[HN Gopher] Evidence of a 12,800-year-old shallow airburst depre...
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       Evidence of a 12,800-year-old shallow airburst depression in
       Louisiana
        
       Author : keepamovin
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2025-07-01 07:55 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scienceopen.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scienceopen.com)
        
       | readthenotes1 wrote:
       | Buried the lede:
       | 
       | "Son claims Dad was right all along"
        
       | tigereyeTO wrote:
       | Interesting. There's a hypothesis that Earth was struck by an
       | impact 12,800 years ago in North America but the impact site
       | wasn't identified
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothe...
       | 
       | Could these be related?
        
         | qualeed wrote:
         | I hadn't heard of this, but it says:
         | 
         | > _The hypothesis is widely rejected by relevant
         | experts.[2][1][3][4] It is influenced by creationism [...] It
         | is an alternative to the long-standing and widely accepted
         | explanation that the Younger Dryas was caused by a significant
         | reduction in, or shutdown of the North Atlantic Conveyor due to
         | a sudden influx of freshwater from Lake Agassiz and
         | deglaciation in North America. [...] Authors have not yet
         | responded to requests for clarification and have never made
         | their raw data available_
         | 
         | Is there a reason why the widely accepted explanation isn't
         | satisfactory?
        
           | tigereyeTO wrote:
           | The publication of this research.
           | 
           | One possibility discussed in the publication is that the
           | sudden influx of freshwater from Lake Agassiz was _caused_ by
           | the Perkins Louisiana impact.
        
             | cluckindan wrote:
             | It happened at the end of an ice age, when mile-thick
             | glaciers were melting away. That's a lot of fresh water
             | going to the oceans.
        
         | deepdarkforest wrote:
         | If you actually click on the link, it mentions this both in the
         | abstract, and a detailed comparison of evidence in a whole
         | table.
        
         | 8bitsrule wrote:
         | The evidence for multiple strikes around 12,800BP has been
         | piling up for quite a few years now. There are other theories
         | of course. A few papers :
         | 
         | Alaska - https://dx.doi.org/10.1086/695703
         | 
         | South Carolina - www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51552-8
         | (plus Article: https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-that-
         | an-extraterres... )
         | 
         | Chile - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38089-y
         | 
         | South Africa -
         | https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.06.017
         | 
         | Syria - https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60867-w
         | 
         | California, Channel Islands -
         | https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.09.006
        
       | jonathaneunice wrote:
       | Zero expertise in any of the related disciplines to interpret or
       | judge any of this, but I can say with confidence that the related
       | Wikipedia page
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...
       | is a _wild_ read and outright flamethrower at everything about
       | Younger Dryas and seemingly, everyone involved.
        
         | farceSpherule wrote:
         | The Younger Dryas debate spans climatology, archaeology,
         | geology, and astrophysics, creating tension across multiple
         | disciplines.
         | 
         | There is scientific evidence that the Younger Dryas event
         | occurred, however, no universally accepted scientific study
         | that conclusively proves WHAT caused it.
        
           | cluckindan wrote:
           | The Younger Dryas was not an "event", it was a period in
           | Earth's geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700
           | years Before Present (BP).
        
             | xeromal wrote:
             | Is the 0 point for Before Present a different year than the
             | Jesus year? I've never heard it used before.
        
               | Neekerer wrote:
               | It's actually 1950
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present?hl=en-US
        
               | xeromal wrote:
               | Thank you!
        
               | AlotOfReading wrote:
               | Ish. It's technically correct for BP and radioisotope
               | dating specifically, but other dating methods don't use
               | the same scale like TL. You'll commonly see kiloanni (ka)
               | used instead and that may or may not be referenced to
               | 1950 depending on the whims of the author.
        
               | IncreasePosts wrote:
               | That's right around the time the "modern" era ended and
               | "post-modern" began. Funny we've been making these errors
               | since basically the beginning of time. Looking at you,
               | New Bridge, the oldest bridge in Paris!
        
             | FrustratedMonky wrote:
             | Kind of pedantic?
             | 
             | I think everyone knows the debate is around the 'event',
             | which caused a 'period' of geologic history which is
             | referred to as "Younger Dryas". I guess once the 'event' is
             | known, it can be named something, like "The Younger Dryas
             | Event".
             | 
             | What I'd like to know, is why just one event. There is this
             | paper, and also the crater found in Greenland a couple
             | years ago. Maybe there was a more general bombardment, not
             | just a one-off smoking gone.
        
               | protocolture wrote:
               | There doesnt have to be an event.
               | 
               | The current accepted theory is (from the gps wiki
               | article)
               | 
               | "is an alternative to the long-standing and widely
               | accepted explanation that the Younger Dryas was caused by
               | a significant reduction in, or shutdown of the North
               | Atlantic Conveyor due to a sudden influx of freshwater
               | from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America."
        
       | MichaelZuo wrote:
       | Is it plausible for such a large airburst as hypothesized to
       | leave behind such a small crater?
        
         | btilly wrote:
         | Yes. If it exploded in the air, then there is no crater.
        
           | gattr wrote:
           | Indeed, cf. Tunguska event ([1]) from 1908.
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
        
       | protocolture wrote:
       | Look a lot of this passes the sniff test but anything Younger
       | Dryas related I have to assume based on past performance is all
       | buillshit designed to prop up religious fundamentalists and bodgy
       | history.
        
         | esseph wrote:
         | ???
         | 
         | There's no link to anything religion wise with the Younger
         | Dryas AFAIK.
        
       | blueflow wrote:
       | How is this supposed to work with the sedimentation? The glass
       | spherules under the lake are maxxing out 5-6 meters below the
       | surface. Where does the material on top of that come from, and
       | why didn't it fill in the lake, but leave it intact & with
       | ridges?
       | 
       | Second, if you think of an impact at an angle, the crater and its
       | ridges form an ellipse. If its coming very flat, the structures
       | might look rather parabolic, but still bent inwards. In the
       | article, the north ridge is bent _outwards_. How? Questions over
       | questions.
        
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       (page generated 2025-07-02 23:00 UTC)