Large Pt anomaly in the Greenland ice core points to a cataclysm at the onset of Younger… (SRC-PETAEV-2013)

Large Pt anomaly in the Greenland ice core points to a cataclysm at the onset of Younger Dryas

Petaev, M. I.; Huang, S.; Jacobsen, S. B.; Zindler, A. · 2013

AI-verified citationSRC-PETAEV-2013

identifier / locator

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(32): 12917–12920. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1303924110

verification note

Confirmed via Crossref (2026-08-22 batch): all fields match.

reliability notes

Harvard geochemistry group, independent of the Comet Research Group; the measurement is broadly accepted while the title's 'cataclysm' interpretation is not — a 2013 comment (Boslough) proposed a non-cataclysmic meteorite entry, and the 2026 Moore et al. correction now characterizes the source as unresolved.

Evidence drawn from this source

Supports· strongYDIH-E001

what the source states: High-resolution (2.5–4.6 year) ICP-MS time series of GISP2 ice identified a platinum anomaly near the Younger Dryas onset — per the 2026 corrected characterization: spanning ~21 years, average ~30 ppt, single-sample peak ~80 ppt — with rising Pt over ~14 years and a fall over ~7, which the authors interpreted as consistent with atmospheric deposition of Pt-rich dust from an unusual, Ir-deficient, possibly extraterrestrial source whose identity could not be established with certainty.
what we infer: The best-attested single observation in the case: an independent (non-CRG) laboratory, a premier archive, a real geochemical event. It is evidential grade one of four — an elemental anomaly with no identified carrier — and everything beyond that grade is interpretation.
limitations: The anomaly's source and carrier remain unidentified; a contemporaneous PNAS comment (Boslough 2013) proposed a non-cataclysmic meteorite entry as sufficient.
~30 ppt over ~21 years is a subtle influx, not by itself a catastrophe signature.