Space.com (March 4, 2010)
"Scientists have debated for two decades whether a giant space rock wiped out the dinosaurs or if some other catastrophe did the deed.
"Now, a blue-ribbon panel of scientists has banded together to support the link between the Chicxulub asteroid impact crater in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula with the mass extinction of dinosaurs and the majority of life on our planet 65 million years ago.
" 'It is an international consensus. They are saying that there's a rock solid link between the Chicxulub impact event and the K-T boundary mass extinction,' said David Kring, a Senior Staff Scientist and geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in nearby Houston...."
I'm not terribly surprised at the conclusion: Something that blew a hole a mile deep and 110 miles wide (Space.com (14 April 2008)) might reasonably be expected to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Sounds like 85% of the species around at the time died out. ("The End-Cretaceous (K-T) Extinction," Hooper Virtual Paleontological Musuem, Canada)
Not that the K-T event was the worst time for Earth's 'delicate' ecosystems. Now that mass extinction in the Permian: That was a big one.
Anyway: that Space.com article doesn't go into much detail, but it does give a sort of overview on what's happened, and what sort of thinking goes into decisions like the one that 'blue ribbon panel' made.
Related posts:
- "Big Snake, Small Dinosaur, and a Professor from Michigan"
(March 2, 2010) - "Asteroid Impact? Yes; Dinosaur-Killing Firestorm? Maybe Not"
(December 31, 2009) - "Frail, Delicate Little Mother Nature?!"
(December 20, 2009)
More in this blog:
- "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"
(Last updated December 21, 2009)
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