Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis

被引:88
作者
Israde-Alcantara, Isabel [2 ]
Bischoff, James L. [1 ]
Dominguez-Vazquez, Gabriela [3 ]
Li, Hong-Chun [5 ]
DeCarli, Paul S. [4 ]
Bunch, Ted E. [6 ]
Wittke, James H. [6 ]
Weaver, James C. [7 ]
Firestone, Richard B. [9 ]
West, Allen [8 ]
Kennett, James P. [10 ,11 ]
Mercer, Chris [12 ]
Xie, Sujing [13 ,14 ]
Richman, Eric K. [16 ]
Kinzie, Charles R. [15 ]
Wolbach, Wendy S. [15 ]
机构
[1] US Geol Survey, Menlo Pk, CA 94025 USA
[2] Univ Michoacana, Dept Geol & Mineral, Edif Inst Invest Met U 4, Morelia 58060, Michoacan, Mexico
[3] Univ Michoacana, Fac Biol, Morelia 58060, Michoacan, Mexico
[4] SRI Int, Menlo Pk, CA 94025 USA
[5] Natl Taiwan Univ, Dept Geosci, Taipei 106, Taiwan
[6] No Arizona Univ, Geol Program, Sch Earth Sci & Environm Sustainabil, Flagstaff, AZ 86011 USA
[7] Harvard Univ, Wyss Inst Biol Inspired Engn, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
[8] GeoSci Consulting, Dewey, AZ 86327 USA
[9] Univ Calif Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Natl Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[10] Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Dept Earth Sci, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
[11] Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Inst Marine Sci, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
[12] Natl Inst Mat Sci, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3050047, Japan
[13] Univ Oregon, CAMCOR High Resolut Facil, Eugene, OR 97403 USA
[14] Univ Oregon, MicroAnalyt Facil, Eugene, OR 97403 USA
[15] De Paul Univ, Dept Chem, Chicago, IL 60614 USA
[16] Univ Oregon, Inst Mat Sci, Eugene, OR 97403 USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
black mat; cosmic impact; N-DIAMOND; BOUNDARY; CARBON; NANODIAMONDS; EXTINCTIONS; EXPLOSION; SEDIMENTS; PHASES; LAKE;
D O I
10.1073/pnas.1110614109
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
We report the discovery in Lake Cuitzeo in central Mexico of a black, carbon-rich, lacustrine layer, containing nanodiamonds, microspherules, and other unusual materials that date to the early Younger Dryas and are interpreted to result from an extraterrestrial impact. These proxies were found in a 27-m-long core as part of an interdisciplinary effort to extract a paleoclimate record back through the previous interglacial. Our attention focused early on an anomalous, 10-cm-thick, carbon-rich layer at a depth of 2.8 m that dates to 12.9 ka and coincides with a suite of anomalous coeval environmental and biotic changes independently recognized in other regional lake sequences. Collectively, these changes have produced the most distinctive boundary layer in the late Quaternary record. This layer contains a diverse, abundant assemblage of impact-related markers, including nanodiamonds, carbon spherules, and magnetic spherules with rapid melting/quenching textures, all reaching synchronous peaks immediately beneath a layer containing the largest peak of charcoal in the core. Analyses by multiple methods demonstrate the presence of three allotropes of nanodiamond: n-diamond, i-carbon, and hexagonal nanodiamond (lonsdaleite), in order of estimated relative abundance. This nanodiamond-rich layer is consistent with the Younger Dryas boundary layer found at numerous sites across North America, Greenland, and Western Europe. We have examined multiple hypotheses to account for these observations and find the evidence cannot be explained by any known terrestrial mechanism. It is, however, consistent with the Younger Dryas boundary impact hypothesis postulating a major extraterrestrial impact involving multiple airburst(s) and and/or ground impact(s) at 12.9 ka.
引用
收藏
页码:E738 / E747
页数:10
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