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The widespread occurrence of peculiar samples in the Nalbach area covering many square kilometers and exhibiting convincing indications of high temperatures and high pressures, in particular the mineralogical evidence of strong shock, establishes a meteorite impact event in the Holocene as a matter of fact according to the generally accepted opinion that shock metamorphism in rocks proves a meteorite impact. The young Holocene age is concluded from the concentration of the peculiar finds in the upper soil layers, the very fresh status of the impact glasses and the young appearance of the now discovered probable impact crater. Using impact scaling...

Arguing from a critical reading of the text, and scientific evidence on the ground, the authors show that the myth of Phaethon -- the delinquent celestial charioteer -- remembers the impact of a massive meteorite that hit the Chiemgau region in Bavaria between 2000 and 428 BC. Keywords: Bronze Age, Phaethon, Ovid, meteorite, Celts, myth Access this article (PDF File).

People living in southern Germany during Roman times may have witnessed a comet impact 5,000 times more destructive than the Hiroshima atom bomb, researchers say. Scientists believe a field of craters around Lake Chiemsee, in south-east Bavaria, was caused by fragments of a huge comet that broke up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Celtic artefacts found at the site, including a number of coins, appear to have been strongly heated on one side. This discovery, together with evidence from ancient tree rings and Roman reports of “stones falling from the sky”, has led researchers to conclude that the impact happened in...