The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB): terrestrial, cosmic, or both?

Critical assessment of Jenny's soil forming equation in light of cosmic airbursts on the Viso Massif

“…The Viso Massif (France-Italy) is a prime laboratory to work out pathways of adjustments to each independent variable in Jenny's equation. At the site, the YDB impact event has now been identified as an isochronous timeline in which the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) episode, one of the greatest climatic shifts of the Late Neogene, is fixed at 12.8 ka by Kennett et al (2015) and Mahaney (2023). This timeline of 12.8 ka matches the YD chron of Mangerud (2021) based on pollen evidence from Kråkenes, Norway.…”

“…1) where a genetic indicator suggested a variant bacterial strain that might link the airburst to evolution pathways (Mahaney et al, 2013a). Thus, with 'c' identified at any YD site, the problem widens from analysis of 'p' to separate normal weathering of in situ mineral material and to probe for cosmic biosignatures such as air-quenched, shock melted, and welded grains to chemical identifiers such as Pt/Pd ratios discoverable by INAA and fire assay analysis to establish Pt element (Os, Ir, Ru, Rh) concentrations and distributions in paleosols, such as in Mahaney (2023) and . In addition, as shown in these publications, analysis of REEs, elevated base metals such as Fe, Co, Cr, Cu, may align with Pt elements and REEs, especially the HREEs (Mahaney, 2023).…”

The Encke Comet Impact/Airburst and the Younger Dryas Boundary: Testing the Impossible Hypothesis (YDIH)

“…1A) and the continental divide area of the Viso Massif in Italy-France (Fig. 1B) reveals an airburst record (Mahaney, 2023). Most BM sites are in uvial or lacustrine sedimentary complexes or recovered ice core samples, the Viso-Andes mountain evidence the rst of its kind in LG moraine.…”

“…It is this interlinked clast rind-paleosol record, age determined by relative dating (RD) methods to within ± 300 year of the Allerød/YD climatic divide, and xed by AMS C14 at 12.8 ka by Kennett et al (2015), that support the YDIH; the airburst, lacking a crater, that produced the black mat record on several continents. Its discovery at the MUM7B site in the northwestern Andes was quickly shown to be the product of an airburst (Mahaney et al, 2013b), any link to volcanism considered remote, and its link to YD glacial advance and retreat stratigraphically xed at 12.8 ka by AMS C14 (Mahaney, 2023). Moreover, the Andean and Western Alps records alone provide an intercontinental correlation su cient to embed MUM7B (NW Andes) as an informal type section under the American Commission Stratigraphic Nomenclature, previously suggested by Mahaney (2023).…”

“…Its discovery at the MUM7B site in the northwestern Andes was quickly shown to be the product of an airburst (Mahaney et al, 2013b), any link to volcanism considered remote, and its link to YD glacial advance and retreat stratigraphically xed at 12.8 ka by AMS C14 (Mahaney, 2023). Moreover, the Andean and Western Alps records alone provide an intercontinental correlation su cient to embed MUM7B (NW Andes) as an informal type section under the American Commission Stratigraphic Nomenclature, previously suggested by Mahaney (2023).…”