Significance This study ties the spherules recovered in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to an impact in Quebec about 12,900 y ago at the onset of Younger Dryas. Our discovery resulted from an exhaustive search that examined the question of whether there is any evidence of extraterrestrial platinum group metals present in the bulk sediments, magnetic grains, and spherules recovered from the Younger Dryas boundary (YDB). We find that the spherules are likely quenched silicate melts produced following the impact at the YDB. The source of spherule osmium, however, is likely terrestrial and not meteorite derived.

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Atmospheric deposition is the primary mechanism by which remote environments are impacted by anthropogenic contaminants. Vegetation plays a critical role in intercepting atmospheric aerosols, thereby regulating the timing and magnitude of both contaminant and nutrient delivery to underlying soils. However, quantitative models describing the fate of atmospherically derived elements on vegetation are limited by a lack of long-term measurements of both atmospheric flux and foliar concentrations. We addressed this gap in understanding by quantifying weekly atmospheric deposition of the naturally occurring radionuclide tracers (7)Be and (210)Pb, as well as their activities in leaves of colocated trees, for three years in New Hampshire, U.S. The accumulation of both (7)Be and (210)Pb in deciduous and coniferous vegetation is predicted by a model that is based solely on measured atmospheric fluxes, duration of leaf exposure, and radioactive decay. Any "wash off" processes that remove (7)Be and (210)Pb from foliage operate with a maximum half-time of greater than 370 days (P > 99%), which is an order of magnitude longer than previously assumed. The retention of both (7)Be and (210)Pb on leaves is thus quantitative and permanent, coupling the fate of (7)Be, (210)Pb and similar atmospheric species to that of the leaf matter itself. These findings demonstrate that the long-standing paradigm of a short "environmental half-life" for atmospheric contaminants deposited on natural surfaces must be re-evaluated.