What Made This Huge Hole Under Greenland?

In the mid-2010s, researchers discovered something odd underneath Greenland - there was a giant hole under a glacier, and they had no idea what had caused it. More confusing still, other researchers were searching for the cause of a mini Ice Age that killed off most of the megafauna and wiped out the Clovis people. Could the Greenland hole be the key to this mystery? Scientists turned to a humble little mineral to put all the pieces together: Quartz.

Hosted by: Hank Green (he/him)
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Sources:

[TSZatoichi]

"A volcanic eruption in Germany" is one of those things you just never expect to hear.

[curtishoffmann]

Interesting mention of examining grains of rice with the jeweler's loupe. I teach English in Japan and one of my students is an archeologist studying Jomon-era sites around the country. One of her focuses is on small amounts of starch cells embedded in the pottery unearthed at the site. Each species of grain has its own starch cellular structure, and she uses that knowledge to determine what the Jomon peoples raised and ate as a grain crop.

[TheGiggleMasterP]

It was definitely just a glitch in the original biome rendering

[MrDave]

quartz sand, you don't have to put on the red light

[alexhigginbotham]

"What's under here?" - All of the world's left socks.

[MaunoMato]

Disappointed it wasn't sand worms.
Happy it wasn't PDF documents, wouldn't wish the font incompatibility on anyone, imagine if they only had 12000 year old fonts, they barely work if you have the latest fonts from this year.

[JTA]

The jury is still out on this one...but... I'll see you in...Quartz

[fricki]

3:42 Who'd win, 700 one-megaton bombs or one 700 megaton bomb?

[PlayMad]

I love that your office/set is as disheveled as your hair. Good synergy.


Also, I’m glad you’re healthy… thank you for many years of great mind-expanding content!

[brianhurd]

If nothing else I learned that I've been misspelling "Jeweler's Loop (sic)" for decades, if only mentally. Thanks, SciShow. I have one less blind spot.

[anyascelticcreations]

This is one of my absolute favorite Scishow episodes so far as it touches on so many of my special interests. So much so that I actually chose where I live in part due to quartz.

[sarasmr]

It's good to see Hank looking so healthy. 💜💜💜

[kentuckyroutezero]

Unrelated, but SciShow was found on the spreadsheet that Runway Ai used to train their AI on, The Verge posted a copy of it. I love y’all and have for a long time, I don’t want your stuff being stolen!

[Dvpainter]

I don't think that crater would be so defined if there was a great deal of ice there during the impact event, so 58 million makes sense anyway for it from what I've been able to learn

[GizzyDillespee]

0:59 The Clovis people didn't disappear from the archeological record. The specific style of point (spearhead etc) disappeared from the archeological record. The people switched to newer technology, presumably to adapt to changing conditions (including fewer megafauna).

[BrowntownBashers]

I'm surprised an air burst powerful enough to shock quartz didn't also leave a crater.

[leewoodrough]

Will you please look into the possible giant crater in Hudson bay? It makes a near perfectly circular arc on the eastern shore. Everything I have read just states that it is a unique geologic structure that just coincidentally happens to be nearly perfectly circular but I would bet money that there is more to the story.

[TheChristmasNinja]

How does an air burst impart enough force in the ground to create shocked quartz across the east coast without also leveling every forest on the continent?

[latheofheaven]

I love this. We have a mysterious climate event and a possible candidate for a cause, but when we do science (rather than speculation and 'common sense') we find that the candidate must be dismissed, BUT... we've learned some seriously interesting stuff along the way.

[SkunkApe]

As a Professional Surveyor and Mapper, I see "Big Hole in Ground", I click. Someone grab my RTK rig. We got some measuring to do!!!😂