The Starburst Foundation

Prehistoric Global Warming - prevailing concept (1981): At the time of this prediction, climatologists believed that the Alleröd-Bölling warming and Younger Dryas cold period at the end of the ice age were confined primarily to Europe. They assumed that there was no global warming at the end of the ice age, that the northern continental ice sheets did not melt synchronously with the southern ice sheets, and that the warming in the north was due to heat being drawn from the Southern Hemisphere.

Verification (1987 - 96): Climatologists published temperature profiles from various parts of the world showing the presence of this same climatic oscillation, but did not connect their data with the idea of global climatic shifts.

Verification (1998): Climatologists (Steig et al.) published findings in Science demonstrating the synchronous occurrence of the Alleröd-Bölling-Younger Dryas climatic oscillation in the Taylor Dome Antarctic ice core. They claimed this as evidence that the last ice age was ended by a global warming. Although they should have been aware of LaViolette's publications, their report did not cite his prior work.

Prehistoric Solar Conflagration - prevailing concept (1983): At the time of LaViolette's prediction, the general opinion was that the Sun has remained in its present quiescent solar cycle state for hundreds of millions of years. A small group of astronomers, however, dissented with this view. For example, in 1969, astrophysicist Thomas Gold published lunar rock evidence indicating that, within the last 30,000 years, the radiation intensity on the Moon had reached 100 suns for 10 to 100 seconds, possibly due to a solar nova. In 1975, astronomer A. Lovell suggested that sun-like stars occasionly produce flares of up to 10³⁷ ergs, 30,000 times more energetic than the largest solar flare of modern times. In 1977, astrophysicists Wdowczyk and Wolfendale suggested that the Sun might produce a flare a million times larger (3 X 10³⁸ ergs) about once every 100,000 years. Moreover in 1978, NASA astronomers Zook, Hartung, and Storzer had published lunar rock evidence indicating that 16,000 years ago solar flare background radiation intensity on the Moon's surface had peaked to 50 times the current intensity and that this may have been somehow associated with the retreat of the ice sheets. The idea that the Earth and Moon might have been affected in the past by the arrival of a giant solar coronal mass ejection had not yet been advanced.

Concordance (1997): Satellite observations showed solar flares ejecting expanding balls of plasma called "coronal mass ejections"and demonstrated that these were capable of travelling outward beyond the Earth's orbit. This lent credance to LaViolette's theory that a large coronal plasma "fireball" thrown off by an immense solar flare may have reached the Earth and Moon and scorched their surfaces.

Concordance (1999): Astronomers announced that they had observed large explosive outbursts from the surfaces of nearby normal sunlike stars. These "superflares" were observed to range from 100 to 10 million times the energy of the largest flare observed on the Sun in modern times and were estimated to occur about once every hundred years. This confirmed the Lovell hypothesis and increased the plausibility of LaViolette's suggestion that the Sun was producing mega solar flares and intense plasma fireballs at the end of the last ice age.

Verification (2002): As early as the late 1970's Dr. Han Kloosterman was arguing that a global conflagration was the cause of the black layer found in Alleröd sediments in southern England and in the Great Lakes Region. Later in 2002, when Dr. LaViolette first became aware of his work, Kloosterman was on a geological field trip in the southeastern U.S. accumulating evidence of the black mat horizon dating from the Alleröd/Younger Dryas transition and correlative with similar horizons found in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, and Poland. Kloosterman concluded that this layer was produced by a global conflagration which was also responsible for the exitnction of the Pleistocene megafauna. Kloosterman's thesis and evidence of the Usselo horizon confirm the solar CME scenario that LaViolette had proposed.

Verification (2008): LaViolette locates the legendary solar conflagration event in Summit, Greenland ice cores; see LaViolette (2011). Using correlations to the Cariaco Basin varve chronology, he dates this event at 12,885 years b2k. He finds that it is marked by a sudden increase in atmospheric radiocarbon concentration which occurs together with a climatic warming climate in Greenland changing from glacial to interglacial temperatures within less than two years. He finds that the event is also associated with an increase of ammonium, oxylate, and formate ion, which is indicative of a period of global biomass combustion. This suggests that this is the time of the conflagration that produced the Usselo Horizon. He also finds that it occurs together with an acidity ECM spike lasting less than a month as well as a rise of nitrate ion, both being indicators of a dramatic rise in the influx of solar cosmic rays.

Geomagnetic Reversals - prevailing concept (1983): At the time of LaViolette's prediction, geophysicists believed that geomagnetic reversals and magnetic polarity flips were brought about by causes internal to the Earth, that they arose from instabilities in the inner rotation of the Earth's core magnetic dynamo. They believed that these field excursions took hundreds of years to occur due to the inherently slow movement of the core material.

Verification (1989 - 95): Geophysicists reported their analysis of a geomagnetic reversal recorded in the Steens Mountain lava formation, conclusively demonstrating that during this reversal the Earth's magnetic pole changed direction as fast as 8 degrees per day. This overthrew the conventional geocentric view which could not account for such rapid changes with internal motions of the Earth's core dynamo. It confirmed Dr. LaViolette's mechanism of rapid change.

Concordance (1995): Unaware of LaViolette's publications, two French geophysicists published a paper that sought to explain the Steens Mountain polarity reversal as being due to a solar cosmic ray cause. Their mechanism was the same as that which LaViolette had proposed 6 years before the Steens Mountain discovery. Their independent arrival at the same idea is evidence of parallel idea development and consensus with LaViolette's earlier theory.

Verification (1994, 1995): McHargue, et al. discover Be-10 anomalies in ocean sediments at 32 kyr and 43 kyrs BP, contemporaneous with the Mono Lake and Laschamp geomagnetic excursions. Unaware of LaViolette's publications, they suggest they were caused by the passage of supernova shock fronts during a time of unprecidented long-term solar activity.

Radiocarbon Date Anomalies - prevailing concept (1983): At the time of this proposal, the idea that anomalously young radiocarbon dates might be produced by intense solar cosmic ray bombardments had not been suggested. Such young dates were thought to be due to sample contamination with younger carbon having a higher C-14 content.

Verification (1998): After conducting seven years of research, archeologist William Topping proposed that the abnormally young radiocarbon dates of ice age Paleo-Indian sites (ca. 12,400 - 13,000 calendar yrs BP) could be explained if a major solar flare cosmic ray particle storm had caused in situ carbon-14 production from nitrogen in the organic remains of those strata. His conclusion of heavy particle bombardment in Paleo-Indian times was partly supported by his discovery of particle tracks and micrometeorite craters in artifacts. This in situ C-14 production mechanism is the same that LaViolette had earlier proposed to explain the young dates for Pleistocene mammal remains dating from a similar period. Like Topping, LaViolette had concluded that the demise of the large mammals at that time was due to a solar flare conflagration. Since Topping was probably not aware of LaViolette's dissertation, his work would constitute independent corroboration.

Concordance (1995 - 1998): Researchers report the discovery that atmospheric radiocarbon levels strongly increased during the period spanning the Allerød/Younger Dryas transition and the megafaunal extinction. Over a 300 year period between the time of the IntraAllerod Cold Peak and the beginning of the Younger Dryas, atmospheric C-14 levels are estimated to have risen from 3 to 7 % and subsequently declined during the course of the Younger Dryas.

Concordance (2000 - 2004): Additional evidence comes from analysis of the varved sediments from the Cariaco Basin off the coast of Venezuela and from Icelandic ocean sediments showing a 9 percent rise in C-14 during the time of the megafaunal extinction, from 13,500 - 12,800 years b2k, and on several previous occasions, including a 90 percent rise in radiocarbon concentration that climaxed around 40,000 yrs b2k after having progressively risen for a period of 5000 years. The events coincide with times when the atmospheric beryllium-10 production rate also rose to high levels.

Glacial drift deposits - prevailing concept (1983): At the time of this prediction, geologists believed that the ice sheets melted gradually at the end of the ice age and that their meltwater outflow was also gradual, with the exception of instances of dam breaks occurring in proglacial lakes such as Lake Missoula in Montana.

Verification (1983): To explain sediment morphology in Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota, geologists Alan Kehew and Lee Clayton propose the occurrence of catastrophic floods produced by a domino effect of proglacial lake discharges. LaViolette had proposed a similar domino effect mechanism for the production of glacier waves on the surfaces of ice sheets.

Verification (1988): German scientist Harmut Heinrich calls attention to North Atlantic ocean sediment layers composed primarily of rock grains of continental bedrock origin that had been transported distances of up to 3000 kilometers prior to their deposition. Subsequent investigations uncovered evidence that these "Heinrich layers" were deposited suddenly. Heinrich advances a theory that this material was transported by drifting and melting ice bergs. However, not all are satisfied with this explanation which fails to explain the suddenness of the deposition events. In 2001 (Galactic Superwaves CDROM), LaViolette shows that Heinrich events correlate with times of climatic warming and that these layers are evidence of long-range sediment transport by glacier waves. He shows that Heinrich layer 0 correlates with accelerated glacier wave discharge activity he proposed was occurring around 12,700 years BP and that Heinrich layer 1 spans the Pre-Bölling Interstadial which began the deglaciation phase.

Verification (1989): Canadian geologist John Shaw points out that drumlins are more likely produced by forceful discharges of glacial meltwater rather than by the action of slowly advancing glaciers. He proposes that the meltwater discharges had reached depths of hundreds of feet and that they originated from beneath the glaciers. However, more probably they were formed by glacier waves originating from the ice sheet surface.

Gamma Ray Bursts - prevailing concept (1983): During the early 1970's, astronomers discovered the Earth is sporadically bombarded by gamma ray bursts. At the time of this prediction, they incorrectly assumed that gamma ray bursts were medium energy events originating from local sources within our Galaxy. They did not regard them as a significant social threat.

Verification (1997): In December 1997, astronomers for the first time pinpointed the source of a gamma ray burst and found that it originated from a galaxy lying billions of light years away. This led them to conclude that these are mostly extragalactic events having total energies millions of times greater than they had previously supposed, thereby confirming LaViolette's earlier proposal of the existence of high intensity gamma ray bursts. If this particular outburst had originated from our Galactic center, it would have delivered 100,000 times the lethal dose to all exposed Earth life forms.

Verification (1998): Some months later, in August 27, 1998, a 5 minute long gamma ray pulse arrived from a Galactic source located 20,000 light years away in the constellation of Aquila. The event was strong enough to ionize the upper atmosphere and seriously disrupt satellites and spacecraft. It triggered a defensive instrument shutdown on at least two spacecraft. Astronomers acknowledged that this marked the first time they became aware that energetic outbursts from distant astronomical sources could affect the Earth's physical environment. These events reaffirmed the validity of warnings LaViolette made 9 years earlier about the potential hazards of such gamma ray bursts.

Galactic morphology - prevailing concept (1980 - 83): At the time Paul LaViolette was writing in 1983, most astronomers believed that quasars and blazars were very different from most other galaxies and in a class of their own. LaViolette recalls a telephone conversation he had, in which the renown astronomer Geoffrey Burbidge steadfastly defended this view. Astronomers also believed that active giant elliptical galaxies were structurally different from spiral galaxies.

Verification (1995, 1997): Astronomers publish the results of a survey which imaged quasars using the Hubble Space Telescope. These quasars (luminous cores) are seen to be surrounded by spiral arm disks, just as LaViolette had predicted. Earlier in 1982 a group of astronomers had resolved galactic light fuzz around quasar 3C273 using a special imaging technique. This was published after the date of LaViolette's prediction. In 1997 NASA astronomers release a photo of an active giant elliptical galaxy that resolves its equatorial dust lane and shows that it is oriented edge-on as LaViolette had predicted.

Archeoastronomy - prevailing concept (1979): At the time of this prediction, ancient historians, cultural anthropologists and scholars of esoteric traditions did not suspect that ancient myth makers knew the location of the Galactic center or that they had associated this part of the sky with the cataclysmic cycles described in legend.

Concordance (1994 - 1998): In a December 1994 magazine article and later in his book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (1998), John Major Jenkins presented his findings that Mayan lore contains a Galactic center oriented cosmology. that specifically refers to the Galactic center vicinity (ecliptic-Galactic plane crossing point) in connection with the occurrence of the Mayan World Ages. One of his findings is that the Mayan calendar 2012 AD end date, which designates the end of the present World Age, also indicates the time when the Earth's precessing axis will be maximally tipped in the direction of this Galactic plane intersection point. Jenkins was not aware of LaViolette's work at the time he wrote, so his findings constitute an instance of independent discovery and corroboration. Jenkins went into much greater depth in exploring Mayan cosmological references to the Galactic center, but did not explore the Galactic explosion/Earth cataclysm theme discovered by LaViolette.

Concordance (2000): LaViolette discovered evidence indicating that the largest acidity spike in the entire Antarctic ice core record was of extraterrestrial origin, possibly produced by a major incursion of interstellar or cometary dust; see paper posted at solar.html. The date of this event, beginning 13,880 B.C. and tailing off 13,785 B.C., closely corresponds to the date encoded in zodiac star lore marking the arrival of a galactic superwave.