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The main cause of a rapid global cooling period, known as the Big Freeze or Younger Dryas, that occurred nearly 13,000 years ago was a mega-flood path across North America which channeled melt-water from a giant ice sheet into the oceans triggering the cold snap.

Mark Bateman from the University of Sheffield´s Department of Geography, and colleagues discovered that a mega-flood, caused by the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet, was routed up into Canada, mixing huge amounts of fresh water with the salt water of the Arctic Ocean.

Before now, scientists have speculated that the mega-flood was the main cause of the abrupt cooling period, but the path of the flood waters has long been debated and no convincing evidence had been found establishing a route from the ice-sheet to the North Atlantic.

Full story at Futurity.

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Photo credit: University of Sheffield