Nearly 13,000 years ago, Earth may have plunged suddenly into an apocalyptic scene; a barrage of fireballs lit up the sky, followed by powerful shock waves and fires that blazed across 10 percent of the planet’s land surface. The sky turned black as dust blocked out the sunlight, and temperatures rapidly plummeted, causing plants to die out and glaciers to advance, in what soon became a near ice age state.
And, humans were there to witness it all – with grave consequences.
This is according to new research, which suggests fragments of a 62-mile-wide disintegrating comet struck Earth 12,800 years ago and spurred burning events larger than those caused by the ‘dinosaur killers. The new study on geochemical and isotopic markers, which involved two dozen researchers, argues that a cosmic impact thousands of years ago left behind high concentrations of platinum across the Northern Hemisphere.
This could be found at a number of sites, including ice cores collected from the Greenland Ice Sheet, linked to the Younger Dryas boundary – a period roughly 12,800 years ago toward the end of the last Ice Age when glacial conditions temporarily began to advance again.
According to the new research, an impact could have triggered this cooling episode.
‘The work includes measurements made at more than 170 different sites around the world,’ said Adrian Melott, University of Kansas Emeritus Professor of Physics & Astronomy.
‘The hypothesis is that a large comet fragmented and the chunks impacted the Earth, causing this disaster.
‘A number of different chemical signatures – carbon dioxide, nitrate, ammonia, and others – all seem to indicate that an astonishing 10 percent of the Earth’s land surface, or about 10 million square kilometers, was consumer by fires. The pollen analysis indicated that pine forests were likely burned off and later replaced by poplar.
This species is known to colonize cleared areas.
The impact would have been equally catastrophic for the humans and animals alive at the time. <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
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