused extinction event followed by future migrations or was it a near extinction event caused by an asteroid impacting mile thick ice....

I also wonder about those children conceived during such celestial events.

Very true. I doubt an asteroid impact that wouldn't bust the crust would leave much trace (cratering, for instance) in a mile-thick ice sheet. The evidence would melt like the icicle used to stab the victim in a Hitchcock film of unremembered title. But the vaporized water it could have thrown into the stratosphere would have changed weather, and perhaps climate, as much as dust would have.

And possibly ended the Ice Age....?

By the way....the Kettle Lakes of northern Ontario contain ice from the last chill. There is evidence here that the Algonquin Plateau still had ice on it up to 2000 years ago.

It would take one heckuva meteoric impact to generate enough heat to end an ice age! I'm doubful on that score, but it could have generated enough climatic change to initiate or hasten the process, I suppose. Our fairly famous meteor crater in Arizona is linked to a lesser-known crater in west Texas, apparently was from a Shoemaker-Levy style breakup.

I think I just sent a guy into one of the worst mosquitoe infested swamps on this continent looking for Rhabes' zone layer. Maybe we'll hear from him and he'll have some sort of answer....maybe not. Oh well.

Two nights ago I thought me and sailboat were about to become ground zero for impact after witnessing brilliant flash of few seconds duration in vicinity of Big Dipper. Nova, thinks I. Cool. Irradiated human and his dog.

Last night same event at exactly same time in the same place! Two novas? Nah! Brought out my porta-telescope and focussed in on geostationary satellite with sun reflecting off solar panels! Very disappointing.

well mostly it would cause an Ice age due to the emited dust. But if it hit a part of the planet were the crust is thin it would probably increase, volcanic eruptions and true that increasing the Co2 output.

Yes....but what would happen if it hit the ice during an ice age? Where would the evidence be?

Ice that is a mile thick can absorb an enormous impact.

A giant snowball?

Depends of course on the size of the meteor and it's speed, if you see the Arizona crater the a mile thick piece of ice would make a lot off difference. a red hot bar goes straight true ice, and a big meteor gets quite hot while entering the atmosphere.

If hit a deep body of water the Meteor would cool down more quickly than if it with and ice glacier

Unless it reached critical mass and detonated within the ice sheet....

It seems to me that a good sized flare would impact the side of the earth facing the sun primarily. Even on that side the effects would tend to taper off towards the edges (where the sun is rising or falling on the horizon). So say, maybe a third of the earth's face receives a direct hit, severe enough to cause 2nd degree burns, partial blindness, cripple crops.

Depending on who survives and where they were, looks to me like an exodus toward lands that are less effected would be inevitable.

There would be world wide consequences immediately after the event, but if most of those are electromagnetic and, in a pre-industrialized society, would the effect on the "lucky" two-thirds of humanity (other than some mutation, cancer, etc) really be that bad?

Not a valid presumption.

First, the Earth rotates as well as orbiting the sun, and if the duration of the flare was sufficiently long, nearly all of the surface could have direct exposure.

Second, if the ions were redirected by our magnetic field from the poles toward the opposite poles, we'd have a showering effect at all latitudes and longitudes.

Only deep underground locations, like caves, tunnels, mines, would be at all protected. Possibly some steep-sided canyons, but I wouldn't bet on them.

Points well taken. However, the Carrington flare apparently only lasted for moments (well, maybe minutes.). By the time Carrinton observed the flare, acknowledged that it was unique, went to find his assistant to witness it, and rushed back to his equipment, the phenomenon had virtually vanished.

Yes.....but Carrington saw the flare as a reflection in a dish and it was in the 'forenoon'....in other words ....daytime!

That in itself is incredibly significant. What is not known is what effect did the solar storm cause on earth (I haven't read all his notes yet) and what was the duration...or.......did the solar storm actually hit earth. If so there must be some evidence of it whether in tree growth rings or magnetic properties of certain minerals.

There is no doubt the flare impacted the earth...telegraph operators were apparently thrown across the room by the aftermath. They also reported that the telegraph continued to operate after the power outage.

One other side effect I forgot to mention was that the event of 89 directly impacted a temporary shortage of church pews. The woodwork produced many prophets shortly afterwards.

In St. Sulpice the cross on the church began to glow. Many converts later it continues to glow.

A friend vacationing in Jamaica thought that the red glow over Cuba was nuclear in nature.

Dear All,

the data about Clovis are difficult to read:

A.: there are clear indications about a meteorite shower that did hit after splitting into multiple pieces. This is not unusual: the 13 million years old craters in southern Germany (one 30 km, the other 6km diameter), are one indication and the scenes we have seen as Shoemaker-Levy comet broke into many pieces by tidal forces and impacted Jupiter with very deep holes was another.

This is consistent with extended burning over North-America and North-Europe, with molten iron balls 0.1 to 0.2mm diameter, with a more than 10fold Iridium maximum in this sediment... If we search with intensity we will find more evidence.

B.: On the other hand there are indications of a massive irradiation by high energy particles that can be seen in the tools of the Clovis culture only in this final layer of sediment.

(Look at the literature posted by William in

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/26330#newcomments )

Any high energy particle that hits a glassy or crystalline object is disturbing the chemical bonds along the trace through the material until being stopped. These disturbed traces can be made visible by slightly etching, this widens the trace until visible. (Nuclepore filters are made by this process)

In one of the links in above cited other post by William there is clear evidence of a massive irradiation: these traces, an abnormal U235/U238 relation, excess Plutonium and many more.

So there can be little doubt that both: a meteoritic impact-shower with many small objects and a massive irradiation.

These 2 events need not be linked. There is a good probability that both events are independent and happened in a short time-interval so we see the evidence in one sedimentary layer.

Conclusion:

2 dangerous events at nearly the same time (may be 100 years apart?) will pose more damage than the sum of both.

The origin of the radiation is likely to be an astronomic event (Super-Nova).I don't think that a very big solar flare can do this amount of isotopic change. In the until now here posted literature and anything I looked upon later it is stated that the solar flares are producing vast amounts of energetic protons and electrons.

But the isotope changes require vast amounts of neutrons.

There is a Super-Nova remnant that may be a good candidate: Vela. The age can be estimated by the velocity and diameter of the (spherically expanding) shock-waves.

To be done:

East-Asia, Australia and New-Zealand will have seen part or all of the irradiation but not much of the meteoritic impact damage.

Please ask your local geologic authorities about this layer, and if unknown, they should start a research similar to what is reported for the Great Lakes area.

RHABE

The area along the Mississinaibi River of northern Ontario contains clay deposits where can be found 250 million year old pine cones.............still soft...........it is the era known as the Early Cretaceous. The layers of clay extend upwards from this until the present day. They also extend downwards.

That area would be the place to look for the layer Rhabe refers to.

ps..it can be reached by canoe.

So could most uncomplicated mechanisms (no computer modules, etc) just be rewired, replace sparkplugs, to work again once the effects of the flare diminish?

I doubt sparkplugs or wires would suffer. But the diodes in the alternator could be fried, so once the battery was down, there'd be no recharging it. And if you're running off of the battery going down the road, it won't last long. You'd get a few miles, maybe a few tens of miles on a good battery, then nada - as in nada damn thing. Also, instrumentation could suffer failures. I don't know how things like fuses and fusible links might be affected.

Good point and dead on. My alternator had to be replaced shortly after the storm.

This is what Rhabe was trying to determine. It is very unusual for wiring of an electrical motor to become so hot that it would cause failure and yet I discovered that this did indeed happen. Whether it was a singular anomaly or not I have yet to determine it's exact cause.

Having said that I assume that sparkplugs should not be impacted but electrical windings might be.

My suspicion is that there are geological areas on Earth where these storms have significantly differrant effects. It's just a suspicion though.

Large solar flare are single events and effect weather but not climate with the exception of very large solar events which appear to alter the intensity of planet's magnetic field, cyclically.

The geomagnetic field drops by a factor of roughly 7 during the glacial periods at low points as compared to interglacial periods (The intergalacial periods are spaced roughly 100 kyr apart.) The geomagnetic field also changes intensity on a periodic of 41 kyrs correlated with the change from maximum tilt and minimum tilt of the earth's atmosphere. A reduction in the intensity of the geomagnetic field makes the planet colder as it enables the cloud modulating mechanism described in the next comment to affect the planet at latitudes closer to the equator.

The very large solar events also appear to trigger earthquakes. There has been some recent research in that area, concerning the phenomena called "sprites" which is the name for the movement of charge from the top of atmosphere to the ionosphere.

The following is a summary of the solar cycle changes that current research supports effect planetary temperature. The base mechanism in all cases are solar changes that effect planetary cloud cover. The atmosphere over the oceans is ion poor and ions are required to create cloud nuclei. The solar magnetic cycle changes affect how many ions are available to form clouds. More clouds cooler planet, less cloud warmer planet.

This paper by Brian Tinsley and Fangqun Yu "Atmospheric Ionization and Clouds as Links Between Solar Activity and Climate" outlines the two mechanisms.

http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf

This is my attempt to summarize (See the above paper for details.)

The net effect of planetary clouds (all levels) is a reflection into space of 27.7 W/m2 (i.e. Clouds cool the planet by 27.7 W/m2.) [Hartmann, 1993] A mechanism that increases or decreases the total amount of planetary cloud cover will change the planet's temperature.

GCR Modulation by Solar Heliosphere
Pieces of magnetic flux from the sun are carried out into the solar heliosphere. The solar heliosphere stretches out about 20 light hours (near the orbit of Uranus.) The pieces of magnetic flux deflect GCR so that deflected GCR does not strike the earth. As the solar cycle progresses there is an observed change in the amount of Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) particles that strike the earth. Tracking the change in the number of GCR is a change total planetary cloud cover. This is shown by satellite data in Palle's paper (I did not include a copy of Palle's two papers.) and also in Tinsley and Yu's paper (figure 2.1.).

Cloud Modulation by GCR
Microscope cloud nuclei are created by the electrons that are produced when the GCR strike the upper atmosphere. (GCR create muons. The muons reach lower levels in the atmosphere and create free electrons.) Svensmark has confirmed the processes in a lab test. Two additional tests are planned. One in a deep under ground mine, to test the process in the absence of natural muons and the second with CERN, where CERN will be used to create a known modulated artificial GCR source.

Electroscavenging
High speed solar winds that are created by coronal holes (for example) remove cloud forming ions by the process of electroscavenging. The high speed solar wind creates a space charge in the earth's ionosphere. The charge differential in the ionosphere creates a potential difference between the ionosphere and the lower atmosphere which removes cloud forming ions, from the lower atmosphere. (See figure 3.1 and figure 5.3 in Tinsley and Yu's paper.) The ionosphere space charge is latitude specific (see figure 5.3.) Palle's satellite analysis shows a significant reduction in clouds at the latitudes, as predicted by Tinsley and Yu.

William...this is fascinating. Do keep us up to date.

Duck

Space Weather News for Sept. 9, 2008
http://spaceweather.com

FIREBALL OUTBURST: This morning, Sept. 9th, a surprising flurry of fireballs lit up the sky over eastern parts of the United States. All-sky cameras at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recorded 25+ meteors, most as bright as Jupiter or Venus. A preliminary analysis by NASA astronomers suggests this is an outburst of "September Perseids," a little-known shower that has erupted this way three times in the past century. Although the show is almost certainly over, sky watchers are advised to be on the lookout for more fireballs tonight and in the nights ahead; the September Perseids are not well understood and they could surprise us again.

A bit off top...........

Hi,

these Perseids are one of many examples of asteroids that are broken into many small pieces, these pieces orbit on elliptical paths around our sun and inhabit the total orbit similar to the rings of Saturn, these orbits cross the earth orbit and some of the particles hit our atmosphere and come down as interplanetary dust.

On rare occasions the pieces are larger: fireballs and non-burnt parts reach Earth.

As asteroids are often not really consolidated material of established strength similar to our known silicates but more often like a pile of gravel, loosely aggregated these can easily break by tidal forces into many pieces.

This is the scenario I expect to come up if the many small craters from the YD impact are investigated.

The signs of massive irradiation are from a different origin and very similar in age.

RHABE

Question....is it possible for a comet or meteor to reach critical mass before impacting? And detonate?

I am currently sailing past Pointe au Baril where a large meteor impacted last year. This area has 000's of islands and it would indeed be good fortune to find a part of this meteor.

This year the Perseids put on an average performance but in 2001 it was like blue daylight with many boloids.

I am @ W 80 33' N 45 31'. The entire area of the Canadian Shield here has been scoured clean by glaciation. Minimum sedimenation and very little topsoil. In some areas the stone still shines brightly from being polished.

Yes....it would indeed be something to find this YD layer. Why not collaborate with one of our universities and propose such a thing? This mystery begs to be answered.

Just search the vicinity of the impact structures,

there shall be ample remaining examples of shocked rock. (to be cut to translucent thickness and looked at with a polarizer in a microscope)

May be also partially or totally glassy specimens (tektites).

These are usually thrown in the direction of the impact, some 100 m for small impacts (diameter of craters up to 50m), and some 300 Km (diameter of crater 30Km).

If later ice scraped the surface then some have likely be stored in trenches and holes.

And naturally the bottom of the lakes should be inspected for (valued) magnetic objects.

These small impacts do not bring enough energy to vaporise the impactor.

I would look for a flux-gate (old aircraft magnetic compass for example or mine detection units from the military) to facilitate and sensitise this search.

Good luck

RHABE

Rhabe.....excuse me for not making myself clear.

The area I refer to has clay deposits dating back 300+ million years to the present day. Pine cones that are 250 million years old and are still soft and wet have been found there. There are full sized trees here that are sticking out of the clay banks that are petrified.

If the Clovis extinction occured then it must have been recent and during the last glacial age. The area was at that time covered by an ice sheet. I suspect a meteroic impact would leave no trace if it hit mile thick ice. This is what I am referring to.

Shocked rock is found 300km south and dates back 1.8b years and 35 m years respectively and very few tektites. This area is known as the Sudbury crater and is still carbonized to this day....ie...nothing much grows there and much of the stone is burnt black. It was used to train the Apollo astronauts to get an understanding what the moon would be like.

A small magnetometer would not work very well in the clay fields. The only mapping we have is from satellite based microwave radar.

The Toronto Museum, specifically the paleontological dept., sent a team into the Mississinaibi River to look for traces of early Cretacious life (see post#120). What was discovered were layers of clay that had not been scoured off by the glaciers. Unfortunately this team was chased out by mosquitoes before any serious investigation took place. No further expeditions have come to this place.

Check out The Knowing(film) to see some killer solar flare effects not very accurate from what I hear though.

Deep into my book now (almost 300 pgs. worth) but still needing all input I can get. I'll check out your film...visual imagery is always valuable, even if a bit "off the wall". Sometimes it triggers my imagination. Thanks for the help. Lynda B.