The trigger of the planet's most recent ice age may have been a massive impact event. Approximately 2.5 million years ago, a massive asteroid slammed into the ocean off the western coastline of Chile, forming a 35 kilometer or 22 mile wide crater. Its formation generated towering megatsunamis which would go on to impact the entire Pacific Ocean. If not for this ancient event, the ice age may have never happened. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth, Data LDEO-Columbia, NSF, NOAA, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border & the GeologyHub logo). Estimates on asteroid diameter, velocity, tnt energy equivalent, frequency of a similar magnitude asteroid/comet impact event, and effects from the impact (including earthquake magnitude generated and wind speeds generated) in this video were sourced using the calculator at https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects, which was used with permission. Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers This video is protected under "fair use". If you see an image and/or video which is your own in this video, and/or think my discussion of a scientific paper (and/or discussion/mentioning of the data/information within a scientific paper) does not fall under the fair use doctrine, and wish for it to be censored or removed, contact me by email at [email protected] and I will make the necessary changes. Various licenses used in sections of this video (not the entire video, this video as a whole does not completely fall under one of these licenses) and/or in this video's thumbnail image (and this list does not include every license used in this video and/or thumbnail image): CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode Sources/Citations: [1] Nozaki, T., Ohta, J., Noguchi, T. et al. A Miocene impact ejecta layer in the pelagic Pacific Ocean. Sci Rep 9, 16111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-52709-1, CC BY 4.0. [2] Frank T Kyte, Iridium concentrations and abundances of meteoritic ejecta from the Eltanin impact in sediment cores from Polarstern expedition ANT XII/4, Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, Volume 49, Issue 6, 2002, Pages 1049-1061, ISSN 0967-0645, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0967-0645(01)00139-4. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064501001394) [3] Gersonde, R. , Kyte, F. , Frederichs, T. , Bleil, U. , Schenke, H. W. and Kuhn, G. (2005): The late Pleiocene impact of the Eltanin asteroid into the Southern Ocean - Documentation and environmental consequences, EGU General Assembly 2005, 23.-29.April, Vienna, Austria. [4] Robert Weiss, Patrick Lynett, Kai Wünnemann, The Eltanin impact and its tsunami along the coast of South America: Insights for potential deposits, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 409, 2015, Pages 175-181, ISSN 0012-821X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.10.050. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14006773) [5] Darrel K. Robertson, Galen R. Gisler, Near and far-field hazards of asteroid impacts in oceans, Acta Astronautica, Volume 156, 2019, Pages 262-277, ISSN 0094-5765, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.09.018. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576517314996) [6] Kyte, F. T. and Gersonde, R. (2003): Eltanin meteorite and implications for the mesosiderite parent body , 66th Annual meteoritical Soc. meeting, July 26-Aug. 1, 2003, Münster, Germany. [7] Goff, J., Chagué-Goff, C., Archer, M., Dominey-Howes, D. and Turney, C. (2012), The Eltanin asteroid impact: possible South Pacific palaeomegatsunami footprint and potential implications for the Pliocene–Pleistocene transition. J. Quaternary Sci., 27: 660-670. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2571 [8] Roberto Marivela Colmenarejo, Numerical Perspective on Tsunami Hazards and Their Mitigation by Coastal Vegetation, 2017, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [9] Keisuke Sugiura, Makiko K. Haba, Hidenori Genda, Giant impact onto a Vesta-like asteroid and formation of mesosiderites through mixing of metallic core and surface crust, Icarus, Volume 379, 2022, 114949, ISSN 0019-1035, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2022.114949. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103522000690), CC BY 4.0. [10] G. Collins & others, "A numerical assessment of simple airblast models of impact...", Meteoritics & Planetary Science, https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12873 (2017), CC BY 4.0 [11] Wikipedia, "Eltanin impact", CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltanin_impact [12] Wikipedia, "Meteorite fall statistics", CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite_fall_statistics 0:00 Eltanin Impact 1:30 Iridium Concentrations 2:17 Mesosiderites 3:32 Impact Effects 4:45 Ice Age Trigger