Burckle Crater Impact - Origin of Mesopotamian/other regional floods?

Considering there is strong evidence for a devastating flood in Mesopotamia between 2750 and 2900 BC, this may possible be what caused it. You decide.

More recent prehistoric impacts are theorized by the Holocene Impact Working Group, including Dallas Abbott of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. This group points to four enormous chevron sediment deposits at the southern end of Madagascar, containing deep-ocean microfossils fused with metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. All of the chevrons point toward a spot in the middle of the Indian Ocean where newly discovered Burckle crater[3], 18 miles (29 km) in diameter, lies 12,500 feet (3,800 m) below the surface. This group posits that a large asteroid or comet impact 4,500--5,000 years ago, produced a mega-tsunami at least 600 feet (180 m) high. If this and other recent impacts prove correct, the rate of asteroid impacts is much higher than currently thought.

en.wikipedia.org...

Although conventional astronomy suggests that large, (> 1 km), impactors hit the Earth once every 300,000 years we have assembled evidence for at least 3 large oceanic impacts during the last 11,000 years. The ~ 1.5 km “Deluge comet” produced the 29 km Burckle crater, which is astronomically estimated to be 4800 years old. This impact may be responsible for ancient legends about torrential rainfall, hurricane force winds, and coastal mega-tsunamis.

eesc.columbia.edu...

For information on Chevron Dunes:

tsun.sscc.ru...

Based on their crater size, the energies needed to make the Mahuika and Burckle impact craters are > 400,000 and > 2,000,000 megatons, respectively.

earthweb.ess.washington.edu...

2807 BC — Suggested date for an asteroid or comet impact occurring between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse on May 10, based on an analysis of flood stories. Possibly causing the Burckle crater and Fenambosy Chevron.

en.wikipedia.org...

cormac

Good stuff Cormac

What is your conclusion?

Interestingly some of this would confirm the less nutty ideas of Velikovsky. ie there were more castastrophes in the past than we realized - not that Venus was roaming the solar system like a hyper billiard ball causing this!

Better get that asteroid deflection technology up and running

[edit on 16/4/08 by Hanslune]

To me, this pretty well blows any other explanation out of the water. Add to the mega-tsunamis the millions of tons of seawater introduced to the atmosphere from 2,000,000 megatons worth of damage and it can be seen how millions of people would be affected, areas devastated.

Better get that asteroid deflection technology up and running

Starfleet may have an extra or two.

cormac

Hmmmmm? Question do you know how many of the flood stories are tsunami based vs rain based?

From everything I've ever come across in various flood stories, extremely few stories show any literal indications of a tsunami. Perhaps the bigger question would be how many cultures would know the difference between a devastatingly large flood and a tsunami, especially if it was raining at the time.

Also to note, very few say anything about a worldwide flood.

cormac

Well those folks were very observant of nature and would have noted that the waves came up the river instead of down it.

All mysterious eh!

I suspect that somewhere someplace there is a dissertation on this very subject. Probably done in German in the in or around 1910-1935, the Germans and Austrians were big into these types of questions then.

Well those folks were very observant of nature and would have noted that the waves came up the river instead of down it.

True enough, but you have to keep in mind the Biblical account and some others say that water was coming from the heavens (rain) and the deep (possible tsunami) at the same time. With rivers swelling at the same time a tsunami hit, it wouldn't matter what they called it, it was still devastating.

cormac

Any mention in the Egyptian or Chinese records of these events?

(the impacts)

[edit on 16/4/08 by Hanslune]

Although not proof, interestingly enough the Chinese flood story of Nuwa and Fuxi is dated, by some accounts, to the 2800's BC.

In Egypt the pharoah Ninetjer ruled during the period in question. Very little is known of the 2nd Dynasty when he reigned and less about him specifically. One account however does mention that the annual inundations of the Nile were extremely poor during the early 2800's.

cormac

[edit on 16-4-2008 by cormac mac airt]

Perhaps the impacts impact was two pronged, the immediate tsunamis and later heavy rains caused by the material thrown up into the atmosphere - but in the legends the events have become one.

Quite possible. Ancient peoples may have had a decent grasp of WHAT was happening, but not necessarily WHY it was happening, or how/if it was related to other events.

cormac

I guess we'll have to wait for one to bore in to see how the environment handles it.

Well im not entirely sure....

How old is the first sumerian flood myth? Iirc the gilgamesh myth/legend is very old and might even predate this impact.

edit:

According to the sumerian myth he lived around 2600 BC.

The myth said he met the only survivor of the great world flood.

Well lets look at this a bit not to strictly. Maybe he met the last survivors of the original people living near the coast. Not saying as a 200 year old men but a dying tribe or city....

[edit on 17-4-2008 by tomcat ha]

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
Considering there is strong evidence for a devastating flood in Mesopotamia between 2750 and 2900 BC, this may possible be what caused it. You decide.

I thought Archaeology had already decided that Mesopotamia was plagued by seasonal floods. there is no need for a large one to produce a story.

The story becomes larger with each retelling. there was not originally a story from mesopotamia about a global flood, that part was added by Hebrew scribes around 500bce. the previous oldest account just states that the flood was "upon the ground/land". I'm wondering if an overenthusiastic scribe translated "ground" as "earth"
haha

Sir Leonard Woolley discovered this way back in the 1920s when he sent his famous "we have found the flood" telegram. He later found many other floods evidence by a silt deposit underneath the one he had found.


[edit on 20-4-2008 by legionromanes]

reply to post by legionromanes

I thought Archaeology had already decided that Mesopotamia was plagued by seasonal floods.

True, the area is plagued by seasonal floods. However, the one is question was no mere seasonal flood.

Taken from: Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, 1991, page 19

Excavations in Iraq have shown evidence of a flood at Shuruppak and other Sumerian cities: a layer of riverine sediment interrupting the continuity of settlement, which was radiocarbon dated to about 2900 BC, and which extended as far north as the city of Kish. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr Period (3000-2900 BCE) was found immediately below the Shuruppak flood layer.

A description I came across years ago described an area 100 miles wide by nearly 400 miles long. Definitely not your normal riverine flood.

Also, take into account that there were reputedly 5 cities before the flood.

Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larsa, Sippar and Shuruppak.

The youngest dating to 2900 BC. Also, Kish was reputedly the first city built after the flood. It dates to 2700 BC. Falls well within the timeframe of the OP.

cormac

thats very interesting cormac but I'd like to point out that as every city was built on the banks of a river its not very surprising that they would all show signs of a large flood many miles from the coast. the flooding didn't come from the sea after all, it came from the rivers

the fact remains that the size of the flood textually increases with each retelling until its retold by the Hebrews when it suddenly becomes global. what you are suggesting would indicate that they did the reverse of this and underexaggerated the extent. this isn't what the textual evidence suggests.

take a look at this
www.talkorigins.org...
the preponderence of flood stories is usually taken two ways

1) there was a global flood and the bible is the word of god
2) we live on a planet that is 4/5 water

I know which one I think is true and its not a belief of any kind

reply to post by legionromanes

as every city was built on the banks of a river

But EVERY city wasn't built on the banks of a river. Many were not.

the flooding didn't come from the sea after all, it came from the rivers

Not necessarily in every case. Neither do I believe that ALL flood stories from around the globe are describing THE SAME flood.

Assuming that you will agree with me that most floods are caused by heavy rains, then what about the following from just the Mesopotamian area, taken from your link:

Sumerian: flood to destroy mankind

Babylonian: flood to destroy all humans

Assyrian: to cleanse the earth of an overpopulated humanity, waters of the abyss rose up

Accounts attributed to Berosus: oceans, inland seas, and rivers burst forth from beneath, attended by many days of violent rain


Hebrew: floodwaters came from the heavens and from the deeps

Islamic: water gushed from underground and fell from the sky

I think even you have to admit that that isn't how a normal flood happens.

As I said in an earlier post, if flooding is happening from 2 sources, it doesn't matter what you call it. It is still devastating.

I could be entirely wrong as to the Burckle Crater incident as to the cause, time will tell.

cormac

[edit on 20-4-2008 by cormac mac airt]

[edit on 20-4-2008 by cormac mac airt]

[edit on 20-4-2008 by cormac mac airt]

Originally posted by cormac mac airt

But EVERY city wasn't built on the banks of a river. Many were not.

they were all built by the river, the fields needed to maintain the populations were fed by canals connected to the rivers

Fig. 2. The Ancient regions and cities of Mesopotamia. Present-day cities are
underlined. The former courses of the ancient Eiphrates (Purattu) and Tigris (Idiqlat)
Rivers, and the former approximate extent of the Persian Gulf are denoted by short
dashes. Long dashes denote present day boundaries between countries.

as you can see the rivers were never claimed to be static.

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
Assuming that you will agree with me that most floods are caused by heavy rains, then what about the following from just the Mesopotamian area, taken from your link:

Sumerian: flood to destroy mankind

Babylonian: flood to destroy all humans

Assyrian: to cleanse the earth of an overpopulated humanity, waters of the abyss rose up

Accounts attributed to Berosus: oceans, inland seas, and rivers burst forth from beneath, attended by many days of violent rain


Hebrew: floodwaters came from the heavens and from the deeps

Islamic: water gushed from underground and fell from the sky

I think even you have to admit that that isn't how a normal flood happens.

no and that doesn't surprise you when the account is written by a people with very little grasp of the mechanics of flooding. i.e. later scribes and not modern geologists or even contemporary eyewitnesses

I think you will have to admit that the oldest flood story is that told in Gilgamesh and dates to around 2500bce

all of these others you have listed are known to be derived from a mesopotamian source and as I said the flood gets bigger with each retelling. For a huge flood to have been caused by a meteorite strike they might have mentioned that in all of the accounts that the flood occoured shortly after something fell from the heavens. they don't ergo it didn't

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
As I said in an earlier post, if flooding is happening from 2 sources, it doesn't matter what you call it. It is still devastating.

I could be entirely wrong as to the Burckle Crater incident as to the cause, time will tell.

but it has told, there was no great flood at all. we have geology now that tells us these things, just the usual riverine floods that lessened as more and more canals were built which lowered the levels of the rivers.

its very common for people to take a derived story (especially when its religious) and then claim it is the truth and try to explain it. ref Exodus/Sodom and Gomorrah/Atlantis. In reality there is nothing that needs an explanation at all. There was no devastating great flood therefore no need for a devastating event to cause it. How does a meteorite cause a river to overthrow its banks onto a city that is 200 miles inland anyway ?

reply to post by legionromanes

as you can see the rivers were never claimed to be static.

I never said they were static, just that not all cities were literally ON THE BANKS of the river as you indicated.

written by a people with very little grasp of the mechanics of flooding.

So you're saying that they wouldn't know the difference between water raining DOWN and water bursting UP from the abyss? That makes no sense.

I think you will have to admit that the oldest flood story is that told in Gilgamesh and dates to around 2500bce

No, actually it's my understanding that Gilgamesh, if he lived, did so between 2600 and 2700 BC. The earliest copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh dates to between 2000 and 2100 BC. A few other versions to around 1800 BC and of course the Biblical account later, c. 500 BC.

all of these others you have listed are known to be derived from a mesopotamian source

Strictly speaking, they are all Mesopotamian. And the first few within a few hundred years of each other.

For a huge flood to have been caused by a meteorite strike they might have mentioned that in all of the accounts that the flood occoured shortly after something fell from the heavens.

Have you ever actually seen where Burckle's Crater IS in relationship to Mesopotamia? Rather self explanatory. They wouldn't need to see the asteroid before dealing with the ramifications of an impact.

but it has told, there was no great flood at all.

Not by global standards, true. But if not by local standards, then why were they writing about one? And why, if it was just a normal, seasonal flood, would it leave silt deposits meters deep?

It could turn out that BOTH of us are wrong.

cormac

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
I never said they were static, just that not all cities were literally ON THE BANKS of the river as you indicated.

take another look at the map. all the cities are built by the river. It is why they are there

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
So you're saying that they wouldn't know the difference between water raining DOWN and water bursting UP from the abyss? That makes no sense.

the earliest account contains no reference to either rain or water bursting up from the abyss. There is actually no mesopotamian word for abyss
However ancient world cosmological belief stated that the world was suspended in a bubble surrounded by water. We know that water doesn't come up through the ground in a flood. they believed it could. that is why that detail appears in later flood stories. It certainly isn't mentioned in the older ones. What you are reading therefore isn't an account. It is a story. really when you think about it what kind of stories would you expect from a culture that lived with flooding ?

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
No, actually it's my understanding that Gilgamesh, if he lived, did so between 2600 and 2700 BC. The earliest copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh dates to between 2000 and 2100 BC. A few other versions to around 1800 BC and of course the Biblical account later, c. 500 BC.

would you also say that Gilgamesh was 2/3 god and that he defeated the bull of heaven and found a flower that bestows imortality ?
The earliest accounts of Gilgamesh date to 2300bce.

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
Strictly speaking, they are all Mesopotamian. And the first few within a few hundred years of each other.

Gilgamesh 2300bce
Hebrew 750bce
Assyrian 500bce
Islamic 800ce

thats quite a gap.

Originally posted by cormac mac airt

Have you ever actually seen where Burckle's Crater IS in relationship to Mesopotamia? Rather self explanatory. They wouldn't need to see the asteroid before dealing with the ramifications of an impact.

they would have been entirely wiped out by the impact within 30 minutes of hearing the splash

Originally posted by cormac mac airt
Not by global standards, true. But if not by local standards, then why were they writing about one? And why, if it was just a normal, seasonal flood, would it leave silt deposits meters deep?

thats exactly what I'm saying. the earliest accounts say nothing of a huge flood. It is the last of a series of plagues that include famine and pestilence over a number of years designed by Enlil to at first limit mans numbers and then when that fails to wipe him out. Are these typical of meteorite impacts too ?

as I said earlier the land of mesopotamia was dictated by the management of its only two resources. water and fertile soil. When this had been properly managed the danger of flooding was reduced. at the time of the Surrupak flood this was not the state of affairs. so any flood event at this period in mesopotamian history would be worse than any that followed. silt deposits several meters deep are exactly what you would expect to find.

the Burckle crater would have caused a wave 200 metres high. Had this occured on the flat plain of mesopotamia there wouldn't have been any survivors at all. the cities built on the whole from mud brick would have been entirely washed away. They weren't

you realise of course that this information you've posted is the opinion of the holocene impact working group.

It is not accepted by the mainstream

just by the media