Los Angeles, California, January 2: Researchers have come up with a fascinating discovery; they have discovered the evidence that shows, 13,000 years ago a comet had struck the region of North America, which caused heavy flooding, fires and a short ice age in that area

A group of researchers supervised by an archaeologist Douglas Kennett found nanodiamonds linked with a black soil layer that consisted of the particles of burned debris, and this makes it evident that a comet must have struck that region causing fires and other environmental disturbances.

Nanodiamonds as the name suggests are very minute diamonds and are visible only under microscope. Nanodimonds are tiny diamonds that are formed by massive heat released during an enormous process like a catastrophe.

Nanodimonds found by the research team are the remnants of the comet and were formed at the time of collision, as per scientists.

James Kennett, a paleo-oceanographer (Douglas Kennett's father) stated, "There's no other way we can interpret the presence of these diamonds other than an extraterrestrial impact."

James Kennett is certain that there was a comet collision, which destroyed almost everything; animals, humans, plants etc, whatever came in its way. Nanodimonds were the leftovers from that calamity and their presence is a clear pointer towards the occurrence of the comet collision almost 12,900 years ago.

According to the researchers, not less than 15 extinctions took place within 100 years of the comet incidence and nearly 35 different species of particularly large animals (like mammoths and mastodons, the short-faced bear and the American camel), vanished in the short ice age(also called the Younger Dryas )that followed the comet impact.

A paper regarding this discovery was published in the well known journal called Science. In that paper, researchers stated that after the comet impact the human population in North America had also declined due to a series of cataclysms.

However, there are few experts, who have expressed suspicion regarding this discovery and they have remarked that the research team must verify the existence of nanodimonds to prove the findings.

Tyrone Daulton, a physicist of Washington University in St. Louis maintained, "Nanodiamonds could be a good indicator of an impact event . . . but after reading the paper, I wasn't convinced they found diamonds… Maybe they found diamonds and maybe they didn't."