New data suggests there may have been a huge meteor that struck the earth about 12,900 years ago. Greenland ice cores suggest that North America may been struck, causing climate change.

The climate change that resulted from the meteor's impact was likely responsible for extinction of animals such as the mammoth, the "Clovis" people, a North American tribe, wildfires, and oceanic changes.

At least 17 species of animals died during this period.

This theory is not a new one, but it has been debated due to a lack of clear evidence.

However, a layer of platinum has been found in ice that's the same age as the theoretical period of abrupt climate transition.

The climate "flip" created an ice age known as the "Younger Dryas", scientists think.

The new platinum measurements were conducted on ice cores that are 12,900 years old. Astoundingly, they allow a five-year period detection resolution on the ice that is almost 13,000 years old. This is a much closer reading than was previously possible.

The results show that there is 100 times more platinum in the ice, exactly as the rapid cooling was thought to begin. This set off a period called the "Younger Dryas".

During the "Younger Dryas", there was a rapid climate change. The period started and ended quickly but was highly dramatic. It may have only been a decade long.

The new research findings, by Michail Petaev and his team from Harvard University, are to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The observations lend credibility to another disputed report, which asserts that diamond and a galactic mineral called lonsdaleite that were deposited in lake sediments during the same period may have to do with meteor impact.

The potential role of changes to life on Earth due to cosmic impacts has been found increasingly. The extinction of the dinosaurs is now thought to be due to a meteor impact in southern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula millions of years ago.