Graham Hancock on younger dryas: what the evidence says · JRE #2136
SUBJECT: YOUNGER DRYAS
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
The evidence for the Younger Dryas impact is found in what are called impact proxies and that's iridium, nanodiamonds, platinum, melt glass like trinitite, found in sites across a vast area of the Earth's surface, 50 million plus square kilometers, an enormous
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Hancock is accurately restating figures published by the proponents of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. Their peer-reviewed papers list the same proxy assemblage (platinum, iridium, nanodiamonds, high-temperature spherules and meltglass) and state it forms a datum at more than 50 sites across roughly 50 million square kilometers on four continents (North America, South America, Europe and western Asia). However, this reflects the impact camp's own interpretation, not a settled scientific consensus: no confirmed impact crater dates to the Younger Dryas onset, and critics argue the cited proxies are not unique to cosmic impacts and can form through ordinary terrestrial processes, so the presence of these materials does not by itself establish an impact. The mainstream explanation for Younger Dryas cooling remains a meltwater-driven disruption of North Atlantic ocean circulation.
Who Benefits
Hancock's lost advanced civilization thesis depends on a catastrophic comet impact around 12,000 years ago, a claim he sells in his books and media, giving him a commercial and reputational stake in the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.