Times are displayed in (UTC-06:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada) Change

Why “Cosmic Processes (C)” Is Not Merited as an Addition to the ClORPT Soil Forming Framework

Session: Myths and Misrepresentations surrounding Cosmic Impact claims in Paleoclimatology, Paleontology, Paleoecology, Geoarchaeology, and Quaternary Research

Presenting Author:

Leslie McFadden

Authors:

McFadden, Leslie D.¹, Boslough, Mark²

(1) University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, , (2) University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, ; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA,

Abstract:

A recently published paper proposed that the hypothesized Younger Dryas impact caused a “global conflagration” that altered or obliterated many major properties of soils. These changes and their global scale are claimed to be sufficiently profound to justify adding the letter “C” (“cosmic processes”) to the set of “ClORPT” factors that most strongly influence processes of soil formation as proposed by Hans Jenny (1941), Climate (Cl), Organisms (O), Relief (R), Parent materials (P) and Time (T). “ClORPT” provides the conceptual framework for a large body of published research in the disciplines of Soil and Earth science.

Key arguments for justifying the addition of C principally included: (1) Features in Quaternary soils interpreted to provide evidence of dramatic changes in soils with depth that can only be explained by thermal and shock impacts produced by a cosmic airburst comparable to a nuclear blast (one million degrees C ); and (2) A global conflagration would have impacted soils across all continents, as an initially large comet would have been shattered into thousands of fragments that would in turn produce Tunguska-scale or larger surface impacts globally.

There are fatal flaws with both (1) and (2).

(1) The energy density of a meteoritic airburst is many orders of magnitude lower than a nuclear explosion, so the associated temperatures are also orders of magnitude lower. Low altitude meteoritic airbursts can only melt surface materials in cases for which the hot meteoritic vapor makes direct, but brief contact with a localized surface at thousands of degrees (called a “contact” or “type 2” airburst).

(2) In addition to a very large number of impacts required to alter soils globally, the frequency of such impacts during the Quaternary required to alter and spatially dominate soil landscapes would require a population of near Earth objects many orders of magnitude higher than what has been established by astronomers. Pedogenic evidence to support this in extant soil landscapes has not been reported in relevant publications.

Nevertheless, the fact this study was proposed by a well-respected scientist in a field unrelated to planetary science and was subsequently published shows that at least some researchers in diverse science disciplines are accepting the YDIH as a hypothesis worthy of their consideration, a phenomenon that should elicit concern amongst many Earth scientists.