From an email from Bunch to Leroy Ellenberger:
Dear Leroy – not to worry, Dalton is a competent scientist and did what he could do with the materials given to him. The problem lies with Scott and Pinter.
Some brief reasons why the Dalton et al paper is inept:
1.They did not collect from the YDB layer at the Arlington site that was used in the two Kennett et al papers, but from layers that contained “carbonaceous particles”, mostly charcoal – there are no diamonds in charcoal and it is not clear that they even sampled the YDB.
2. They did not collect or at least process the YDB sediment at Murray Springs, which contains most of the nanodiamonds in the YDB as loose nanodiamonds – probably too much work because the work is labor intensive – need to separate kilos of material. The diamonds average about 50 to 100 ppb and you need a lot of diamonds, processed by the correct separation protocol.
3. Yes, we saw graphene, graphane and chaoite, but these are not diamonds.
4. They analyzed microcharcoal and glassy carbon for diamonds and found none, neither did we! These “carbon particles” were made outside the constrains for diamond production and survival.
5. Two reviewers for the Kennett papers are world class shock and diamond experts – they had no problem.
6. One independent stratigrapher who read the Daulton paper was astonished at the “complete ineptness of field protocol and sample characterization”. Of course, you and others can judge for yourselves.
7. The Greenland paper (Glaciology) will appear in September and there are sufficient diamond data in this paper (STEM, HRTEM, RAMAN, EELS, etc.) to prove once and for all that diamonds do, indeed, occur in the YDB.
More later, Ted
Not only does the paper by Daulton seem inadequate in the factors as mentioned by Dr. Bunch, but as I have mentioed elsewhere, the statements Dr. Daulton and his team make regarding, and I quote “Most evidence supporting the hypothesis (Cosmic explanation) has been discredited.” Further to this and even more amazing is the following quote: ” Our results cast doubt upon one of the last widely discussed (nanodiamonds as detected by so many) pieces of evidence supporting the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.” Finally,Steve Garcia has brought my attention to soemthing in the body of the paper that is truly laughable (if it was not so serious). And that is, the explanation for the triggering mechanism for the North Atlantic slowing or shutting down was the St. Lawrence river corridor. This has been dismissed some years ago not by Dr. Wallace Broecker (the original proponent of the whole idea of meltwater derived from the Laurentide Ice Sheet as exiting via the St. Lawrence. It has been determined that this exit was blocked by ice all the way though the Younger Dryas and for a time thereafter.
Interesting…
Because of the Zamora video in the “Shaken not stirred: Zamora proposes ice impacts into fluidized sand surface to explain bays” post of August 19th, there was a statement in the video about Pinter being one of a group of impact experts.
Trying to get a handle on this, nothing more.
I was pretty sue that Pinter himself was not an impact expert, so I thought I’d go looking to see what connection to impacts any or all of them had.
PINTER – No impacts papers showing before the YD skeptical papers.
Andrew Scott – Seems to have been their forest fire expert. No impacts papers showing before the YD skeptical papers.
Tyrone Daulton – Seems to know his stuff about nanodiamonds out in the universe.
Andrew Podoll – From Pinter’s S Ill U. Geology Dept. (?) No CV available that I could find. Appears to be into renewables and environment, Executive Director at Project Eco ROVER (a classroom on wheels for environmental advocacy, it appears)
C. Koeberl – Finally, an impact guy. A professor of impact research and planetary geology.
R S Anderson – Professor of Quaternary & Environmental Sciences at N Arizona U. “Here at NAU, my primary research focus has been to understand the way that climate change and stand disturbance regimes such as fire, affect vegetation over long time scales.” From his webpage, it appears he would have been the guy with some experience with sediment cores from lakes and wetlands.
When Ted Bunch has all the points he’s made above in the post here, it seems Anderson was the sampling guy, with Pinter and Ishman perhaps guiding him. Then it appears that Daulton did the lab work. Ted Bunch above said, “Dalton is a competent scientist and did what he could do with the materials given to him. The problem lies with Scott and Pinter.”
As I recall, the YDB team Wittke’s paper) pointed out the errors of their ways, and I don’t ever remember them responding to Wittke’s final rebuttals.
It is hard to find old specific stuff here (though I am getting better at it, hopefully), so maybe I remember that wrong.
Hi Steve –
You need to read Haynes’ team’s piece on the Clovis Type site at Blackwater Draw in American Archeology.
It is not clear if their dates are being thrown off by erosional deposits of impactites, or if the “type” site was actually a very unusual refugia, and ecological niche which developed only in response to this particular impact event.