Posted on 02/24/2022 11:45:38 PM PST by LibWhacker
We’ve long known a disaster took place about 66 million years ago, where in a geological instant, 75% of the plants and animals on Earth were wiped out, including all the land-roaming dinosaurs. But here’s a new detail about that event: Even though we can’t pinpoint exactly what year this disaster took place, we now know it happened during the springtime.
Most scientists agree the disaster was an asteroid impact, where an asteroid at least 10 kilometers wide struck the Chicxulub region in the present-day Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact released 2 million times more energy than the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated.
While previous studies looking at the timing of this event have focused on millennial timescales, a new study from Melanie During and colleagues from the University of Sweden focused on pinpointing seasonal information of fossilized fish found in a site in North Dakota, that perished as a result of the devastating impact.
The devastation created layer of ash sandwiched between layers of rock, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, formerly known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K-T) boundary, which is found across the world in the geologic record. It includes a layer of iridium, an element common in asteroids but rare on Earth. It was this ‘iridium anomaly’ that first revealed the extinction event as an asteroid strike to geologists more than three decades ago.
Artistic reconstruction by Joschua Knüppe of the Seiche wave surging into the Tanis river, bringing in fishes and everything in its path (dinosaurs, trees) while impact spherules rain down from the sky. Some dinosaurs are still trying to get away but we know they will not get far. Ants try to get back into their nest as the just blooming dianthus in the foreground are already being impacted by the impact spherules. Credit: Joschua Knüppe
Well-preserved fossil bones of filter-feeding sturgeons and paddlefishes found in the Tanis fossil site in North Dakota had impact debris lodged in their gills, but nowhere further down the digestive system, suggesting an almost-instantaneous death occurred when an impact-triggered seiche –continental water shaken by the impact — caused a sudden upriver surge.
The researchers found distinct growth patterns in the fossils that provided record of seasonal change, of when the fish had reproduced and had developing offspring. In the northern hemisphere, this would have been in the spring.
“We postulate that the timing of the Chicxulub impact in boreal spring and austral autumn was a major influence on selective biotic survival across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary,” the authors wrote in their paper, published in Nature.
The timing of the collision, at least for the Northern Hemisphere, would have come at a particularly sensitive stage in the biological life cycles of many plants and animals.
“I think spring puts a large group of the late Cretaceous biota (animal and plant life) in a very vulnerable spot because they were out and about looking for food, tending to offspring and trying to build up resources after the harsh winter,” Melanie During said at a news briefing.
By contrast, the researchers said that ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was fall when the asteroid collided with Earth, appear to have bounced back nearly twice as fast as those in the Northern Hemisphere.
Even though these fossils were found 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) away from the impact crater, the details of the dig show the large fish – which are up to a meter (3 feet) long — died dramatically shortly after the asteroid strike. They were buried alive by sediment displaced as a massive body of water unleashed by the asteroid strike moved upstream.
Impact spherules — small bits of molten rock ejected from the crater went high into the atmosphere or even to space where they crystallized into a glass-like material — were found lodged in the fishes’ gills.
“These impact spherules got ejected into space, …and rained back down on Earth,” During said. “This deposit literally looks like a car crash frozen in place. It looks like the most violent thing I have ever seen, preserved in pristine condition.”
This new study coincides with previous studies from as early as 1991 which showed fossils in the same condition, which suggested is happened in June, along with another study from December of 2021, which also concluded the extinction event happened in spring.
Springtime in which hemisphere?
I read elsewhere that around the same time there were two other large impacters of similar size that hit Earth, so the ELE may not have been due solely to one attributed impactor.
It seems possible that an impact that great could have even altered Earth’s orbit a little bit.
Yes, a Great Flood, after which, Universal Springtime disappeared because the water canopy that protected earth, was broken by God’s anger with man, saving only Noah and his family and the animals within the Ark.
How would a great flood kill fish (a flood is water ... fish live in water) and embed little spherules of formerly-molten glass in their gills?
The Perseids are in June. I wonder if there is a connection?
At least it got them out of having to pay their income tax.
Northern.
The Bible tells us how before the flood, it did not rain. A water canopy was in the atmosphere which shielded the earth from harmful rays (UV, etc) and there was a continuous “spring time”, which was why possible life span of people in those days was several hundred years. This water kept the earth moist enough with water vapor. The other half of earths water came from underground. When God suddenly unleashed both of these collections of water there was great upheaval caused by the tremendous forces. Not only did it alter the ground features, but most likely caused volcanic eruptions as the crust shifted. This could account for the “formally molten glass in the fish gills, and certainly could have caused fish in shallower water or in lakes and rivers to be tossed about and killed.
You are right about that.
But there was an even bigger reason for God to wipe out everyone but Noah’s family. Read Genesis 6:1-4. The sons (with a small s) of God it speaks of were divine beings or fallen angels who co-habited with humans. Their offspring produced giants who practiced gross sin in the world. This caused God to send the Flood to destroy this “unhuman” DNA.
My guess would be St.Patrick’s day - 4376bc..
springtime in what hemisphere?
Thanks SteveH.
Riiiight, because a flood would kill fish.
Fly me to the Moon and let me play among the stars!...
Let me see what Spring is like on Jupiter and Mars!...............
...and dress warm! ;^)
October 9, one zillion BC.
Everything you ever needed to know about Noah’s Flood:
Center for Scientific Creation
https://www.creationscience.com/
Hydroplate Theorty on Origins of Radioactivity
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hydroplate+theory+youtube&docid=608032065013023603&mid=2471CC61BDC3B99CEEEC2471CC61BDC3B99CEEEC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
If is is spring in one part of the world it will be fall in another part.
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