A view from “The Golden Book of Dinosaurs” For 160,000,000 years, Dinosaurs ruled the land.

1. A view from “The Golden Book of Dinosaurs” For 160,000,000 years, Dinosaurs ruled the land. Our view of these strange creatures has changed since I was in school, from lumbering reptile like animals to more bird-like group of their own

2. The rule of the Dinosaurs came to an end when 65 million years ago, the Earth had a very bad day

3. From the top to the bottom of the food chain, land and sea species became extinct during this massive event. Dinosaurs, who had ruled the land for 160 million years disappeared forever.

4. Large flying reptiles, including the famous pterodons and pterodactyls, also suffered complete extinction. http://www2.gasou.edu/musenews/mosasaur50.gifa http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html Ammonites, mososaurs, pterodactyls from Microsoft’s Dinosaur Fearsome marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs, disappeared

5. Marine plankton that formed the base of the ocean food chain were severely affected, with only a handful of species surviving this massive extinction.

6. The Alvarezes

7. Gubbio Italy where the Iridium layer was discovered The light colored rocks below have a diverse planktonic foraminifera Assemblage. Above the Ir-rich clay, the marine sediments have few Planktonic foraminifera. http://www.planetary.org/html/news/Italy/whyitaly.html

8. Iridum concentrations at the K-T boundary Section in Gubio, Italy http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Communication/Lee/irspike.html

9. Meteor Crater in the state of Arizona Measures 1.2 km in diameter.

10. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/apod/ap970701.html Asteroid 253 Mathilde:'s Large Craters Image of the subglacial eruption in Vatnajökull, Iceland http://www.norvol.hi.is/eruptimg.html

11. Shocked Quartz from Bass River State Park in New Jersey.

13. The discovery of the cause of this mass extinction event is one the of the great scientific detective stories of the 20th century. Walter Alvarez tells his part of the story in “T. rex and the Crater of Doom.” Where was the impact crater?

16. Location of sink holes in Yucatan Peninsula. Note that the crater rim is defined By the sink hole locations.

17. Gravity Map showing the Subsurface crater outline

18. Another Gravity image

19. Bass River Drilling Operations

20. Chief Scientists Studying the core Paleocene Spherules Creataceous

21. Stratigraphic Diagram of the Bass River K-T Boundary Section Senoniasphaera inornata Glauconitic silty clay, poorly Hornerstown Fm. Damassadinium californicum Tertiary fossiliferous Lowermost Danian Parasubbotina pseudobulloides Clay clast Not examined Praemurica taurica Globoconusa daubjergensis Woodringina claytonensis Woodringina hornerstownensis Eoglobigerina eobulloides Parvularugoglobigerina eugubina cm from the K-T boundary Zone Thoracosphaera Palynodinium Micula prinsii bloom grallator Zone Cretaceous Burrowed glauconitic clay, richly fossiliferous Uppermost Maastrichtian Cretaceous assemblage New Egypt Formation Guembelitria cretacea Hedbergella monmouthensis A. mayaroensis Burrows Not examined

22. Images of the Spherule

23. Impression of the Spherules in the Cretaceous sea floor

24. Locations and thickness of spherule layers in North America. Note that the spherule beds thin away from the Yucatan.

25. Demonstration of bullet being fired at a target from an oblique angle. The spray is thought to simulate the ejecta from the asteroid hitting the Yucatan.

26. Early Cenozoic foraminifera

27. Summary of Bass River, NJ findings