Sub-bottom sediments within a 200 × 600 km area on the crest and south slope (water depth 1200-2500 meter) of the submarine Alpha Ridge in the central Arctic Ocean have been locally disrupted down to at least 500 meter below the seabed, suffered intensive local current erosion, and abundant mass wasting. There appears to be a westward progression along the ridge from an eastern area of chaotic and eroded sub-bottom sediments to proximal intense erosion of an undisturbed section and a more distal occurrence of mass wasting and minor erosion. As a working hypothesis, we propose that the spectrum and scale of drastic, spatially restricted and apparently geologically short-lived environmental changes are compatible with the effect of a shock wave from the impact of an extra-terrestrial body into the central Arctic Ocean.