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posted by chromas on Wednesday October 30 2019, @06:24PM   Printer-friendly

Something crashed into Earth and helped wipe out mammoths and other animals 13,000 years ago, study says

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)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:04PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:04PM (#914196)

    Wtf are you talking about? The micronova model is perfectly consistent with regolith and every other observation about the moon. In fact, dating the micronova event assumes a constant rate of micrometeorite impacts.

    Read the papers instead of making up a series of strawmen to argue with.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:17PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:17PM (#914200) Journal

    The micronova model is perfectly consistent with regolith

    No, it's not. Even a single micronova capable of what you claim would have created a glassy crust on top of that regolith. It didn't. Thousands of recurring micronova over billions of years would have created a thicker glassy layer.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:37PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:37PM (#914384)

      Sorry khallow, but you are too stuck in your ways to even allow yourself the opportunity to read the scientific literature at the risk you will absorb new ideas. All you had to do is read those papers for the answer to your question, you couldn't manage to do it. Good luck.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 01 2019, @12:06AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 01 2019, @12:06AM (#914391) Journal

        to read the scientific literature

        So what? You've already decided "textbooks" are ruled out despite being scientific literature. Why aren't you ruling out your citations on the same grounds? One has to distinguish somehow. What is the evidence supporting your claims?