ArticleScientific reports2019
Sedimentary record from Patagonia, southern Chile supports cosmic-impact triggering of biomass burning, climate change, and megafaunal extinctions at 12.8 ka.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- RETRACTED: A 12,800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules, and platinum anomaly recorded in multiple cores from Baffin Bay.PloS one · 2025Article
- Platinum and microspherule peaks as chronostratigraphic markers for onset of the Younger Dryas at Wakulla Springs, Florida.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The impact of genetic modifiers on variation in germline mutation rates within and among human populations.Genetics · 2022Article
- A palaeoecological perspective on the transformation of the tropical Andes by early human activity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- A Late Paleocene age for Greenland's Hiawatha impact structure.Science advances · 2022Article
- Article
- A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Climate change, not human population growth, correlates with Late Quaternary megafauna declines in North America.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Article
- Inferring evolutionary dynamics of mutation rates through the lens of mutation spectrum variation.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2020Review
- Evidence of Cosmic Impact at Abu Hureyra, Syria at the Younger Dryas Onset (~12.8 ka): High-temperature melting at >2200 °C.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Sediment Cores from White Pond, South Carolina, contain a Platinum Anomaly, Pyrogenic Carbon Peak, and Coprophilous Spore Decline at 12.8 ka.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Younger Dryas (YD) impact hypothesis posits that fragments of a large, disintegrating asteroid/comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia ~12,800 years ago. Multiple airbursts/impacts produced the YD boundary layer (YDB), depositing peak concentrations of platinum, high-temperature spherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds, forming an isochronous datum at >50 sites across ~50 million km² of Earth's surface. This proposed event triggered extensive biomass burning, brief impact winter, YD climate change, and contributed to extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna. In the most extensive investigation south of the equator, we report on a ~12,800-year-old sequence at Pilauco, Chile (~40°S), that exhibits peak YD boundary concentrations of platinum, gold, high-temperature iron- and chromium-rich spherules, and native iron particles rarely found in nature. A major peak in charcoal abundance marks an intense biomass-burning episode, synchronous with dramatic changes in vegetation, including a high-disturbance regime, seasonality in precipitation, and warmer conditions. This is anti-phased with northern-hemispheric cooling at the YD onset, whose rapidity suggests atmospheric linkage. The sudden disappearance of megafaunal remains and dung fungi in the YDB layer at Pilauco correlates with megafaunal extinctions across the Americas. The Pilauco record appears consistent with YDB impact evidence found at sites on four continents.
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