Superwave Theory Predictions
and their Subsequent Verification
Galactic Core Explosions - prevailing concept (1980): At the time of this prediction, astronomers believed that the cores of galaxies, including our own, become active ("explode") about every 10 to 100 million years and stay active for about a million years. Since our own Galactic core presently appears quiescent, they believed it would likely remain inactive for many tens of millions of years. Although, in 1977, astronomer Jan Oort cited evidence that our Galactic core has been active within the past 10,000 years.
Subsequent concurrence (1998): In 1988, when presented with Dr. LaViolette's Galactic explosion hypothesis, astronomer Mark Morris dismissed the idea as having no merit. However, in 1998 after ten years of observation, Morris was quoted as saying that the center of our Galaxy explodes about every 10,000 years with these events each lasting 100 years or so.
Cosmic Ray Propagation - prevailing concept (1980 - 1983): At the time of this prediction, astronomers believed that interstellar magnetic fields entrap cosmic rays released from Galactic core outbursts and slow their outward progress so that they reach the Earth after millions of years in the form of a constant low intensity background radiation.
Verification (1985): Astrophysicists discovered that X-ray pulsars continuously shower the Earth with high-energy cosmic ray particles that have traveled over 25,000 light-years at nearly the speed of light, following straight-line trajectories unaffected by interstellar magnetic fields.
Verification (1997): Astrophysicists detected a strong gamma ray pulse arriving from a galaxy billions of light years away having a redshift of 3.4 (see Prediction No. 10 below). Mainstream media, such as Sky & Telescope magazine, suggested that this gamma ray pulse may be accompanied by a volley of high energy cosmic ray particles travelling at very close to the speed of light along a rectilinear trajectory and that the gamma ray pulse is produced by the radial outward movement of this volley. In effect, they were restating the same Galactic superwave idea that LaViolette had proposed 14 years earlier in the face of stiff resistance from mainstream astronomers.
Verification (2000): Radio astronomers announce at the January 2000 American Astronomical Society meeting that the synchrotron radio emission radiated from the Galactic center (Sgr A*) is circularly polarized. Scientists present at the meeting concurred with Dr. LaViolette's suggestion that the circular polarization indicated that cosmic ray electrons were travelling radially away from the Galactic center along straight-line trajectories.
Cosmic Ray Bombardment - prevailing concept (1980 - 83): At the time of this prediction, astronomers believed that the background cosmic ray flux has remained constant for millions of years, that intense cosmic ray bombardments occur very infrequently, perhaps every 30 million years, primarily as a result of nearby supernova explosions.
Verification (1987): Glaciologists discovered beryllium-10 isotope peaks in ice age polar ice. These indicated that the cosmic ray flux on the Earth became very high on several occasions during the last ice age, confirming Dr. LaViolette's theory that Galactic superwaves have repeatedly passed through our solar system in geologically recent times.
Cosmic Debris Around Solar System - prevailing concept (1980 - 83): At the time of this prediction, astronomers believed that the solar system resided in a relatively dust free region of space.
Verification (1984): The IRAS satellite team published infrared observations showing that the solar system is surrounded by nearby "cirrus" dust cloud wisps.
Verification (1988): Astronomer H. Aumann's observations suggested that the solar system is surrounded by a dust envelope 500 times denser than previously thought.
Verification (1992 - 95): Telescope observations revealed the presence of the Kuiper belt, a dense population of cometary bodies encircling the solar system, beginning just beyond the orbit of Neptune and extending outward past the heliopause sheath.
Verification (1999): Observations of the influx of interstellar dust particles using the Ulysses spacecraft lead Markus Landgraf and his team of European Space Agency astronomers to conclude that the solar system is surrounded by a ring of orbiting dust that begins just outside the orbit of Saturn.
Cosmic Dust Influx - prevailing concept (1979): At the time of this prediction, astronomers believed that the rate at which cosmic dust particles have been entering the solar system and the Earth's atmosphere has remained constant for millions of years. They believed that the solar system lies in a relatively clean interstellar space environment and hence that there is no need to expect the occurrence of recent cosmic dust incursions.
Verification (1981 - 82): LaViolette was the first to measure the extraterrestrial material content of prehistoric polar ice. Using the neutron activation analysis technique, he found high levels of iridium and nickel in 6 out of the 8 polar ice dust samples (35k to 73k yrs BP), an indication that they contain high levels of cosmic dust. This showed that Galactic superwaves may have affected our solar system in the recent past. In addition, he discovered gold in one 50,000 year old sample, making this the first time gold had been discovered in polar ice.
Verification (1984): The IRAS satellite team reported observations that the zodiacal dust cloud is tilted 3 degrees relative to the ecliptic with ascending and descending ecliptic nodes at 87° and 267°, but failed to draw a conclusion from this finding. LaViolette realized that the nodes are aligned with the Galactic-center-anticenter direction in support of his earlier prediction that interstellar dust has recently entered the solar system from the Galactic center direction. 1987: He published a paper in Earth, Moon, and Planets journal explaining that the orientation of the zodiacal dust cloud nodes indicates that this zodiacal dust recently entered from the direction of the Galactic center.
Verification (April 1993): NASA's Ulysses spacecraft team published observations indicating that interstellar dust is currently entering the solar system from the Galactic center direction (from the direction the interstellar wind blows towards us) and hence that most of the dust outside the asteroid belt is of interstellar origin. Their findings were predicted by LaViolette's 1983 and 1987 publications. One Ulysses team member had received Dr. LaViolette's publications in 1985, but LaViolette's work was not cited.
Verification (1995): Cosmochemists publish observations showing that Helium-3 concentrations in ocean sediments, an indicator of extraterrestrial dust influx, changed by over 3 fold on a 100,000 year cycle between 250,000 and 450,000 years ago.
Verification (1996): The AMOR radar in New Zealand detected a strong flux of interstellar meteoroid particles, measuring 15 to 40 microns in size, entering the solar system from the Galactic center direction.
Verification (2000 - 2005): LaViolette demonstrates that the acid layers found in 15,850 year old Antarctic polar ice vary in magnitude with an eleven year solar cycle period thereby indicating an extraterrestrial origin for this material. This finding is supported by the discovery mentioned below (2003) that interstellar dust influx varies in accordance with solar cycle phase. The finding that this gas influx event heralded a series of warming trends that ended the ice age, implicates cosmic dust and solar activation as the causal agents responsible for terminating glacial cycles.
Verification (2003): Using data obtained from the Ulysses spacecraft, a group of European Space Agency astronomers led by Markus Landgraf discover that the rate of interstellar dust influx increased three fold from 1997 to 2000 with the approach to solar maximum. They theorize a correlation between solar cycle phase and interstellar dust influx rate, with the influx rate being highest at the time of solar maximum. Such a correlation could explain why the Sun could become locked into an active, dust accreting mode during times of superwave passage.
Verification (2004): Glaciologists find that the concentrations of iridium and platinum in submicron sized "meteoritic smoke" particles present in polar ice are two to three times higher during the last ice age.
Verification (2007): A group of scientists, the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) group, reports high levels of extraterrestrial indicators (Ir, Ni, cosmic spherules, microtektites, 3He, fullerenes at the 12,950 yrs b2k Alleröd/Younger Dryas boundary layer that overlies extinct megafauna and Clovis artifacts.
Tin in Cosmic Dust - prevailing concept (1981): At the time of this discovery, cosmochemists did not believe that extraterrestrial material could have anomalously high concentrations of heavy metals such as tin, antimony, gold and silver. Abundances higher than those typically found in meteorites were looked on with skepticism and evidence that one's samples had been contaminated.
Prediction No. 6 (1981): LaViolette found very high concentrations of tin in several ice age polar ice dust samples, one 50,000 year old sample, in particular, containing 60% of its weight in tin. Elevated concentrations of gold, silver, and antimony as well as the cosmic dust indicators iridium, and nickel were also found in the samples. He theorized that due to the presence of iridium and nickel, this tin-rich dust must be of extraterrestrial origin, possibly coming from an anomalous interstellar source.
Verification (Jan. 1984): The tin was found to contain an isotopic anomaly indicating that it was definitely of extraterrestrial origin; see Prediction No. 7.
Indirect support (1989): Cosmochemist F. Rietmeijer published a paper describing the discovery of tin oxide grains inside interplanetary dust particles, with tin abundances much higher than typically found in chondritic meteorites. This helps to substantiate LaViolette's 1983 claim that the solar system contains a dust source enriched in tin which is the source of the tin-rich dust found in polar ice.
Verification (May 2007): A group of cosmochemists report finding high levels of tin (25 - 28%) and copper (1 - 11%) along with ET material indicators platinum and nickel in magnetic separates retrieved from the 12,950 yrs b2k Alleröd/Younger Dryas boundary layer and from Clovis sites. They conclude that the grains bearing these volatile metals are of extraterrestrial origin.
Tin Isotopic Anomaly - state of the art (1981): At the time of this prediction, astronomers speculated that tin found in extraterrestrial material could have isotope ratios different from those of terrestrial tin. But up until that time no tin isotopic anomalies had been reported.
Verification (Jan. 1984): Geochemists at Curtin University (Australia) in collaboration with LaViolette used a mass spectrometry technique to determine the isotopic ratios of an unirradiated portion of the tin-rich dust sample. They found significant isotopic anomalies in four isotopes thereby confirming LaViolette's prediction that the tin dust is of extraterrestrial origin. This marked the first time that tin isotopic anomalies had been discovered.
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, he was on a geological field trip accumulating evidence of the black Usselo Horizon dating from the Alleröd/Younger Dryas transition and correlative with similar horizons found in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and the southwestern U.S. 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.
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.
Concodrance (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.
Prediction No. 12 (1983): LaViolette proposes that much of the glacial drift deposited at the end of the last ice age was laid down by glacier waves issuing from the upper surfaces of the ice sheets. These are water outbursts far larger than the glacier bursts seen today issuing from mountain glaciers
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 arxiv.org/abs/physics/0502019. 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.