Space

Comet Might Have Hit Earth during the Last Ice Age

Ancient comet explosion rained diamonds over America

By Gabriel Gache, Science News Editor

8th of July 2008, 07:14 GMT

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Microscope image of a diamond from Indiana deposited during the last Ice Age

A new study shows that the massive explosion of a comet into Earth's atmosphere during the last Ice Age might have rained diamonds and precious metals over the North American continent, leading to the mass killing of both animals and humans alike. In fact, most of the diamonds and precious metal deposits in several states across the Unites States did not even originate there but were brought from the northern Canadian territories, although the exact process that contributed to this is currently unknown.

"There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada," said geophysicist Allen West, co-author of the study. Estimations reveal that the comet could have been about 4.8 kilometers across and exploded before reaching the glacier and ice sheet scattered ground in the eastern regions of Canada.

The energy released would have been equivalent to about 10,000 times that of the Tunguska event that took place a century ago in Siberia and was most likely triggered by a meteor that entered the atmosphere and exploded several kilometers above ground. As the comet fragmented, the resulting debris containing diamonds, gold and silver would have been ejected in the atmosphere and scattered all over Canada. Later on, when the Earth's clime started to warm up, the melting of the glaciers formed rivers that carried part of the minerals to the US.

West argues that even several months after the comet would have exploded, debris would have still been falling from the skies by the tons. "Some of them you couldn't see, and animals would've been breathing them in. But other ones would clearly have been visible. They might've even hurt if they hit you," West said.

Most of the diamonds and precious metal particles could have been as small as viruses, while larger particles would have been visible to the naked eye, falling to the ground within several seconds after the violent event.

Both animals and plants, including humans, would have been set on fire by the tremendous blast, which might have even started fires in some of the remote areas of the globe. You can imagine that the resulting heat also created massive amounts of fresh water from the glaciers covering a significant surface of the North American continent, which in turn influenced the climate leading to the so-called Younger Dryas period as a result of the disruption of certain Atlantic oceanic currents.

"The kind of evidence we are finding does suggest that climate change at the end of the last Ice Age was the result of a catastrophic event," said study team member Ken Tankersley, an anthropologist at the University of Cincinnati.

The effects seen by scientists in the states of Ohio and Indiana closely resemble those determined by a comet exploding into Earth's atmosphere, although it doesn't exactly mean that this is what created them. "We're a long way from saying categorically that these things got here because of this event. They're consistent, but we've got a lot more work to do to show there's a direct connection," West added.

TAGS:

diamonds | precious metals | Ice Age | comet | Tunguska

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