Posted on 07/25/2024 7:13:16 AM PDT by Red Badger
A huge asteroid may have hit the Earth 12,800 years ago causing global climate change and extinction, according to new evidence found in South Africa.
Scientists analysed ancient soil at a site called Wonderkrater and found high levels of platinum - which they say supports the The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis that a disintegrating meteor hit Earth and caused a mini ice age.
The resulting ice age is believed by many scientists to have wiped out dozens of mammals species including the Mammoth and giant wildebeest and decimated the human population.
Scientists believe 'platinum spikes' found in ancient soil samples across the world are evidence of the meteor fragments that crashed into Earth.
Meteorites are rich in platinum and the Wonderkrater site in the Limpopo Province, north of Pretoria in South Africa adds to almost 30 other platinum spikes found worldwide, mostly in the northern hemisphere.
Until now, proof that meteoroids had impacted during that period and potentially led to a mini-ice age had only been documented across the northern hemisphere.
A total of 28 areas with high levels of platinum had been found.
The findings from the researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa partially support the theory that a meteorite crashed into earth with global consequences – along with another meteorite site discovered in Chile.
An episode of rapid cooling named the The Younger Dryas is a well documented period believed to have contributed to the extinction of many species of large animals around 12,800 years ago.
Theories previously pointed to this post-ice age cooling as a result of changes in oceanic circulation systems.
Another theory was presented by American scientists in 2007 – that the cooling was triggered by the dust fallout of an asteroid impact.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Even worse is the not talked about Galactic Year our Solar system is always experiencing. what are we going to run into as our Solar System orbits the Galaxy Center? Where are we at now in the Galactic Year cycle? Since the end of the Triassic Period to where we are now?
Who knows what is in our way as as our solar system corkscrews through the Galaxy in our regular orbit around the center.
The youngest Neanderthal remains were dated about 28,000 years ago in some caves in Gibraltar.
There were none by the time this cosmic event supposedly happened—except in our own homo sapiens DNA. We are the Neanderthals.
Correct. The tropics remained tropical. The only effect the ice sheets had on the tropics was to significantly dry them out.
The rainforests/jungles areas of Africa, Southeast Asia and Central/South America were more Savana-like and even grasslands. Existing tropical deserts were larger, or due to changes in monsoon rains patterns, grassland.
The repeated aridity of East Africa led to humanity as the remaining apes shrunk with their forests. The weaker apes with the weird feet and long legs were better adapted to the grass.
Complex life forms and almost all major animal groups began to appear in the fossil record between 540 million and 515 million years ago.
Since then, several meteors, several mega-volcanic events, and at least one glacial event (445 million years ago), came close to wiping out most land animals, and sometimes aquatic animals, too.
In addition, there were probably dozens of smaller local events that wiped out most life across thousands of square miles.
Life in our universe is fragile, and quite rare, I think.
Only one planet has it......................
Fair point, but the Neanderthal had been through several ice ages before then.
Unfortunately for them, the current ice age has been in effect for 4 million years.
We tend to regard ancient Sumer as the beginning of civilization. What if instead it was the re-starting of civilization after a catastrophic meteor impact destroyed a big chunk of mankind and destroyed any gains to that point.
Only because we didn’t have Bruce Willis to save the planet.
That is kinda the plot of Isaac Asimov’s novel “Nightfall”, only it wasn’t an asteroid it was the people themselves that destroyed their civilization when their Suns were eclipsed and the planet went dark for the first time in 2500 years..........
Imanuel Velikovsky. WORLDS IN COLLISION. AGES IN CHAOS. A brilliant polymath. Chekkimout.
The most recent ice age (AKA the Last Glacial Period) lasted a bit more than 100,000 years and only ended about 11,700 years ago. So somebody ‘splain to me how an asteroid impact 12,800 years ago could have caused an Ice Age when one already was in progress?
Yes, it is a common mental misconception that during glacial cycles the earth was a snowball. If this were true nothing would have survived at all let alone hominid species. If it is true that hominids are 2 million years old then they actually survived through some 16 ice ages in regular cycles of about every 125,000 years.
The event in the OP was abnormal and interrupted the normal cycle causing areas that would normally not be cold to become cold. There was nowhere on earth to run from it at that point.
See #32, #43, and #54. They will paint the picture for you.
Well stated. Another effect the fires had was due to the sunlight being blocked as you say causing temps to drop, it also killed off a lot of flora species especially Mega Fuana depended on to survive.
One advantage today’s younger scientists have is that they are about to exist during the occurrence of a really large impact...
Three times during a very short time (approx 40-years), a currently known monstrous asteroid is scheduled for three very, very, very, very, very, close encounters with Earth...
At a minimum, we’ll be probably be losing JWST and other satellites at LaGrange points and whatever remains of the ISS...
Since it will definitely be passing way-inside the distance to our moon, hopefully the moon doesn’t get perturbed... This alone would be cataclysmic here on Earth...
Unfortunately, to make matters much worse, a clumsy, incapable, DEI-controlled, government organization (NASA) is planning to “stick our collective fingers into the flame”...
These clowns will, IMHO, undoubtedly cause trajectory changes that will assure a direct impact on one of the three fly-bys...
Thanks for your thoughtful description, although to your first statement, no, I do not think that the earth was 100% covered with ice in any of the Ice Ages.
The Neanderthals weren’t taken out by an extinction event-they weren’t a separate race any more by maybe 20-25,000 year ago- already part of our inter-racial DNA by the natural breeding process. By the time of the younger dryass-12-13,000 years ago-they were already us...
“I do not think that the earth was 100% covered with ice in any of the Ice Ages.”
Then I apologize for my assumption. It is a common subconscious misconception when discussing these ice ages. For some reason the common comments and replies seem to be rooted from that misconception intentional or not.
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