A Mysterious Crater’s Age May Add Clues to the Dinosaur Extinction

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/science/boltysh-crater-dinosaurs.html?

Source: Becky Ferreira, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: Boltysh crater, a 15-mile-wide formation in central Ukraine, may not be as famous as the Chicxulub crater under the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, which is directly implicated in the death of the dinosaurs and many other species about 66 million years ago. Nevertheless, Boltysh has long led to debate among scientists. Some have suggested that the crater, which is buried under more than 1,000 feet of sediment, could have formed before or after the Chicxulub event, making its role in this cataclysmic period unclear. ...For years, scientists speculated that the Boltysh and Chicxulub impactors may have acted as a one-two punch that shattered life at the end of the Cretaceous period. The revised age suggests that the impact that made the Ukrainian crater did not factor into the apocalyptic die-off of the dinosaurs, though it may have interfered with the recovery from the mass extinction.... 

Popular posts from this blog

2024 was the hottest year on record, breaching a critical climate goal and capping 10 years of unprecedented heat

Where Glaciers Melt, the Rivers Run Red

How will China impact the future of climate change? You might be surprised