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A comet impact is the cause of famine in the year 536 :: 22 January, 2009

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A famine occurred 1,500 years ago until now remained unexplained. It could have been caused by a falling comet.

Others relate to historical documents from the year 536 of our era, the sky was obscured for ten-eight months by a strange cloud of dust to the point where the sun was brighter than the Full Moon years earlier. According to the chroniclers of the time, temperatures declined considerably and were no crops, causing a terrible famine.

So far, nothing has helped to explain this phenomenon. Also, the assumptions were well underway, suggesting that volcanic eruptions are not yet kept no record, or a meteorite fall.

This last explanation seems confirmed by the work of Dallas Abbott, a specialist in geophysics and marine geology, a researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Observatory of Columbia University (New York), which supports the hypothesis of impact meteorites and presented its findings at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco (under publication).

Spherules vitreous, evidence of an impact

Its conclusions are based on the discovery of multiple spherule vitrified in the ice cores collected in Greenland regularly distributed in several layers over several years and the oldest dates from the year 536. Comprised mainly of magnetite, and quartz glass, these spherules do not come directly from meteorites, but were produced by the kinetic energy during impact and are part of ejecta, they have very well have been spread on the entire globe.

According to Dallas Abbott, assuming multiple accredit the impact of a comet rather than temperature, as this was then fragmented before reaching the earth like comet Shoemaker-Levi who struck Jupiter in 1994.

With his team, Abbott has identified two craters submarines whose age could correspond with the event. The first, located in the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia, was formed by the collapse of an object 640 meters in diameter while the second, smaller, is located in the North Sea off Norway. These discoveries are interesting because the spherules identified in the cores from Greenland are often accompanied by microfossils that could have been transported with them.