* Younger Dryas refers to a period from approximately 12,800 to 11,600 years ago when Earth suddenly returned to glacial conditions. * Evidence shows The Younger Dryas was triggered by impacts from several fragments of a comet that hit Earth. Click on book for video.. The devastation from the impacts was global, the carnage centered on North America where at the time a two-mile thick sheet of ice covered half the continent. one fragment of comet hit this glacial shelf near Washington state, the ice instantly liquified causing a flood of meltwater 1,000 feet high to tear across the land. Caught in this rush of water were blocks of ice as big as oil tankers, which grinded across the earth like erasers. When the floodwaters reached the coast, sea levels immediately rose. More than 10 million square miles of land—the size of Europe and China combined—was submerged by water. Fiery ejectors from the comet impacts also ignited wildfires that raged all over Earth, destroying 10% of Ea...