Around 13,000 years ago, giant animals such as mastodons, mammoths, saber-toothed cats and ground sloths disappeared from the Earth. Scientists have found evidence in sediment cores to support a controversial theory that an asteroid or a comet slammed into Earth and helped lead to this extinction of ice age animals and cooling of the globe.
It's called the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis and was first suggested in 2007. The hypothesis included the idea that an extraterrestrial body impacted Earth 12,800 years ago. This led to an extreme cooling of the environment, which in turn helped cause more than 35 species of large animals to go extinct.
At the same time, human populations declined. The impact also has been suggested as the cause of large, raging wildfires that created enough smoke to block the sun and created an "impact winter," in which cold weather lasts longer than expected after Earth is impacted.
[...] Today, evidence of such an impact can be found in platinum spikes. Platinum can be found in asteroids, comets and meteorites. Researchers found them in sediment cores collected from White Pond in Elgin, South Carolina.
Sediment Cores from White Pond, South Carolina, contain a Platinum Anomaly, Pyrogenic Carbon Peak, and Coprophilous Spore Decline at 12.8 ka (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-51552-8) (DX)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @02:43PM (2 children)
Truth is an absolute defense against such bullshit. Show the evidence or stop wasting my time.
Also, it's worth noting that textbooks are scientific literature from which one can quote. What makes them wrong and your sources right? Evidence distinguishes not the sciencey-ness of your citations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:01PM (1 child)
The "game" where someone quotes a scientific journal article that describes some evidence and you come up with excuses to ignore it? That is the only game I see here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:11PM
Where was the evidence in those quotes? I noticed for example a quote claiming that "glazing" (not melting of the surface of the Moon!) could be explained by a huge surge in solar influx for a few seconds. It could also be explained by billions of years of exposure to sunlight. Earth rocks can pick up a glaze with far shorter exposure than that!