Comet Wiped Out First Americans

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:41:01 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Study: Comet Wiped Out First Americans

A large extraterrestrial object exploded over the heads of the first Americans about 13,000 years ago, wiping them out and making big mammals and other prehistoric creatures disappear, according to a new U.S. study.

Presented last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Acapulco, Mexico, the controversial research proposes that the extraterrestrial blast triggered a catastrophic millennium-long cold spell.

The dramatic climate change would have been the major cause for the sudden disappearance of mammoths throughout much of Europe and America and the demise of the Clovis people, the New World's most sophisticated hunters.

Tags: comet, impact, america, mammoths, extinction

Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'

Thu, 24 May 2007 16:52:27 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'

A space rock may have exploded in the air over North America

A controversial new idea suggests that a large space rock exploded over North America 13,000 years ago.

The blast may have wiped out one of America's first Stone Age cultures as well as the continent's big mammals such as the mammoth and the mastodon.

The blast, from a comet or asteroid, caused a major bout of climatic cooling which may also have affected human cultures emerging in Europe and Asia.

Scientists will outline their evidence this week at a meeting in Mexico.

Their impact theory shouldn't be dismissed; it deserves further investigation

Jeff Severinghaus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

The evidence comes from layers of sediment at more than 20 sites across North America.

Tags: asteroids, impact, north america, prehistory, science

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Comet Wiped Out First Americans

Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'