Kennett notes that these sites played an important role in documenting both the sudden loss of Ice Age megafauna and the disappearance of Clovis tools from the archaeological record. (Representational image: Freepik) The long-running scientific debate over the fate of mammoths is gaining new momentum, as new research bolsters the idea that a massive cosmic event disrupted life on Earth about 13,000 years ago. Some scientists now believe that fragments of a disintegrating comet exploded in the atmosphere over North America, setting off a chain reaction that may have contributed to the extinction of mammoths, mastodons and other large Ice Age animals and possibly one of the continent’s earliest human cultures.

In a study published in PLOS One, a research team led by UC Santa Barbara emeritus earth scientist James Kennett reports new findings from three famous archaeological sites associated with the Clovis culture. The locations — Murray Springs in Arizona, Blackwater Draw in New Mexico and Arlington Canyon on California’s Channel Islands — have long been at the center of discussions about North America’s Ice Age extinction.

At all three sites, researchers discovered microscopic particles of “shocked” quartz, a material typically associated with extreme heat and pressure.