The Younger Dryas impact event is the name of a hypothesized impact event at the beginning of the Younger Dryas cold spell about 10,900 BCE. The impact seems to have occurred near the North American Great Lakes; the bolide may have disintegrated in the air. Look up Hypothesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Artists impression of a major impact event. ... Three temperature records, the GRIP one clearly showing the Younger Dryas event at around 11 kyr BP The Younger Dryas stadial, named after the alpine / tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, and also referred to as the Big Freeze [1], was a brief (approximately 1300 ± 70 years [1]) cold climate period following... Era Vulgaris redirects here. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... The Great Lakes from space The Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes in North America on or near the Canada-United States border. ... It has been suggested that micrometeoroid be merged into this article or section. ...

Evidence

The evidence for such an impact event is a layer of unusual materials (magnetic grains, spherules, charcoal, soot, fullerenes, etc.) at the very bottom of the "black mat" of organic material that marks the beginning of the Younger Dryas. ^[1] The fullerenes, discovered in 1985 by researchers at Rice University, are a family of carbon allotropes named after Richard Buckminster Fuller and are sometimes called buckyballs. ...

It is hypothesized that this impact event brought about the extinction of many North American large mammals. These animals included camels, elephants, the short-faced bear and numerous other species. For other uses, see Camel (disambiguation). ... Genera and Species Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Elephas antiquus † Elephas beyeri † Elephas celebensis † Elephas cypriotes † Elephas ekorensis † Elephas falconeri † Elephas iolensis † Elephas planifrons † Elephas platycephalus † Elephas recki † Stegodon † Mammuthus † Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea... Arctodus, also known as the Short-Faced Bear, is a genus of extinct bear. ...

2007 AGU Meeting

On May 24, 2007, a session at the spring 2007 joint assembly of the American Geophysical Union will be held to discuss this hypothesis. ^[2] May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the CE era. ... The American Geophysical Union (or AGU) is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting (as of 2006) of over 49,000 members from over 140 countries. ...

See also

• Pleistocene megafauna
• Holocene extinction event

Pleistocene megafauna is the term used to describe the larger species of mammals, birds and reptiles that lived on earth during the Pleistocene era. ... The Dodo, a bird of Mauritius, became extinct during the mid-late 17th century after humans destroyed the forests where the birds made their homes and introduced animals that ate their eggs. ...

References

1. ^ Dalton, Rex (2007-05-17). "Archaeology: Blast in the past?". Nature 447: 256-257. DOI:10.1038/447256a.  News article in Nature
2. ^ Session Information, 2007 Joint Assembly, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology. American Geophysical Union. Retrieved on 2007-05-22. Includes links to abstracts.