The Younger Dryas stadial, also referred to as the Big Freeze, was a geologically period of cold climatic conditions and drought that began in 10,800 BC (12,811 years ago). The cause of the Big Freeze has been a controversial subject. Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of the climate change has been experienced since. The Big Freeze replaced the forest land in Scandinavia with glacial tundra. It caused the level of snow accumulation in the mountains to increase and the North American Clovis culture disappeared after the event. The climate change is correlated with the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna.

A collection of geologists have claimed the Big Freeze was caused by the collapse of the North American ice sheets, while others have supported the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. The impact hypothesis claims that ... Read more »

The Flims Rockslide is the biggest landslide known to have occurred in the Alps. The effect of the slide is still widely visible today. It moved some 12 km3 (2.9 cu mi) of rock. The top of the slide can be found at 2,700 meters (8,858 ft) above sea level north of Flims at Mount Fil de Cassons. The fallen rock is limestone dating from the Mesozoic, including Mergel. The angle of slide is only 20-25 degrees. The falling debris formed a dam on the Vorderrhein River and created a lake in the Ilanz area. The river Rhine eventually crossed the debris field in an area named Ruinaulta.

A geologist named Clemens Augenstein performed a collection of tests at the site. He studied sediment found embedded in the limestone dust. Using carbon dating, the limestone dust was found to be 10,055 years old (plus/minus 195 years). This puts ... Read more »

The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. In the aftermath of the last ice age, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The Black Sea was originally a land-locked fresh water lake and was flooded with salt water during the Holocene. The influx of salt water essentially smothered the fresh water below it, which meant that no oxygen could reach the deep waters. This created a meromictic body of water. This type of underwater environment is hostile to many biological organisms that destroy wood in the oxygenated waters and provides an excellent site for deep water archaeological survey.

In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Robert Ballard identified what appeared t ... Read more »

The Bridge of the Gods is a natural bridge that was created by the Bonneville slide. The Bonneville slide is a major landslide that dammed the Columbia River near present-day Cascade Locks, Oregon in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The event is remembered in local legends of the Native Americans as the Bridge of the Gods.

The Bonneville landslide sent a large amount of debris south from Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak, covering more than 5.5 square miles (14 km2). The debris fell into the Columbia Gorge close to modern-day Cascade Locks, Oregon, blocking the Columbia River with a natural dam approximately 200 feet (61 m) high and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) long. The impounded river formed a lake and drowned a forest of trees for about 35 miles (56 km). The Columbia River eventually broke through the dam and washed away most of the debris, forming the Cascade Rapids. Geologists ... Read more »