More on the 12.9 k impact

Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.

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Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas Boundary Sediment Layer: We report abundant nanodiamonds in sediments dating to 12.9 ± 0.1 thousand calendar years before the present at multiple locations across North America. Selected area electron diffraction patterns reveal two diamond allotropes in this…
tags: bolide, mammals, mass extinction, North America, Younger Dryas Why did huge numbers of large mammals in North America suddenly die out approximately 13,000 years ago? Over the years, there have been plenty of hypotheses proposed, ranging from overhunting and disease to death by freezing.…
One of the most interesting and exciting stories in science is that of the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas was a climate event that had important effects on human history, and that has been reasonably linked to some of our most important cultural changes, and ultimately some evolutionary changes…
Pleistocene Megafaunal Collapse, Novel Plant Communities, and Enhanced Fire Regimes in North America: Although the North American megafaunal extinctions and the formation of novel plant communities are well-known features of the last deglaciation, the causal relationships between these phenomena…

Wait until DeBeers hears about THIS!

Witness the new nanodiamond solitaire ring... for the romantic electron microscopist in your life... (Cue dramatic music and black & white diamond commercial style)

"Oh, honey, you shouldn't have!"

Well, at least this story is better than the coverage on CNN, which doesn't name anyone from the article and mistakenly places it in Nature rather than Science. Yeesh.