Publications by authors named "J W Wittke"
We present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea. The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A city-wide ~ 1.
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- The Younger Dryas boundary layer at Abu Hureyra, Syria, is around 12,800 years old and contains high levels of meltglass, nanodiamonds, microspherules, and charcoal, indicating significant geological events.
- The composition of the meltglass shows a mix of local sediment and meteoritic material, with evidence pointing to extremely high temperatures (up to 2200°C) during its formation, ruling out common sources like fires or lightning.
- The findings suggest that a cosmic event may have impacted the area, aligning with similar high-temperature evidence found at other sites globally, linked to events occurring around the same time.