4 ms·

i must have missed that day in Science class..but when did they prove a massive meteor hit and killed Dino?

• gus_massa 8y ago
  Nothing is 100% proved, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e... In particular > In the geologic record, the K–Pg event is marked by a thin layer of sediment called the K–Pg boundary, which can be found throughout the world in marine and terrestrial rocks. The boundary clay shows high levels of the metal iridium, which is rare in the Earth's crust, but abundant in asteroids.
• ghaff 8y ago
  There have been a number of discoveries but the most central one is probably of an Iridium layer by Alvarez in 1980. AFAIK there’s still debate around whether the meteorite that landed in the Gulf of Mexico was truly the Dino killer or if it just hastened a process that was well on its way in any case.
  • pfdietz 8y ago
    There's really no serious debate about that anymore. The temporal juxtaposition of this extremely violent event with the extinctions means it would be an incredible coincidence if there weren't a causal connection, and there is little to no evidence anything else was contributing. In particular, there is no good evidence ecosystems were in decline before the impact (previous claims to that effect were just due to sampling problems and logical errors.)
• Roboprog 8y ago
  Fred was devastated
• natch 8y ago
  Science keeps going after your classes are over.