Prospecting for Nanodiamonds in Equivalent Deposits

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，利兰·贝门特（Leland Bement）博士和一个跨学科团队将进行两年的研究，以证实或驳斥一个令人兴奋的新说法，即一颗或一组彗星在1.1万年前撞击了地球。一个由来自俄克拉何马州两所大学的考古学家、土壤科学家、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、突然的气候变化、植物群落的破坏以及人类和文化的巨大变化。拟议的撞击地点在北美，该项目将集中在北美南部平原的沉积物上，那里以前已经确定了这次撞击产生的证据。在各种各样的标记物中，有宇宙纳米金刚石。假设的撞击应该会使宇宙纳米钻石散落在整个景观中，并被可追溯到11000年前的沉积物所掩埋。要支持这一假设，就必须在距今11000年前的沉积物中发现纳米钻石或其他撞击的标记或指示物，而不是在更早或更晚的沉积物中发现。反对这一假设的论据将包括所声称的标记物在所有年龄的沉积物中均匀分布或在其他时期的沉积物中出现更多数量的情况。这个项目的智力价值是建立在一个跨学科的研究团队和应用科学的方法来解决一个可测试的理论。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。结果的可重复性是科学探究的基石。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年前轰击北美，那么研究人员将不得不重新思考在这段不可否认的变化时期，植物、动物和人类种群发生变化的时间尺度。对这一事件的确认将大大改变以前关于最后一次冰河期如何结束以及更新世物种灭绝原因的概念。此外，该项目为来自不同背景和不同大学的研究人员提供了合作机会，并为研究生和本科生提供了促进跨学科学习的重要机会。最后，这个项目在科学探索一个主题和公众之间提供了一个联系，公众熟悉由宇宙撞击和相关环境破坏造成的灭绝的概念。

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.