Popular Press
Swedish Comet News Goes Global. American Newspaper Science Desks Remain Untroubled.
Another Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis paper catches the attention of international science media. And the beat goes on.
Read the storyYounger Dryas Impact Evidence
A Younger Dryas Discovery Hiding in Plain Sight at Smith Mountain Lake
Just below the dam, a centimeter of river sediment may preserve a trace of the catastrophe I believe changed human history 12,800 years ago.
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Carolina Bays
A remarkable view of the American landscape: Michael Davias’s LiDAR atlas comes to the Tusk
Explore Michael Davias’s extraordinary terrain atlas and Carolina bay measurements through our new resource page, with direct Google Earth downloads.
Read the storyThe ongoing record
All posts, newest first
Follow the research and commentary as it happens, then keep scrolling back through the years.
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A Younger Dryas Discovery Hiding in Plain Sight at Smith Mountain Lake
Just below the dam, a centimeter of river sediment may preserve a trace of the catastrophe I believe changed human history 12,800 years ago.
- →
Swedish Comet News Goes Global. American Newspaper Science Desks Remain Untroubled.
Another Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis paper catches the attention of international science media. And the beat goes on.
- →
A remarkable view of the American landscape: Michael Davias’s LiDAR atlas comes to the Tusk
Explore Michael Davias’s extraordinary terrain atlas and Carolina bay measurements through our new resource page, with direct Google Earth downloads.
→The Bib Gets Graphic: Nearly Twenty Years of the Younger Dryas Debate at a Glance
Three new graphics trace nearly twenty years of Younger Dryas impact literature, with 254 peer-reviewed entries and 107 non-peer-reviewed entries to explore.
→150 Years Apart: New Swedish Evidence Challenges a Volcanic Explanation for the Younger Dryas
A newly published core from southern Sweden separates the Laacher See eruption from a distinct platinum- and microspherule-rich Younger Dryas Boundary fallout layer.
→A Fresh Coat of Paint—and a Lot More Tusk
The Cosmic Tusk has a new look. And, after a year or so on life support, a new lease on life.
→Independent Younger Dryas Impact Evidence — And Now a Much More Powerful Confirmation
The scientific history of Wonderkrater makes this new paper especially compelling. The platinum anomaly was not originally discovered by the Comet Research Group or by scientists closely associated with the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. It...
→Santa Rosa Island’s Black Mats: Somebody Please Take the Picture
Some scientific controversies require satellites, laboratories, expeditions, and million-dollar equipment. Others require a camera, a GPS unit, a range pole and free weekend. The Arlington Canyon exposure on Santa Rosa Island belongs in the second...
→Retraction Over Nuisance Disputes
Two Younger Dryas boundary papers were recently retracted by PLOS ONE. Within hours, critics began circulating the notices as though they represented the long-awaited collapse of the impact hypothesis. They do not. Let’s look plainly...
→Shocked Quartz at the Boundary — and a Plasma Plume in the Backyard
This has been a satisfying week for the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. For years, critics of the hypothesis demanded two things above all else: “show us shocked quartz at the boundary, and show us an...
→Russian Lake: More Evidence for Recent Cosmic Impacts
Paper: Abbott, D.H., McCafferty, P., et al. (2025). “New Data from a Round, Deep Basin in the Russian Heartland: The Smerdyachee Basin as a Prospective Impact Crater.” Airbursts and Cratering Impacts Link: https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14293/ACI.2025.0002...
→The Cosmic Tusk Open Access PowerPoint
The Cosmic Tusk is pleased to remind readers that our comprehensive Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis presentation is available for public download and use under Resources > Open Access Free Powerpoint Prepared and refined over years...
Cosmic Summit · In person & beyond
The Tusk comes to life.
The researchers, the presentations, the arguments—and the friendships that carry on long after the last session. Revisit the gatherings and follow what comes next.
The Cosmic Tusk Podcast
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The Tusk, in conversation.
Extended conversations about cosmic impacts, ancient mysteries, and the ideas explored here on the Tusk.
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Steve Baker Named a J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect. The FBI Arrested Someone Else.
George Howard interviews Steve Baker about his reporting and competing accounts of the January 6 pipe bomb investigation.
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Did Every Major Religion Begin With Mushrooms? (Hidden in the Bible)
Watch on YouTube →Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
View allPro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
Retraction Over Nuisance Disputes
Two Younger Dryas boundary papers were recently retracted by PLOS ONE. Within hours, critics began circulating the notices as though they represented the long-awaited collapse of the impact hypothesis. They do not. Let’s look plainly...
Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
Gunther Kletetschka Drops the Tunguska Hammer
Dr. Gunther Kletetschka—a proud Cosmic Summit 2025 speaker—has published a must-read paper that delivers another solid blow to the crumbling edifice of skeptical objections to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH). The article, titled “Misunderstandings...
Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
The CRG Strikes Again: Deep Sea Sediments Support Younger Dryas Impact
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” — John Maynard Keynes Once again, the Comet Research Group has dealt a blow to mainstream serenity. In a...
Younger Dryas Impact Evidence
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Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
Comet Research Group kicks off new journal with blockbuster papers
The Comet Research Group published profoundly important new data this weekend concerning the Younger Dryas Impact. A series of three papers were led by Dr. Andrew M.T. Moore, former President of the Archaeological Institute of...
Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
Alpine Younger Dryas Impact evidence
A masterful and comprehensive effort here from respected Comet Research Group co-author, Bill Mahaney. Much of the discipline-specific text is hard for the Tusk to fully grasp, and I have had no time to properly review, but I have asked Bill to provide a layman's summary of...
Pro Younger Dryas Impact Papers
New study from Argentina: Population crash in the Americas followed Younger Dryas comet impact
Last month a little noted but fascinating journal article was published providing empirical, genetic evidence for a central claim of the Comet Research Group since 2007: A dramatic loss of life due to the rain of comet fragments.
Popular Press
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Popular Press
Hot Comet News, Cold Shoulders from the Newspaper Science Desks
Last updated: August 10, 2025 The Cosmic Tusk is pleased—frankly, thrilled—to see broad international coverage of the new PLOS ONE paper documenting cometary debris in Baffin Bay sediments and strengthening the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis....
Popular Press
NYT: 6000 word Sunday feature article on the YDI and Comet Research Group
The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Die Reporters, too, are complicit. “The failure to properly report evidence for the Younger Dryas Impact will one day be understood as the worst intellectual crime in...
Popular Press
Ancient Apocalypse
It's kinda hard for your correspondent to keep a secret, but I've managed to keep my Tusk shut for quite some time now about a long planned NetFlix series concerning the Younger Dryas Impact.
Carolina Bays
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Carolina Bays
Tusk and Co. dig a Carolina Bay
Want to know a sure-fire formula to get long time internet friends together in person — and even outdoors on a blazing August day? Dig up a perfectly featured Carolina Bay. Long time Carolina bay...
Carolina Bays
Saginaw Bay fingered by gravity data as ice impact feature
Wow. The cascade of stupefying new discoveries continues. A paper published today in the Journal of Great Lakes Research provides evidence from gravity anomalies that Saginaw Bay in Michigan is a remnant feature of an...
Carolina Bays
Tusk on the Carolina Bays
In the weeks following the Hiawatha Crater discovery, I took the opportunity to post a personal note concerning the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis on my Facebook page. Deeper in the thread as a result of...
Panspermia
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Panspermia
More misinformation from Space.com
I saw this article and immediately recalled how poorly informed and uninspiring a publication Space.com is. Like most mainstream hack jobs concerning astrobiology, the article teases the reader with hints of life, but entirely ignores...
Panspermia
The Wickramsinghe Affair: Letter of Inquiry
I emailed an inquiry to Hermine Landt-Wilman of Durham University, and Chair of the Organizing Committee for the Astrobiology Conference that rudely canceled Chandra Wickramasinghe’s Public Lecture in April. I introduced the affair in a...
Panspermia
Chandra Wickramasinghe, Cambridge (’60), Member of the Order of the British Empire (’22), cancelled for life lecture at Durham University: A Tusk Investigation
Tusk buddy Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe was gleefully invited by Durham University to give an evening lecture this April on the origin of life. And was cancelled today without courtesy or explanation. Queen Elizabeth II thought...
Catastrophism
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Catastrophism
Comet Research Group member Marc Young presents at Flinders U
In 2009 the newly proposed Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis was knee capped by Surovell et al.
Catastrophism
Ancient airburst over Ohio
Erudite Tusk commentor Stuart Hamish below refers accurately to this Neuheuser and Neuheuser paper responding to Tankersley et al., as "hair splitting." I'd agree.
Catastrophism
Younger Dryas Impacts gain MORE global attention
Tusk travel buddy from the Egypt 2020 Expedition, Jimmy Corsetti of Bright Insight, appeared last week on The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular conversation on planet earth. The Younger Dryas Impact was a frequent...
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