Authors
Ted E Bunch, Robert E Hermes, Andrew MT Moore, Douglas J Kennett, James C Weaver, James H Wittke, Paul S DeCarli, James L Bischoff, Gordon C Hillman, George A Howard, David R Kimbel, Gunther Kletetschka, Carl P Lipo, Sachiko Sakai, Zsolt Revay, Allen West, Richard B Firestone, James P Kennett
Publication date
2012/7/10
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volume
109
Issue
28
Pages
E1903-E1912
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Description
It has been proposed that fragments of an asteroid or comet impacted Earth, deposited silica-and iron-rich microspherules and other proxies across several continents, and triggered the Younger Dryas cooling episode 12,900 years ago. Although many independent groups have confirmed the impact evidence, the hypothesis remains controversial because some groups have failed to do so. We examined sediment sequences from 18 dated Younger Dryas boundary (YDB) sites across three continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), spanning 12,000 km around nearly one-third of the planet. All sites display abundant microspherules in the YDB with none or few above and below. In addition, three sites (Abu Hureyra, Syria; Melrose, Pennsylvania; and Blackville, South Carolina) display vesicular, high-temperature, siliceous scoria-like objects, or SLOs, that match the spherules geochemically. We compared YDB …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
TE Bunch, RE Hermes, AMT Moore, DJ Kennett… - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012