Four Baffin Bay marine cores from approximately 1,000–2,700 m water depth contain a Younger Dryas boundary layer dated to 12,835–12,735 cal BP. The authors report microspherules and cometary dust, shocked quartz, melt glass, and platinum and iridium anomalies, with no volcanic chemical signature detected. They argue that the deep-ocean setting makes recent human contamination unlikely. An earlier version of the paper was retracted before republication in PLOS ONE in 2025. The authors interpret the findings as strong evidence for a Younger Dryas cosmic airburst.
Baffin Bay cores report Younger Dryas impact proxies; authors argue cosmic airburst
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📍 Baffin Bay
Key facts
- The 2025 PLOS ONE study examined four Baffin Bay marine cores spanning the Younger Dryas boundary at 12,835–12,735 cal BP, recovered from water approximately 1,000–2,700 m deep.
- The authors report microspherules and cometary dust, shocked quartz, melt glass, and platinum and iridium anomalies, with no volcanic chemical signature detected.
- The deep-ocean setting makes recent anthropogenic contamination unlikely in the authors' interpretation, but depth alone does not categorically rule out every form of contamination.
- An earlier version of the paper was retracted; a revised version was published in PLOS ONE in 2025.
- The cosmic-airburst explanation is the authors' interpretation of the proxies, not an established conclusion.
Sources
cometresearchgroup.org
Linked in video description
YDB-Abstracts - Crater Explorercraterexplorer.ca
Here we report the first discovery of similar impact-related proxies in ocean sediments from four marine cores in Baffin Bay that span the YDB layer at water ...
A 12800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules ...journals.plos.org
by CR Moore · 2025 · Cited by 5 — The modeling indicates that all four Baffin Bay cores contain sediments deposited at the onset of the Younger Dryas episode (12,835–12,735 cal.
A 12800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules ...pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
by CR Moore · 2025 · Cited by 5 — Here we report the first discovery of similar impact-related proxies in ocean sediments from four marine cores in Baffin Bay that span the YDB ...
A 12800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules ...scienceopen.com
by CR Moore · 2026 · Cited by 2 — The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB), dated to ~12.8 ka, marks the onset of an abrupt return to near-glacial conditions across much of the Northern ...
A 12800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules ...researchnow.flinders.edu.au
by CR Moore · 2025 · Cited by 5 — Here we report the first discovery of similar impact-related proxies in ocean sediments from four marine cores in Baffin Bay that span the YDB ...
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