[Interesting Times]

This article is vague on how a comet could cause continent-wide fires. The answer is that air heats dramatically when compressed. The overpressure shock wave from such an event would have incinerated people, animals and vegetation over a huge area. That would explain why the Pliestocene extinction rate was much higher among land animals than for those that lived in the water.

[qam1]

That would explain why the Pliestocene extinction rate was much higher among land animals than for those that lived in the water.

Sure.. Like the aquatic American Bison that survived

Or the Land Loving Giant Beaver that went extinct

Sorry, I think what Geologist Norman Macleod said about the Dino Asteroid hypothesis

"The impact theory says in effect that a rock fell out of the sky and killed everything, except for the things that it didn't kill. I don't think that's much of an explanation."

Fits here as well

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. The carbon layer is a very interesting find. It is evidence of massive incineration covering a large area of North America. That it was caused by the atmospheric explosion of a comet or asteroid is a reasonable theory.