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The Enigmatic Sand: a Call for Collaboration

We propose a scenario in which significant quantities of distal ejecta, in the form of a 1-10 meter thick sheet(blanket) of fine-grained sand, was deposited (blanketed) across a wide area for the North American continent in a singular event lasting less than an hour ~12 to 18  thousand years ago (kya). During this blanketing, we propose that the constituents of the strata were heated to beyond 200 C, resetting their OSL clock. Identifying a coherent OSL dating across a wide field of samples would strengthen the case for our conjecture.

Our conjecture suggests that the resulting strata of sand - as a unit - can easily be discriminated from more generic fluvial and eolian deposit using a set of easily-applied and identified criteria:

• homogeneous stratigraphic unit of 1 to 10 meters in thickness
• contact with underlying strata to be conformable and sharply defined
• mottled or gnarly  presentation in vertical and horizontal cross section, suggesting turbid deposit environment
• no indications of stratified horizons within the unit (single deposition sequence accepted)
• no indications of aqueous deposition (i.e. shells); hence deductively considered eolian
• virtually no clay lenses present
• incongruous course skew seen in unit
• tightly constrained grain size across unit
• no variation in heavy metal suite across unit
• little variation in presented color across unit
• identical OSL dating across vertical extent of unit, 10 kya to 18kya
• OSL dates may present incongruent chronological order (thermal reset vs sunlight)

Due to the proposed geographic extent of this strata, we recognize it may well be considered "common" within your experience; yet enigmatic nonetheless in context, raising questions about the true depositional method.

Please consider the profile offered above, and should you have access to experimental datum derived from previous research which identified depositional strata meeting these criteria, we implore you to consider collaboration with us. In addition, should you have knowledge of , and access to, sites which exhibit these criteria, we invite you to assist us in obtaining OSL dating across the vertical and extent of the unit.

At present, the project is unfunded. Please contact us for more information.

Michael Davias
917-751-8861
Send me an email