Younger Dryas Impact - How big was it?

This presentation discusses some of the arguments for and against an extraterrestrial impact at the onset of the Younger Dryas cooling event and proposes the creation of a physics-based model for the impact using the characteristics of the Carolina Bays. This is a remastered edition of a video published in 2018.

The Neglected Carolina Bays: Ubiquitous Geological Evidence of a Cataclysm.

Python program for fitting ellipses to the Carolina Bays by the least squares method.

Fit ellipses using a web browser

[PBGetson]

You've hit another one out of the park. ⚾🎆
I found all the included data to be quite self evident that the YD event was caused by a space rock ☄hitting earth.

[matveyshishov]

Thank you so much for your hard work and insights!

[tygerbyrn]

Great video! ☄️ Earth was fundamentally changed by this impact. Simply incredible.

[richardunruh]

I've been following your work on the YD impact, and continue to be impressed. This presentation is spot-on in addressing the points of the nay-sayers. Their objections sound more like politics than science. I say this because in my experience, I have learned that sometimes the most valuable data is that which doesn't fit expectations because it can lead to new knowledge. If those who voice objections to your proposals were dispassionate scientists I would expect them to realize that your proposals, which don't fit their theories, may be of great value. Instead they seem to be prima donnas that are insulted at your temerity to contradict their theories. Sounds a lot like how Pasteur was treated in his time. Keep going! I look forward to their response to this presentation. I think they're going to need more mallets in their game of whack-a-mole.

Edit: additional comment

I live in Michigan. In the Saginaw Bay area there are abandoned coal mines and currently active oil wells. The mine tailings, and if you can find and gain access to them, core samples from the wells might provide a relatively low cost way to look for shatter cones and shocked quartz. If found, I think the nay-sayers would have a hard time dismissing that evidence.

[colcol]

Incredibile explination as always. Thank you for your tenacity.

[jdwhitewolf]

@Antonio_Zamora This was a great one...covers all of the major points. Really nice to hear you tell the story of this event. Thanks for your hard work! :)

[redlab]

Excellent presentation of a compelling argument.

[ZoidbergMW]

Interesting. Thank you.
Signed
just an inquisitive spectator from Michigan

[thepierianspring]

Regarding the impact site of the asteroid/meteor I've read there are fissures 900 feet deep underlying the Great Lakes, if these fractures propagate out from the Great Lakes might they indicate the impact site?

[--]

Thanks for another informative video. Looking forward to your presentation @ Cosmic Summit 2025 this June

[garrenosborne]

Thanks for the update & thorough analysis, very convincing & more so with all the extra evidence coming in!

[steve]

How many decades did the Lake Missoula hypothesis get knocked down as NEVER possible? Because the experts "knew" the real science? And, of course, they DIDN'T.

Keep up the great work and videos on the Carolina Bays and the YD Impact Hypothesis. Passes the smell test to me and the visual evidence on the ground.

[daveferguson]

Great job Antonio appreciate your perseverance .
I’ve wondered why Randall Carllson, being as geologically insightful as he is, doesn’t speak more about your research and the Carolina bays in general when discussing the younger dryas impact event.

[neohermitist]

Very thorough. Has anyone thought about the southeast side "splat" on each bay? It was especially present in the last image. As a mechanical engineer I appreciate the calculations.

I think the divergence in bay direction pointing to the impact sight is almost entirely due to the coriolis effect because I doubt all the ice landed at the exact same time and I bet took around a whole 3 minutes from start to finish. I think it may even be possible to do an analysis where each bays angle is analyzed with an adjustment for the effect and you can determine the exact location of the ice sheet impact and average flight time.

Just on a hunch I looked up a mineral map of Michigan. I found that there is only one place with iron and that is the UP, specifically Craig State Park area. In that park on Google Maps satellite imagery I see three separate impacts, barely distinguishable but once found are hard to deny. What appears to be the upper "rim" of the smaller impact to the east is pretty easy to see. The whole area has a mottled appearance is if the soil was liquified then quickly solidified. And then there is the Dead River Basin (?!) feature that looks like a fissure in the Earth.

[Alarix]

0:21 Hi Antonio, glad to see another instalment of you YD videos! Hearing you saying that the Megafauna went extinct, many (most?) of us already know. But we should get more knowledgeable also about the extinction of smaller fauna which certainly happened during this time. I just realized that I know next to nothing about the species which were smaller than 100 pounds and gone extinct as well?! And we should even learn about possible theories of how come these smaller animals survived at all? Thanks for your enhancement of our lives!

[fairhall]

When water is vaporised it has a 1:1000 volume ratio (conservatively, some estimates are 1:1700). Imagine a single cube of ice 1km wide and high instantly turning into a cube of water vapour 10km wide and 10km high! Even if the impact vaporised a single cubic kilometre of water the result is extreme. If only half the 44km wide impact zone is vaporised and the ice is only 1 km thick then 760 cubic kilometres of the ice was vaporised, turning into 760, 000 cubic km's of water vapour. If you have ever seen a water heater explode imagine how staggering an explosion this was likely to have been. Super heated water vapour is also able to start fires! Water is extremely volatile when rapidly heated, a factor seemingly dismissed by these naysayers.

[RickShepherd]

T=0: Impact
• Location: Laurentide Ice Sheet, over modern Michigan.
• Event: A 1-km comet fragment, traveling 30 km/s, slams into the 2-3 km thick ice at a 45° angle. Energy release: ~10^6 megatons TNT.
• Immediate Effect: The impact vaporizes 100-500 cubic kilometers of ice instantly, forming a 10-20 km transient crater. A fireball erupts, 5, 000°C, igniting forests 100 km away. Shockwaves ripple through the ice, fracturing it for hundreds of kilometers, imprinting Michigan’s mitten shape (130 km wide).
• Atmosphere: The airburst from smaller fragments (pre-impact breakup) and vaporized ice/rock loft 10^12 kg of dust and steam into the stratosphere, darkening skies.
• Grand Canyon Seed: Far southwest, the pre-existing Colorado River—a modest 100-500 m wide, 50-200 m deep channel—flows quietly through the Colorado Plateau, unaware of what’s coming.

T=1 Second to 1 Minute: Ejecta Launch
• Event: 50-200 cubic kilometers of ice ejecta—chunks from pebbles to house-sized—blast outward at 1-5 km/s. Most arcs southeast, targeting the coastal plain (future Carolina Bays).
• Michigan: The crater collapses, sloshing molten ice and bedrock. Meltwater pools, starting at 10^11 cubic meters, as thermal energy (10^15 joules) liquefies more ice.
• Atmosphere: Soot from wildfires joins the stratospheric plume—global cooling begins.
• Grand Canyon Seed: The Rockies, 1, 500 km west, feel seismic waves (magnitude ~9), rattling glacial lakes near the Colorado’s headwaters.

T=5 Minutes to 1 Hour: Ejecta Lands, Meltwater Builds
• Event: Ice ejecta rains down 1, 000-2, 000 km away, gouging the Carolina Bays into soft sediment. Each impact melts on contact, adding 40-160 cubic kilometers of water locally.
• Michigan: Fractures spread, melting accelerates—1.5-3 million cubic kilometers of ice destabilize. Meltwater surges south (proto-Mississippi) and west (proto-Great Lakes), pooling in basins.
• Atmosphere: Dust and vapor block 10% of sunlight; temperatures drop 1-2°C globally within hours.
• Grand Canyon Seed: In the Rockies, ice-dammed lakes (e.g., proto-Lake Bonneville) crack from seismic stress. Meltwater trickles southwest, not yet reaching the Colorado.

T=1 Day to 1 Week: Meltwater Pulse
• Event: The Laurentide’s southern lobe collapses, releasing 10^13 cubic meters of water total. Most floods south and east, but 1%—10^11-10^12 cubic meters—routes west via breached glacial channels.
• Michigan: The mitten depression fills with slush and water, precursor to the Great Lakes. Wildfires rage, leaving the YDB black mat.
• Atmosphere: Cooling intensifies—5-10°C drop—as soot and dust settle in. Rain laced with impact debris falls globally.
• Grand Canyon Begins: Meltwater hits the Colorado’s headwaters. The river swells from 10^6 to 10^10 cubic meters/day, a muddy torrent loaded with 10% sediment. It roars into the plateau, scouring the pre-cut channel.

T=1 Week to 1 Month: Canyon Carving
• Event: The Colorado, now a 10, 000x megaflood, erodes 10^12 cubic meters of rock—25% of the Grand Canyon’s 4, 000 cubic kilometers. The channel widens to kilometers, deepens to 500-1, 000 m, cutting through Kaibab Limestone and Redwall layers.
• Michigan: Meltwater drainage slows; the ice sheet’s retreat accelerates, raising sea levels 1-2 meters.
• Atmosphere: Impact winter locks in—10-20% sunlight loss, 10°C global drop—triggering the Younger Dryas.
• Grand Canyon: The flood peaks, carving the canyon’s 446-km length and 1-1.8 km depth in a violent rush. Debris chokes the Gulf of California with turbidites.

T=1 Year to 100 Years: Stabilization
• Event: Floodwaters recede; the Colorado stabilizes at a higher flow, fine-tuning the canyon’s 29-km max width over centuries. YDB-dated terraces (gravel, silt) mark the flood’s legacy.
• Michigan: The Great Lakes form as ice retreats, fed by lingering melt. Carolina Bays turn to wetlands.
• Atmosphere: Cooling persists for 1, 300 years; mammoths and Clovis fade.
• Grand Canyon: A raw, jagged scar—446 km long, 1.8 km deep—stands as the impact’s western echo, its birth tied to T=0.

[RobertSmith-uojx]

How do they explain the black mat layer as found in NM?

[Alarix]

By the way I also suspect if the YD impact could had been so strong that it shifted the Earth axis. The Laurentide ice sheet looks like an earlier polar cap. In that case, the calculations could be effectively slightly off, plus if that happened, the oceans would have spilled over the dry land (because their inertia would yank the waters off their basins).

[damonbryan]

To any YD denialist. Explain the "energy paradox".