Holocene Impact Working Group

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The Holocene Impact Working Group is a group of scientists from Australia, France, Ireland, Russia and the USA who hypothesise that meteorite impacts on Earth are more common than previously supposed.

The group posits one large impact (equivalent to a 10-megaton bomb) every 1,000 years. Ths estimate is based on evidence of five to ten large impact events in the last 10,000 years. Satellite observations suggest the presence of many recent impact craters and landforms such as chevrons which are thought to have been caused by megatsunamis. The chevrons often point in the direction of specific impact craters, the supposition being that the chevrons were deposited by tsunamis originating from the impacts which formed those craters.

The group states that their hypothesis is likely to be controversial: "I wouldn't expect 99.9 per cent of (the scientific community) to agree with us"[1] Their work is controversial because it contradicts much of what is understood about impacts and tsunamis.

Group Members:

Associate Professor Ted Bryant, geomorphologist, Wollongong University, Australia
Dallas Abbott, research scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York
Slava Gusiakov, Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory, Russia
Marie-Agnès Courty, soil scientist, European Center for Prehistoric Research, Tautavel, France
Dee Breger, director of microscopy, Drexel University, Philadelphia
Bruce Masse, environmental archaeologist, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico