Prospecting for Nanodiamonds in Equivalent Deposits

该奖项由2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助。在国家科学基金会的支持下，利兰·贝门特博士和一个跨学科团队将进行为期两年的研究，以证实或驳斥一项令人兴奋的新说法，即一颗或一组彗星在11000年前撞击地球。一个由来自俄克拉荷马州两所大学的考古学家、土壤学家、地质学家和地球化学家组成的团队汇集了一套观点和实地程序来调查这一说法。宇宙撞击地球的后果包括猛犸象和其他大型动物的灭绝、气候的突然变化、植物群落的破坏以及人类和文化的戏剧性变化。拟议的撞击地点在北美，该项目将集中在北美南部平原上的矿藏，此前已在那里发现了来自这一影响的证据。在各种标记中，有宇宙纳米钻石。拟议的撞击本应将宇宙纳米钻石散落在地貌上，它们将被11,000年前的沉积物掩埋。支持这一假设要求，纳米钻石或某些其他影响标志或指标只能在11000年前的矿床中找到，而不能在更早或更晚的矿床中找到。反对这一假设的论据将包括这样一种情况，即据称的标记被发现均匀分布在所有年龄的存款中，或者在其他时间段的存款中出现更多。这个项目的智力价值建立在一个跨学科的研究团队中，并应用科学方法来解决可检验的理论。影响假说的最初支持者的分析结果需要其他研究人员的验证。结果的重现性是科学研究的基石。这项研究有可能改变科学家对上一个冰河时代结束时开始的事件的看法。如果一颗彗星或一系列彗星或流星在11000年前撞击北美，那么研究人员将不得不重新思考在这段不可否认的变化期间，植物、动物和人类种群变化的时间尺度。这一事件的确认将极大地改变之前关于上一次冰河时代是如何结束的以及更新世灭绝原因的概念。此外，该项目为来自不同背景和大学的研究人员提供了合作机会，并为促进研究生和本科生提供跨学科学习机会提供了重要机会。最后，该项目提供了对某一主题的科学探索与熟悉宇宙撞击造成的灭绝概念和相关环境破坏的普通公众之间的联系。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Leland Bement and an interdisciplinary team will conduct two years of research to substantiate or refute an exciting new claim that a comet or group of comets struck the earth 11,000 radiocarbon years ago. A team consisting of an archaeologist, soils scientist, geologist, and geochemist from two Oklahoma universities bring together a suite of perspectives and field procedures to investigate this claim. The consequences of a cosmic impact with the earth include the extinction of mammoths and other large animals, abrupt climate change, disruption of plant communities, and dramatic alterations to people and cultures. The proposed impact site is in North America and this project will concentrate on deposits on the southern Plains of North America where evidence derived from this impact has previously been identified. Among the various markers are cosmic nanodiamonds. The proposed impact should have scattered cosmic nanodiamonds across the landscape where they would become buried by sediments dating to 11,000 years ago. Support for this hypothesis requires that nanodiamonds or certain other markers or indicators of the impact are found only in deposits that date to 11,000 years ago and not in deposits of earlier or later ages. An argument against this hypothesis would include the situation where purported markers are found to be equally distributed in deposits of all ages or occur in greater numbers within deposits of other time periods. The intellectual merit of this project is founded in an interdisciplinary research team and the application of the scientific method to address a testable theory. Results of analyses by the original proponents of the impact hypothesis need to be verified by other researchers. Reproducibility of results is a cornerstone of scientific inquiry. This research has the potential to change the way scientists view the events initiated at the close of the last Ice Age. If a comet or series of comets or meteors barraged North America 11,000 years ago, then researchers will have to rethink the time scale at which changes in plant, animal, and human populations progressed during this period of undeniable change. Confirmation of such an event would significantly change previous concepts of how the last ice age ended and the cause of Pleistocene extinctions. In addition, this project provides collaborative opportunities for researchers from different backgrounds and universities and the important opportunity to promote interdisciplinary learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Finally, this project provides a link between the scientific exploration of a topic and the general public that is familiar with the concepts of extinction caused by cosmic impacts and the associated environmental devastation.