Astronomy & Geology (superwave theory) continued
• The superwave concept has been widely cited in books and magazine articles directed at a general public and has particularly gained in popularity in the years leading up to December 2012, the Mayan calendar end date claimed to designate the time of a future global cataclysm.  There are in fact some authors who have written books or given lectures proposing that a superwave will arrive in December 2012.  LaViolette, himself, has not proposed a definite date for the superwave's arrival, only said that there is a high probability of recurrence in the next few hundred years.  While he does not rule out the possibility of a surprise arrival in 2012, he notes that currently the activity of the Galactic core continues to exhibit a "quiescent" state.  So although LaViolette is the originator of the superwave concept, claims made by others should not be confused with his own published work.  In some cases LaViolette has debunked the superwave writings of others which threatened to confuse the public; see for example the etheric.com disinformation web page.
• LaViolette is the first to discover high levels of the cosmic dust indicators iridium and nickel in ice age polar ice.^{[1, 23-25]}  He is also the first to report the discovery of high concentrations of gold in polar ice.  This study was performed while he was at Portland State University as part of his doctoral work and as a test of the superwave hypothesis.  The results served as a positive confirmation of his hypothesis and have significant implications for understanding the cause of abrupt climatic change in Earth's history.  His cosmic dust findings were favorably cited by Clube and Napier.^[26]  Also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation noted the importance of LaViolette's findings to the director of the National Science Foundation (letter).  In addition he received a letter of support from Erwin Laszlo, director of UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) (letter).  For this study he used the neutron activation analysis technique to determine the concentrations of 15 elements in glacial dust samples weighing in the range of 1 to 500 micrograms.  He is the first to use the NAA technique to analyze such small ice core dust weights. He developed his novel analytical technique partly through consultation with Dr. R. Ganapathy who had previously used NAA to analyze a micrometeorite particle in this same weight range.  LaViolette's earlier experience weighing filters at Harvard University for an air sampling study also came in handy.  Since the time of that study he has assigned earlier dates to his samples as a result of revisions in the ice core chronology.
• The iridium and nickel cosmic dust discovery that LaViolette made was on a scale of importance similar to the discovery of iridium at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary made in 1979 by Alvarez et al. at UC Berkeley.  Their discovery led them to propose the theory that a large asteroid had impacted the Earth 65 million years ago killing off the dinosaurs.  At that time the Berkeley group encountered considerable resistance and disbelief from some geologists about the validity of their findings since the idea was at the time quite new for the field of geology.  But they ultimately prevailed.  LaViolette's findings also indicated an extraterrestrial occurrence (i.e., a cosmic dust incursion), but one having occurred much more recently, within the time span of the human race and possibly within the time period of myth history.  Only one paper challenged LaViolette's cosmic dust findings.  Glaciologist Claude Boutron suggested that LaViolette's samples may have become inadvertently contaminated with iridium.^[27]  LaViolette successfully rebutted Boutron's suggestion in that same journal issue: "Regarding the validity of polar trace metal data: A reply."^[28]  Boutron is known for his work in carefully processing polar ice to measure its content of lead.  Since lead is present in prehistoric polar ice at concentrations thousands of times lower than are found in the modern atmosphere, environmental contamination is a major concern in achieving accurate measurements.  Iridium, however, is found in cosmic dust at concentrations ten thousand times higher than are found in the Earth's crust or in environmental dust.  So environmental contamination is not an issue as it is in the case of lead measurement.  Besides, the samples that Boutron questioned were sent to the author by Lonnie Thompson who had filtered them in an ultraclean laboratory facility.  Thompson is today regarded as one of the foremost glaciologists, his life work being recognized by the National Medal of Science, the highest honor that the United States can bestow upon an American scientist.