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Cretaceous Calamity: The Extinction of Dinosaurs

Explore the evidence and learn what happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Discover the impact of a massive asteroid, global wildfires, and the resulting impact winter. This information can be applied to understanding events like a murder.

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Cretaceous Calamity: The Extinction of Dinosaurs

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  1. What is the best explanation for what happened in this picture? Were you there? How do you know it happened? What evidence do you have? How might this be applied to something like a murder?

  2. Evidence A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.

  3. Cretaceous Calamity: How do we know what happened to the dinosaurs?

  4. The Dinosaurs took a giant dirt nap 65 million years ago and went extinct. • How do we know? • What evidence do we have and what story does it tell?

  5. Evidence? • K-T boundary sedimentary band all over the world has iridium ranging from 20-160 times normal amount. • Iridium is rare in Earth’s crust, but abundant in asteroids/comets Alvarez, L.W. Science. 1980, 208, 1095-1108.

  6. Iridium spike at K/T boundary • Iridium is an element that occurs in the Earths crust in only tiny proportions.

  7. weak.

  8. Soot particles found in boundary clay Similar to Fly Ash From Coal-Burning Plants Suggest global wildfires associated with ignition of large amounts of dead plant matter on Earth’s surface.

  9. Richard D. Norris and the Ocean Drilling Project Leg 171B Scientific Party http://www.usssp-iodp.org/Publications/Greatest_Hits/contributors.html#n Photomicrographs by Brian Huber, Smithsonian Institution. Low-res. versions are hosted at: http://www.usssp-iodp.org/Education/resources.html More information: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/blast Sediment core from offshore South Carolina, showing the extinction across the K/T boundary. Core is 40 cm long (about 16 inches).

  10. Tektites, glass beads found in boundary sediments Due to melting of rock by energy of bolide (asteroid or comet) impact ? Glass found in boundary sediments of Gulf of Mexico

  11. Timothy Culler (UCB) et al., Apollo 11 Crew, NASA • http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000322.html • Cosmic spherule from the moon. • Spherules such as this are well-known from impact deposits, and are found in the special K/T impact bed that marks the end of the dinosaurs.

  12. Shocked Quartz in K-T Boundary Clay Shock Metamorphism Has only been observed at meteorite impact sites and nuclear test sites

  13. Chicxulub Crater Impact site buried underneath Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, discovered by a geophysicist in the late 1970s. Took about 20 years to fully investigate crater Evidence for impact: Shocked quartz Tektites Gravity anomaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater

  14. Impact Site: Chicxulub Location of Chicxulub crater (180-300 km in diameter) Image from geophyscal survey over Yucatan Peninsula Crater actually discovered in 1978 by a geophysicist working for Petróleos Mexicanos Pemex did not release the data for fear of revealing valuable information to competitors. “Rediscovered” by Alan Hildebrand in 1991

  15. Cenotes are popular attractions

  16. Alvarez Impact Able to calculate size of meteor Would have to be 10-15 km in diameter (size of a mountain, or Manhattan) Impact of that size would have an incredible amount of energy 1 x 108 megatons, 2 million times greater than most powerful thermonuclear bomb tested! Alvarez, L.W. Science. 1980, 208, 1095-1108.

  17. “The initial impact crater was about 100 kilometers (60 miles) wide and 30 kilometers (18 miles) deep.” • Fireball and airblast that engulfed the zone modeled byT Earth Impact Effects Program

  18. Global Firestorms Regional Tsunamis

  19. NE Mexico: Tsunamites ? Believed to have been deposited by tsunami generated by impact Belize: Ejecta Blanket Poorly sorted debris believed to be ejecta deposited close to crater.

  20. Computer model of effects of K-T Impact Winter No sunlight = no photosynthesis= cascade of death through food chains Earth in darkness for at least 6 months after asteroid impact

  21. All non avian dinos =dead All large animals=dead

  22. Fern Spike / Pollen Trough Pollen/spore ratio takes a dive at about same level as iridium spike Records early recolonization of land after impact winter ?

  23. Asteroid and shock wave blast long trench Rings of complex crater form, by rebound Impact winter -debris injected into atmosphere -lots of dead, rotting organic matter -global wildfires -blocking of sunlight -consumption of ozone ?

  24. So what happened to impactor ? Most of impactor probably vapourized during blast …but possible fragment 100 trillionth of a gram found in drillcore in NW Pacific

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