Posted on 03/22/2016 10:32:51 AM PDT by JimSEA
More than 65 million years ago, a six-mile wide asteroid smashed into Mexico's Yucatán peninsula, triggering earthquakes, tsunamis and an explosion of debris that blanketed the Earth in layers of dust and sediment.
Now analysis of commercial oil drilling data—denied to the academic community until recently—offers the first detailed look at how the Chicxulub impact reshaped the Gulf of Mexico. Figuring out what happened after these types of impacts gives researchers a better idea of how they redistribute geological material around the world. It also gives scientists an idea of what to expect if another such impact were to occur now.
The Chicxulub impact, which wiped out large dinosaurs and giant marine reptiles, created a global layer of debris that is now part of the geologic record. Geologists refer to this layer as the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, because it marks the switch between these two geologic time periods.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/we-finally-know-how-much-dino-killing-asteroid-reshaped-earth-180958222/#clK5ID5fmjUoGgkF.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
I always thought the Gulf of Mexico was way too circular too, to be natural- and looks like a much larger impact from several hundred million years earlier
Under the equatorial winds were the only places that saw any sun - or biosphere - for a lloooonng time.
Once you really look, it’s astonishing how many circles pock the earth. Western civ has been extraordinarily lucky not to have been hit.
Presumably, a different impact, the one that created the moon.
http://www.space.com/26142-moon-formation-giant-impact-theory-support.html
Yet somehow Honeybees, Parrots, Alligators (who were supposedly at ground zero), Sea Turtles, Phytoplankton like Diatoms and much more seem to go on as if nothing was happening.
What geological aspects of the Hill Country did the asteroid impact cause?
That’s a
Real puzzle. Maybe like real estate, location, location, location.
Cool. Reference?
While the graphic is spectacular, it is misleading.The real impactor was only 6.5 miles in diameter, the one in the graphic is several hundred miles from scaling with the earth below.
Yep. That one is an Artist Misconception :-)
That monster impactor could almost represent a collision resulting in a new moon after enough time elapses for the discharged material to coalesce.
Or whatever knocked Uranus 90° on its side.
Or whatever caused Venus to virtually halt rotation and spin backwards.
Besides altering the axial tilt, the Earth's rotation, and the orbital path itself, something that big would knock the crap out of the metallic core at the center of the Earth halting it's spinning and thus the protective magnetic flux it generates would vanish.
About as bad a day as you could describe. Only a Hillary victory would come close to the expected damage.
No, Franklin Roosevelt is.
Since Man Made Global Warming is fictional...yeah.
“We Finally Know How Much the Dino-Killing Asteroid Reshaped Earth”
I’d say so since we are all alive
Oh, wow. Our very ‘soil’ is limestone composed of tiny exoskeletal remains from when the asteroid turned the HC into an inland sea for millions of years. I can walk 100yds and open 65myo oysters in beds ringing the hilltops which are way below the elevation of the surrounding non-’hill’-country. We have Barringer Hill, big rare-earth mine, likely caused caused by eruption as the asteroid shook loose nascent small volcanoes. And Enchanted Rock, another batholith. We landscape with limestone slabs riddled with quartz-bejewelled fossils. Our beloved caves testify to the causes of their birth. I could go on and on...
Taking a walk while looking at the ground and rocks is always fun. However, you’ve got more to see than most of us. I’ve got mostly mudstone with occasional fossils of shell fish and a bug chunk of basalt sea bed that was scraped off the subducting ocean plate 30 million years ago. The pillowing effect from when it erupted from an ocean ridge is kink if neat.
Go east about 35 miles however and the Cascades exhibit a volcanic wonderland. It’s easy to get close to different igneous type rocks.
lol! These close shaves we’ve been having, one big enough close miss ciuld shave/wake off a chunk of atmosphere, causing huge problems... concerns me that so many NEOs are discovered by amateurs.
Tectonic Collision is another natural disaster that keeps me up late. ...will anyone be safe?
Our exoskeleton limestone is highly erodable compared to stone bedrock, so some breath-taking caves and waterfalls abound, the best on private ranches. We have a big waterfall-built cave locallt that a bunch of wiccans snuck up on and built all their stone circles. They know not to get caught.
Yet so far, no Dinosaurs fossils have ever been discovered at the K-T Boundary. All Dinosaur fossils except 1* are well below the boundary which means they were gone by the time the "event" happened.
* There was a species of Hardosaur that was alive at the K-T Boundary, but the Asteroid or whatever didn't kill it and it lived on another 700,000 years.
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