Are Texas playa lakes the same as Carolina Bays? Lidar reveals an amazing Texas Panhandle landscape

The Texas Panhandle is home to 20,000 playa lakes, which are hard to appreciate without the help of lidar imagery. This is likely the greatest number and concentration of such lakes on earth. They share many characteristics with Carolina Bays, but are also different in many ways. This video discusses details of the playa lakes and how they resemble and differ from Carolina Bays. The end of the video shows how anyone with a web browser can investigate the playa lakes using The National Map of the US Geological Survey

[@HiwasseeRiver]

Neat topic - I'm from that corner of the world and have two comments 1) Playas can fill up and stay partially filled up all year and even freeze over. Some never seem to fill up but some fill more than others. The ones that are full in fall are in important resource for millions of migratory water fowl. So many birds visit some playas that the groundwater contains significant levels of nitrates. I've measured playa nitrates & NH3 and in the groundwater and seen that first hand. 2) Some playas have archeological significance. When I did surface water samples on federal land I had to have feds escort me in and out of property to assure I didn't pocket any artifacts, 3) Check out Aberdeen, TX and the section (1 sq mile) of land north and west. In visible light you can see exposed limestone/dolomite. In LIDAR you can see some karst-ish sinks. Of course this is east of the caprock but it provides a local contrast to Llano playas. The little sinks are small and jagged. I've worked cattle on that land and the sinks are hazardous to livestock. I have quarried the stone there for use at our house in Amarillo. Sorry that was three points. BTW - Northern Panhandle lakes like Stalanaker lake have raised rims in the NW quadrant and can get elliptical.

[@TheGeoModels]

Stayed next to one in Amarillo that was turned into a retention pond. Also rode past a bunch last summer between Amarillo and Lubbock. It was a rainy/stormy time and a couple were really slugged with feedlot runoff. They look at least somewhat karst-ish to me, particularly in there alignment.

[@garyb6219]

I'm currently reading Roadside Geology of Oklahoma and they describe some playa lakes in the panhandle, very similar if not the same as in Texas. Thanks for your video.

[@TheGeoModels]

Yep, same features! Very interesting...I drove by some around Lubbock when they were full of water and had no clue what they were until I ended up on Lidar in the area.

[@cadenhowlett]

Hmmm interesting amigo ! Nice vid

[@darceejean]

forgot to message you about our area - I am on the Canadian side but you can check the Lidar on the USA/CAN border west of the port of entry at Sweetgrass Montana over towards Waterton Lakes - although there are old lava tubes and volcanic activity across that area, I immediately saw the similarity to the Carolina Bays to our area of non draining sloughs. Given that the area was supposedly caused by glacial drift, it should be smooth ... so some frozen ice impact is an interesting concept

[@TheGeoModels]

Geology folks would put it on glacially-produced depressions (generally a flat surface, but with various irregularities and depressions, etc. ) or possibly deflation hollows from wind that ultimately fill with water. Not sure how folks would distinguish them from "prairie potholes," if at all. Post-glacial landscapes in windy places are always tough.

[@EricLS]

Man, I'm having a hell of a time with the shading at the beginning, even if I rotate my laptop upside down and bring it back around while focusing on one playa I can't keep the proper light direction in my head and they turn inside out again.

[@briebel2684]

That happens to me with the NASA elevation maps of other celestial bodies. Even the 3d ones where you wear the red/blue glasses. My brain wants to see it exactly backwards from what they describe. 😂

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

this guy uses a horrible version of LiDAR for visualizing these features.

[@deborahferguson1163]

Then make your own!

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

@@deborahferguson1163 there already is an excellent version of LiDAR available, he just refuses to use it because the details revealed in that contradict the narrative he's trying to push.

[@gravitonthongs1363]

@@AustinKoleCarlisledon’t blame LiDAR for your pseudoscience fantasy

[@matttownsend7119]

I'm new here so forgive a possibly naive observation: Regional linear alignments with one-sided rim mounds where the lineation is not highly aligned with subsurface geology would support a series of cluster impact strings, as is visible on the moon. The extent of the playas is a problem for this mechanism, but a rubble-based comet might provide enough boulders of the right size to both get through the atmosphere with enough energy to create the depressions and have enough meteor strings for the regional extent. But then I suppose the area would have to be littered with meteoric remnants, and I imagine that none have been found.

[@tegtime]

There is a more reasonable explanation. The apparent regional linear alignment is based on the macro slope of the landscape. It's higher in the northwest, so overland flow tends to go to the southeast. There are 'chains' of lakes visible in some areas. These playas also have breaches on the SE side, where another playa is close by. So they basically fill then spill into the next playa. The wind also is predominately from the NW during certain times of the year, too, thus the lunette dunes on some of SE sides.

[@drmitchelltulau671]

Easy. Bases in near-surface groundwater flocculate clays into sand-sized particles which can then be blown. A lot of work on sand and clay lunettes in Australia. Pillans had a paper in 1987 on this process on the Monaro in Australia.

[@TheGeoModels]

Interesting...have to check that out. Do the lunettes present alignment or any suggestion of structural control on near-surface groundwater?

[@drmitchelltulau671]

Not on the Monaro, where they are formed on Neogene basalt. So yes there’s some other process going on with your ones to line them up like that, but the underlying process I betcha is the same - flocculation and aeolian deflation.

[@Birick]

So I was randomly looking at a phenomenon that occurs in Patagonia on Google Earth and noticed how extremely similar the vast number of circular and oblong lakes look like carolina bays and these playas... I couldnt help but wonder if the lakes south of Beunos Aires are the current bays with water and some overgrown with vegetation? Does anyone know?

[@JKTCGMV13]

Neat

[@geeterguy]

I'm guessing core samples have been taken from various Bays, right? If so, did any interesting revelations come out of the samples? Thanks

[@gravitonthongs1363]

Formation dates for a 100k year glacial period

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

any properly excavated bay rims show stratified dates no older than 18,000 years.

[@gravitonthongs1363]

Peer reviewed studies and obvious erosion variation consistently show the bays have a large date range. There is no scientific study that supports the pseudoscience claims by Austin. He is a pseudoscience troll.

[@ThomasSmith-os4zc]

Has there been any Archaeological excavations around these things.

[@TheGeoModels]

My thought is yes, but I'm not sure. Worth a Google. They are so important to critters in the region it was probly a good place to hang out. Some are near the edge of the caprock escarpment. You could chill down in the cliffs and then go up and hunt something

[@k4x4map46]

nice!!

[@RalphEllis]

Yet I don’t see this in Spain, which has many plain regions. Are there any other regions that display these? (I don’t class those Alaskan orientated lakes as being the same.) My suggestion was for slush-balls from the Laurentide ice sheet impact. These would be pliable for a soft splash-down, unlike normal meteor impacts. Ice is fragile, and would be crushed in any primary impact, forming slush-balls, rather than Zamora’s ice-rocks. Hence the shallow impacts, upon sedimentary regions. R

[@TheGeoModels]

Might be some in Spain, but I haven't cruised lidar. Analog settings would be east of Valladolid or on the south side of the Cantabrians. It would be cool to cruise the world and see. I'd be interested by parts of central Asia.

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

Kaczorowski's paper was never peer-reviewed, and he could not even create anything resembling an ellipse. additionally, later attempts to recreate his findings also failed to create an ellipse.

[@gravitonthongs1363]

Don’t let one poorly constructed experiment be your crude justification for ignoring the many elliptical terrestrial formations found around the globe such as: Playas Deflation hollows Thermokarst lakes Fairy circles, etc.

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

@@gravitonthongs1363 later replication attempts ALSO failed to reproduce elliptical geometry. surely if it's so easy to reproduce elliptical geometry, then surely someone would have created an experiment and gotten the paper peer-reviewed, right? and you're conflating oval and elliptical. elliptical follows a mathematical formula because it is a conic section.

[@Dontrustmycamera]

These orient towards the gigantic hole in the Rockies yeah. That tattered ground beneath Prince George BC. Same mechanism of creation as the Carolina bays but from ~15 kya instead of ~12 kya, an ice-blunted impact in BC rather than Michigan. The Michigan impactor came from the southeast, the other more likely from the northwest.

[@davidthompson6636]

Yep, I was freebasing to ocean floor with river outfall and rock/boulder skip. I do like a glacier/ice sheet rapid collapse though. (New Earth)

[@robertcolpitts4534]

Aren't those buffalo wallows?

[@TheGeoModels]

I will definitely point folks to a geologic origin, but yes, they are often called that! Awful lot of buffaloes to make one 4,000 ft wide!

[@robertcolpitts4534]

​​@TheGeoModels - Well then, I've seen some like these associated with evaporite karst north of Roswell, NM. Many depressions seem to form a series of linear patterns suggesting association with fracturing. The buffalo simply took advantage of the depressions for dust to deal with the ticks, fleas, and flies that frequently plagued them.

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

hey man i sent you an email a few days ago. hope to hear back from you.

[@TheGeoModels]

Yeah man I got you! Messing with landslides and fold-thrust structure at the moment but I will be back with you!

[@AustinKoleCarlisle]

@@TheGeoModels hey there. just sent you another email. i think you'll really get a kick out of what I found recently!

[@edwardchipp7200]

Zgonnik has done hydrogen studies over Fairy Rings in Australia and Nebrasca and others have done the same in Brazil and Europe. He has done the same in a limited area of the Carolina Bays in North Carolina (various refs are published in Earth Science Review or Intl Journal of Hydrogen Energy). Zgonnik has also suggested hydrogen is much more common than we can imagine, due to degassing from the planet. The elliptical or rounded features may be the result oh Hydrogen seeping through the loose, unconsolidated, coastal sediments because it permeates easily through materials of larger atomic size( why it is so hard to contain). Hydrocarbons may partially be produced by bacteria having a good feed source. The Russians have always thought the source of oil and gas was more abiotic than Western geologists. That seems to be plausible and once again we see examples of our stumbling while thinking we are scientific. These features need hydrogen surveys...but don't forget to do isotopic analyses because deuterium may be retarding the vegetation growth in the centers of "Fairy Rings", Bays, or whatever term preferred).

[@silber724]

Almost like things fell on them, but intelligently, like bombs.

[@worldbridger9]

great video! Yea I think if we take the ellipticity as unique evidence of impact, maybe then these are indeed wind swept tertiary impacts, as the carolina bays are secondary and quite windswept as well? Why not both water-drawn windswept impact scars? Although I agree their peculiar alignment does not correspond necessarily to impacts, but rather possible chemical errosion.

[@Texan190]

4:05 but they dont have raised rims all around, unlike carolina bays. Carolina bays are impact related. These look more like karst topography, with some secondary aeolian features.

[@gravitonthongs1363]

Most Carolina bays only have rims on one side just like these. No geologists believe they are impact related.

[@Texan190]

@gravitonthongs1363 false. Utterly false

[@Texan190]

@gravitonthongs1363 wow you following me to another video? How obsessed are you? Wow, you are a bot.

[@Texan190]

@@gravitonthongs1363 lol

[@gravitonthongs1363]

@@Texan190 I was just watching another video on the topic and saw you spreading more pseudoscience misinformation which I thought I should address. Sorry I debunked your fantasy once again.

[@alfredmolison7134]

I'm going to say that the playa lakes are glacial related kettle lakes.