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X Demographics
Mendeley readers
Attention Score in Context
| Title |
Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 2012
|
| DOI | 10.1073/pnas.1110614109 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Isabel Israde-Alcántara, James L. Bischoff, Gabriela Domínguez-Vázquez, Hong-Chun Li, Paul S. DeCarli, Ted E. Bunch, James H. Wittke, James C. Weaver, Richard B. Firestone, Allen West, James P. Kennett, Chris Mercer, Sujing Xie, Eric K. Richman, Charles R. Kinzie, Wendy S. Wolbach |
| Abstract |
We report the discovery in Lake Cuitzeo in central Mexico of a black, carbon-rich, lacustrine layer, containing nanodiamonds, microspherules, and other unusual materials that date to the early Younger Dryas and are interpreted to result from an extraterrestrial impact. These proxies were found in a 27-m-long core as part of an interdisciplinary effort to extract a paleoclimate record back through the previous interglacial. Our attention focused early on an anomalous, 10-cm-thick, carbon-rich layer at a depth of 2.8 m that dates to 12.9 ka and coincides with a suite of anomalous coeval environmental and biotic changes independently recognized in other regional lake sequences. Collectively, these changes have produced the most distinctive boundary layer in the late Quaternary record. This layer contains a diverse, abundant assemblage of impact-related markers, including nanodiamonds, carbon spherules, and magnetic spherules with rapid melting/quenching textures, all reaching synchronous peaks immediately beneath a layer containing the largest peak of charcoal in the core. Analyses by multiple methods demonstrate the presence of three allotropes of nanodiamond: n-diamond, i-carbon, and hexagonal nanodiamond (lonsdaleite), in order of estimated relative abundance. This nanodiamond-rich layer is consistent with the Younger Dryas boundary layer found at numerous sites across North America, Greenland, and Western Europe. We have examined multiple hypotheses to account for these observations and find the evidence cannot be explained by any known terrestrial mechanism. It is, however, consistent with the Younger Dryas boundary impact hypothesis postulating a major extraterrestrial impact involving multiple airburst(s) and and/or ground impact(s) at 12.9 ka. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 32 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 8 | 25% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 6% |
| Puerto Rico | 1 | 3% |
| Argentina | 1 | 3% |
| Mexico | 1 | 3% |
| Chile | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 18 | 56% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 23 | 72% |
| Scientists | 7 | 22% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 6% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 223 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 7 | 3% |
| Mexico | 5 | 2% |
| United Kingdom | 3 | 1% |
| France | 2 | <1% |
| Chile | 1 | <1% |
| Czechia | 1 | <1% |
| Brazil | 1 | <1% |
| Netherlands | 1 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 3 | 1% |
| Unknown | 198 | 89% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | 44 | 20% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 33 | 15% |
| Student > Master | 29 | 13% |
| Student > Bachelor | 25 | 11% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 18 | 8% |
| Other | 48 | 22% |
| Unknown | 26 | 12% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 98 | 44% |
| Environmental Science | 29 | 13% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 23 | 10% |
| Arts and Humanities | 8 | 4% |
| Chemistry | 7 | 3% |
| Other | 24 | 11% |
| Unknown | 34 | 15% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 66. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 September 2023.
All research outputs
#651,155
of 25,587,485 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#11,037
of 103,382 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,923
of 169,015 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#77
of 844 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,587,485 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 103,382 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 39.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 169,015 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 844 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.