The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis debate
continues with papers that are published both
supporting and disputing it. The debate is a binary
one with one side either denying or supporting
an extreme event capable of causing extinction
and climatic change. The ambiguous and
inconsistent nature of the hypothesized impact
signals might be used to argue for a third possibility.
This possibility is that the consequence of either
a rather minor extraterrestrial event or set of
rather minor extraterrestrial events have been
grossly overinterpreted and exaggerated as
being larger than they were because by random
coincidence they occurred at the same time as a
major paleoclimatic change.
Some of the recent papers are:
Huber, R., Darga, R. and Lauterbach, H., 2017,
April. Pseudoimpactites in anthropocenically
overprinted quaternary sediments. In EGU
General Assembly Conference Abstracts
Vol. 19, p. 16545
http://www.rimbao.de/egu2017/Poster_EGU_2017_Pseudoimpaktites.pdf
Israde-Alcántara, I., Domínguez-Vázquez, G.,
Gonzalez, S., Bischoff, J., West, A. and Huddart,
D., 2017. Five Younger Dryas Black Mats in
Mexico and their stratigraphic and
paleoenvironmental context. Journal of
Paleolimnology, pp. 1-21.
Mahaney, W.C., Somelar, P., West, A., Krinsley,
D., Allen, C.C., Pentlavalli, P., Young, J.M., Dohm,
J.M., LeCompte, M., Kelleher, B. and Jordan,
S.F., 2017. Evidence for cosmic airburst in the
Western Alps archived in Late Glacial paleosols.
Quaternary International, 438, pp. 68-80.
Moore, C.R., West, A., LeCompte, M.A., Brooks,
M.J., Daniel Jr, I.R., Goodyear, A.C., Ferguson, T.A.,
Ivester, A.H., Feathers, J.K., Kennett, J.P. and
Tankersley, K.B., 2017. Widespread platinum
anomaly documented at the Younger Dryas
onset in North American sedimentary sequences.
Scientific Reports, 7, article 44031.
Roperch, P., Gattacceca, J., Valenzuela, M.,
Devouard, B., Lorand, J.P., Arriagada, C., Rochette,
P., Latorre, C. and Beck, P., 2017. Surface
vitrification caused by natural fires in Late
Pleistocene wetlands of the Atacama Desert.
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 469, pp. 15-26.
Seo, J., Han, C., Steffensen, J.P., Hong, S. and
Sharma, M., 2017, March. Osmium Isotopes at the
Onset of Younger Dryas Using the GRIP Ice Core.
In Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
Vol. 48, abstract 3005.
Scott, A.C., Hardiman, M., Pinter, N., Anderson,
R.S., Daulton, T.L., Ejarque, A., Finch, P. and
Carter - champion, A., 2017. Interpreting
palaeofire evidence from fluvial sediments: a
case study from Santa Rosa Island, California,
with implications for the Younger Dryas Impact
Hypothesis. Journal of Quaternary Science,
32(1), pp. 35-47.
Schumann, R.R., Pigati, J.S. and McGeehin, J.P.,
2016. Fluvial system response to late Pleistocene-
Holocene sea-level change on Santa Rosa Island,
Channel Islands National Park, California.
Geomorphology, 268, pp. 322-340.
(Comment) - Pinter, N., Hardiman, M., Scott, A.C.
and Anderson, R.S., 2017. Discussion of “Fluvial
system response to late Pleistocene-Holocene
sea-level change on Santa Rosa Island, Channel
Islands National Park, California”(Schumann et
al., 2016. Geomorphology, 268: 322–340).
Geomorphology.
(Reply) - Schumann, R.R. and Pigati, J.S., 2017.
Reply to the discussion of Pinter et al. on ‘Fluvial
system response to late Pleistocene-Holocene
sea-level change on Santa Rosa Island, Channel
Islands National Park, California’ by Schumann
et al.(2016). Geomorphology.
Zamora, A., 2017. A model for the geomorphology
of the Carolina Bays. Geomorphology, 282, pp. 209-216.
As usual, the “impact cratering bandwagon” that
Reimold (1997) talks about is alive and well as
part of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis
discussion. This is seen in the number of imaginary
impact craters and structures that have been
offered as evidence of this event and an earlier
Pleistocene hypothesized impact event.
The latest of these imaginary craters is discussed in:
Burchard, H.G., 2017. Younger Dryas Comet
12,900 BP. Open Journal of Geology, 7(02), p.193.
(Note:, the “Open Journal of Geology is published
by “Scientific Research Publishing.” Go see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Research_Publishing
Their evidence also includes a few real pre-Pleistocene
craters and structures.
Also, authors and podcasters of fringe science
in their zeal to find evidence for a catastrophic
Younger Dryas impact event repeatedly have
mistakenly and incorrectly presumed that events
associated with the Missoula Floods and various
meltwater events and pulses were
contemporaneous with the start of the Younger
Dryas. Some blatant errors are repeatedly made
despite an abundant data that these events are
quite obviously not contemporaneous.
One of the more bizarre of these ill-informed and
unsupported interpretations is the claim that
the Palouse Loess consists of some type of
Younger Dryas Impact ejecta-like deposit.
References cited:
Reimold, W.U., 2007. The impact crater bandwagon
(some problems with the
