Exploding Comets Slay Millions

A new theory suggests that exploding comets are responsible for the extinction of woolly mammoths. Recently researchers have proposed that a meteor or comet exploded close to the earth's surface. The resulting shock waves and heat caused fires over much of the northern hemisphere.

From the original story:

About 13,000 years ago, woolly mammoths roamed the North American continent and the first known human society in that region, known as the Clovis civilization, lived there as well. But geologic and archaeological evidence shows they both suddenly disappeared, and scientists have long debated the mystery of the mass extinction of both animals and humans about 12,900 years ago. At that time, climatic history suggests the Ice Age should have been drawing to a close, but instead rapid climate change initiated an additional 1,300 years of glacial conditions. But scientists couldn't agree on the cause of the sudden change in climate. However, about two years ago geophysicist Allen West proposed that an asteroid or comet exploded just above the surface of the earth over modern-day Canada, sparking a massive shock wave and heat-generating event that set large parts of the northern hemisphere ablaze, setting the stage for the extinctions.

Ken Tankersley, Anthropology professor at the University of Cincinnati studied sites in Ohio and Indiana that offers the strongest support yet for the exploding comet/asteroid theory. Samples of diamonds, gold and silver found in the region have been conclusively sourced through X-ray diffractometry to have come from the diamond fields region of Canada. Tankersley and West both believe the best scenario to explain the presence of these materials this far south is the kind of cataclysmic explosive event described by West’s theory. "We believe this is the strongest evidence yet indicating a comet impact in that time period," says Tankersley.