The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: A critical review

Abstract

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis suggests that multiple extraterrestrial airbursts or impacts resulted in the Younger Dryas cooling, extensive wildfires, megafaunal extinctions and changes in human population. After the hypothesis was first published in 2007, it gained much criticism, as the evidence presented was either not indicative of an extraterrestrial impact or not reproducible by other groups. Only three years after the hypothesis had been presented, a requiem paper was published. Despite this, the controversy continues. New evidence, both in favour and against the hypothesis, continues to be published. In this review we briefly summarize the earlier debate and critically analyse the most recent reported evidence, including magnetic microspherules, nanodiamonds, and iridium, shocked quartz, scoria-like objects and lechatelierite. The subsequent events proposed to be triggered by the impact event, as well as the nature of the event itself, are also briefly discussed. In addition we address the timing of the Younger Dryas impact, a topic which, despite its importance, has not gained much attention thus far. We show that there are three challenges related to the timing of the event: accurate age control for some of the sites that are reported to provide evidence for the impact, linking these sites to the onset of the Younger Dryas and, most importantly, an apparent age discrepancy of up to two centuries between different sites associated with the proposed impact event. We would like to stress that if the markers at different locations have been deposited at different points in time, they cannot be related to the same event. Although convincing evidence for the hypothesis that multiple synchronous impacts resulted in massive environmental changes at ∼12,900 yrs ago remains debatable, we conclude that some evidence used to support the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis cannot fully be explained at this point in time.