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than 10 kilometers wide.
Hitting the Earth with an energy so much greater than the energy of an atomic bomb, the Earth’s poise changed forever, wiping out a lot of species of different groups through the impact itself and the series of natural disasters that followed from tsunamis to acid rains to dust clouds, but it is not the only factor as it is believed that this sudden impact was the final nail in the coffin as it was preceded by a global warming event due to massive volcanic eruptions in what is today known as India, as volcanic rock covers an area as big as France and nearly 2.5 km thick. That climate change is believed to have been a big contributor to the sudden disappearance of many species before the asteroid collided on Earth.
Another factor in hand was also marine regression as the oceans were disappearing at some points creating a list of changes by changing lakes into deserts, shorelines and the sea life itself.
The asteroid is believed to have been the final blow to the dinosaurs in a world that was heating up, losing its oceans, and its balance, a blow that changed the game and turned the strong card of dinosaur dominance into their downfall, a blow that turned ecological niches that demanded strength and large size into the first niches to go while those who were small and disadvantaged actually had the key to survival.
ack in the late Cretaceous
65 million years ago, an
extinction event known as
the K/T extinction, or the
tertiary extinction, wiped
out a large portion of the biodiversity that existed then, from plants to animals such as archosaurs and marine invertebrates. The reason behind this event created a lot of controversy among scientists.
The main actor in that extinction event is believed to have been a meteor big enough to be considered a small asteroid..
The evidence that supports the asteroid theory is the large amount of sediments that contain Iridium, a very rare element on Earth yet abundant on meteorites, that was found all over the ocean floor.
During the dive, the asteroid released a massive amount of debris that spread and crashed all over the Earth, but the main part of the asteroid landed on what is today called the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The amount of Iridium that this asteroid released through debris, gives us an idea about how big this asteroid was: no less than 10 kilometers wide.
When the asteroid hit, big creatures had no where to hide from the impact. The asteroid and its debris showered the Earth with destruction and chaos.
the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The amount of Iridium that this asteroid released through debris, gives us an idea about how big this asteroid was: no less than 10 kilometers wide.
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