A controversial theory put forth by Arizona-based geophysicist Allan West a few years ago is looking more likely with new evidence found in recent weeks. West proposed that a comet or asteroid explosion just above the earth's surface at the end of the last Ice Age 12,900 years ago created a massive shock wave and heat pulse that set large parts of the northern hemisphere ablaze.A new report from the University of Cincinnati says anthropology professor Ken Tankersley, working with Allen West and Indiana Geological Survey Research Scientist Nelson R. Schaffer, has verified samples of diamonds, gold and silver that have been found in sites in Ohio and Indiana offers the strongest support yet for the exploding comet/asteroid theory. The samples are conclusively sourced back to the diamond fields region of Canada, based on X-ray diffractometry in the lab of Univ. of Cinncinnati geology professor Warren Huff . The only plausible scenario available now for explaining their presence this far south they say, is the kind of cataclysmic explosive event described by West's theory.
[photo: A "black mat" of algal growth in Arizona marks a line of extinction at 12,900 years ago; Clovis points and mammoth skeletons were found at the line but not above it. Credit: Allan West, UCSB]