- Melt glass known as trinitite formed at the ground surface from the melting of sediments and rocks by the very high temperatures of the Trinity nuclear airburst in New Mexico in 1945. This material is very similar to the glassy melt materials now reported from the cosmic impact YDB layer. Credit: UCSB
Melt-glass material found in sedimentary rocks at sites around the world has provided new evidence for an extraterrestrial impact about 13,000 years ago, says a new study published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to an international team of researchers that includes James Kennett, professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara, the material, found in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria, was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,100 to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit), and is the result of a cosmic body impacting Earth.
These new data strongly support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, which proposes that a cosmic impact occurred 12,900 years ago at the onset of an unusual cold climatic period called the Younger Dryas.
The episode occurred at or close to the time of major extinction of the North American megafauna, including mammoths and giant ground sloths; and the disappearance of the prehistoric and widely distributed Clovis culture.
Morphological and geochemical evidence of the melt-glass confirms that the material is not cosmic, volcanic, or of human-made origin.
“The very high temperature melt-glass appears identical to that produced in known cosmic impact events such as Meteor Crater in Arizona, and the Australasian tektite field,” said Kennett.
“The melt material also matches melt-glass produced by the Trinity nuclear airburst of 1945 in Socorro, New Mexico. The extreme temperatures required are equal to those of an atomic bomb blast, high enough to make sand melt and boil,” he said.
Images of melted quartz from the YDB cosmic impact layer at Abu Hureyra, Syria, showing evidence of burst bubbles and flow textures that resulted from the melting and boiling of rock at very high temperatures. A: Light microscope image; B: scanning electron microscope image. Credit: UCSB
The material evidence supporting the YDB cosmic impact hypothesis spans three continents, and covers nearly one-third of the planet, from California to Western Europe, and into the Middle East.
The discovery extends the range of evidence into Germany and Syria, the easternmost site yet identified in the northern hemisphere. The researchers have yet to identify a limit to the debris field of the impact.
“Because these three sites in North America and the Middle East are separated by 1,000 to 10,000 kilometers, there were most likely three or more major impact/airburst epicenters for the YDB impact event, likely caused by a swarm of cosmic objects that were fragments of either a meteorite or comet,” said Kennett.
He added that the archaeological site in Syria where the melt-glass material was found –– Abu Hureyra, in the Euphrates Valley –– is one of the few sites of its kind that record the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to farmer-hunters who live in permanent villages.
“Archeologists and anthropologists consider this area the ‘birthplace of agriculture,’ which occurred close to 12,900 years ago,” Kennett said.
“The presence of a thick charcoal layer in the ancient village in Syria indicates a major fire associated with the melt-glass and impact spherules 12,900 years ago. Evidence suggests that the effects on that settlement and its inhabitants would have been severe,” he said.
12 comments
Pat McCrae says:
Jun 19, 2012
Interesting additional evidence for YDB impact hypothesis, Is debris field thought to extend further east or into southern hemisphere?
chris says:
Jun 20, 2012
Considering that it took roughly 500 years of science and math to reach the present nuclear age, another possibility could be a war between earlier advanced cultures. I have no idea about what trace elements should exist in the strata mentioned to feed further conjecture. I recall the Indian literature mentioned by Oppenheimer during the first nuclear tests.
StanSki says:
Jun 24, 2012
Sodom & Gomorrah. Total nukage.
Joseph says:
Jun 21, 2012
I think this is good evidence for YDB and as conjecture I think it might go towards addressing questions such as, ‘Why symbolism has been around for so long in human culture but that advanced culture has only really developed in the last ten thousand years. I suspect there is a direct t relationship between these sorts of cataclysmic events and the rate of development in human culture. A sort of punctuated cultural equilibrium.
tom says:
Jun 23, 2012
why sit down and farm when food was plentiful? game everywhere?
Plants grew quickly and we knew we could eat some, the intelligent survive through agriculture and flourished.
extinction event coincides with a period detected in the Genome project with a contraction of the species to only 10k breeders
Julian Braggins says:
Jun 30, 2012
Evidence from the hundreds of thousands of mammoth tusks in the 19th C ivory trade from Siberia and Arctic islands, flash freezing of mammoths ( requiring temperatures of -193°C) and many other species of temperate climate animals gathered in hills of body parts, point to a major impact in the far north.
Drillings in Alaska and Canada have brought up frozen animal and plant debris from down to 1000feet including palm fronds, likewise strip mining in the frozen north of Canada has disclosed nothing but animal and frozen plant debris in some areas.
These finds, combined with nano diamonds, beryllium and carbon layers point to a major impact in the north and multi smaller impacts in the northern hemisphere. Carolina Bays are also found in Siberia, splash impacts.
A strike around Hudson Bay on an icecap would fit the bill, followed by tsunamis around the Arctic ocean, followed by the vacuum of space to deep freeze everything. That would account for lake Agassis freshwater surge.
Maki says:
Aug 4, 2012
forgive my additional cmmneot but, is there not a possibility, that the comets are first not always fragmented, next they are not dirty snowballs, following Jim Maccanies work, and no doubt others. Then assuming comets are electrically charged bodies, and if they enter too close to the earths gravity well, and are pulled inwards, may we assume the plasma field in the comet will discharge into the earth, and could this not be cause for comets exploding such as Tunguska? That the huge discharge of energy from comet to earth may explosively disrupt thecomet, before or after impact?comet comet
Meire says:
Jul 2, 2012
This event broke all of the rules. Depending on the strength of the surcafe,the square craters can be found as anything from just a wierd square shaped blast burn to something that excavated a crater. So their shape isn’t a product of erosion. It has to do with the composition of the impactor. And its process of detonation.In the past, all of our knowledge regarding impact research was based on the assumption that the bolide is going to be a solid rock, or a chunk of nickel iron, or ices of varying chemistry. And untill E.M Drobyshevski’s work.(Tunguska, and similar events in light of the New Explosive Cosmogony of minor bodies) no one has considered that those ices could could themselves be as unstable, and reactive, as poorly made hydrogen peroxide rocket fuel. The old way of imagining the impact of a comet was to think of it as a single chunk hitting like an asteroid. But we have many recent studies of short period comets that show us how unstable they are. And we now know that we can expect them to be already fragmented into a cloud of pieces ranging from the size of a sand grain to the size of an apartment building. Don’t think bullet. Think shotgun blast.When such a cloud of fragments hits, the ground doesn’t get pounded, and beaten, into a crater, or craters. It’s much nastier than that. Almost all of the material detonates above ground. Resultant wind speeds are well beyond huricane force, and gusting to supersonic. And the heat of those gusts is hotter than the surcafe of the sun. The ground gets melted, and blown away like butter from a blowtorch. And the resulting melt gets whipped like the froth on a stormy beach. (Images clickable)
Camila says:
Aug 4, 2012
I would just like to ask, have you read of Professor Jim Maccanies research and his hythseois that comets and indeed all solar bodies are plasma /electric bodies, interacting with the magnetosphere of our own planet and the sun?I am studying your article and it is very interesting reading. But assuming comets are plasma bodies with intense electric-magnetic fields which I believe is true, and assuming the solar system is a charged plasma which makes sense to me, how would this affect your ideas on fragmented comets and such.I am studying this subject, with interest in planet X and velikovsky. I do believe the whole field is anything but homogeneous and over the past millenia let alone millions of years all sorts of disparate events must have fashioned the world we live on. The universe is a very turbulent place.
julian Braggins says:
Jul 2, 2012
Agree MEIRE, your mention of shotgun reminded me that some of the bones in Siberia were peppered by what was described as minute metallic grains. What isn’t mentioned is the difference in potential of comets from long period orbits is very great and results in large electrical discharges before contact. (predicted by Thunderbolts.org before Deep Impact experiment on Comet Wilde and confirmed, just as Schumaker-Levy comet disintegrated before impact and caused flashes beyond line of sight on Jupiter)
These electrical strikes could very well cause many of the odd effects found world wide such as fusing of rock walls, Scotland, Indus Valley,
the Andes, and the many examples of desert sand, plus arc machining of landscapes that seem to defy other explanations.
Sohosh says:
Jul 4, 2012
You guys can’t forget that Natural occurring nuclear explosions are totally possible and have been documented on other planets. Tectonics movement of very dense areas of radio active material can spontaneously go off.
If one of these or several of these happened thousands of years ago it would account for the fossils with the high radio counts and that thin layer of radio active ash all over the earth.
I am not saying that a meteor did not fall or that a meteor can not trigger an explosion given that it hits a a very particular patch of earth.
Earth's Oldest Known Impact Crater Found | Archaeorama says:
Jul 10, 2012
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