Stephanie wrote:

>That's really curious about how there are two different
>dates given by testing different materials that should
>technically give the same date. could it be possible
>that the impact spheres perhaps were thrust down into
>the peat by the force of the impact, placing them at
>an "older" layer?

No.

One possibility that came to mind is that there were
various times during which the lake filling the impact
crater dried out completely. At that time, any organic
sediments in it would have been completely destroyed
by oxidation. As a result, any organic material found
in the crater fill would date to the last time the
sediments filling it were permanently saturated by
water and not when it was created. In this case, I
would trust the dating of the eject layer in the
peat over dating of organic material from the crater
fill.

This is one reason that the organic material found
in Carolina Bays do not date the time at which they
were formed. Rather, it dates to the last time at which
some combination of rising sea levels and climatic
change raised ground water enough that permanent lakes
were created in them and organic material could be
preserved. In this case, older organic material was
either not preserved or destroyed by an oxidizing
environment within the bays. This is discussed briefly
in "An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence Presented
By ''Gateway to Atlantis'' for Terminal Pleistocene
Catastrophe" at [www.hallofmaat.com].

The selective preservation of organic matter in lake
sediments as a result of changes in sea level and
climate and how it affects the radiocarbon dating of
ponds and lakes is discussed in detail by:

Gaiser, E. E., Taylor, B. E., and Brooks, M. J., 2001,
Establishment of wetlands on the southeastern Atlantic
Coastal Plain; paleolimnological evidence of a
mid-Holocene hydrologic threshold from a South Carolina
pond. Journal of Paleolimnology. vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 373-391.

Best Regards,

Paul H.



"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner, Act 1, Scene III, Requiem for a Nun (1951)



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2005 01:14PM by Paul H..