‘Dinosaurs-killing asteroid started wildfires, tsunamis’
Houston: The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago slammed into the Earth with the equivalent power of 10 billion atomic bombs, charred trees thousands of miles away, and triggered a mega-tsunami, according to a study.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, looks at hundreds of feet of rocks that filled the impact crater within the first 24 hours after impact.
Scientists believed that the asteroid impact in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico started wildfires, triggered tsunamis, and sent out so much sulphur into the planet’s atmosphere that it blocked out the sun, and caused global cooling which ultimately killed the dinosaurs, the study noted.
Inspecting the Chicxulub impact crater in the peninsula, researchers from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) in the US found bits of charcoal, rock piles brought in by the tsunami’s backflow, and oddly absent sulphur — adding evidence to the suspected aftermath events.
The study noted that within hours of the asteroid impact, much of the material filling the crater was either produced at the impact site, or was swept in by seawater drawn into the crater by the mega-tsunami.
Commenting on the research, Antoine Bercovici of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not
Scientists believed that the asteroid impact in the Yucatan Peninsula started wildfires, triggered tsunamis, and sent out so much sulphur into the planet’s atmosphere that it blocked out the sun
related to the team, told PTI in an email that the important discovery to note was the vast amount of sediments that backfilled the impact crater. According to the researchers, about 425 feet of material — among the highest ever encountered in the geologic record — filled the crater within a day.
Sean Gulick, lead author of the study, said that these evidences are all part of a rock record that offers the most detailed look yet into the aftermath of the catastrophe. Gulick described the impact as a shortlived inferno at the local level, followed by a long period of global cooling. “We fried them and then we froze them. Not all the dinosaurs died that day, but many dinosaurs did,” Gulick said.
The researchers found charcoal and evidence of soil fungi within or just above layers of sand, showing signs that they were deposited by waters resurging in the megatsunami.