Cause And Effect Of Chacxulub Impact

The asteroid impact extinction theory began in 1980 with Luis and Walter Alvarez, a father and son team. They theorized that an asteroid struck the Earth at the close of the Cretaceous period, causing devastating effects and mass

The Chicxulub crater is located on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and evaded detection for decades because it was buried while at the same time being reserved beneath a kilometre of younger rocks and sediments. Most scientists now agree that the Chicxulub crater is evidence that a huge asteroid or comet crashed into the Earth's surface 65 million years ago causing the extinction of more than 70% of the living species on the planet, including the dinosaurs. This collision idea was first popularised in 1980 by Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter Alvarez, where they developed the Alvarez hypothesis. They were studying a one centimetre-thick layer in Italy, which

pag). This seems to be the case because from the beginning, one creature has emerged into a more-developed one. It would be logical for humans, being the most evolved, to emerge into a greater creature with something of "superhero" qualities, one who would be invincible, and a species that would never perish. In comparison to this theory, anthropologist, John Hawks, states, "If in the far distant future, habitable planets beyond our solar system were colonized by Earth migrants, that could provide the necessary isolation for new human species to evolve" (Owen; n. pag). Although this seems highly likely to many, human evolution will cease to exist after this meteor hits Earth. Humans are a very vulnerable and fragile species, a species that can only handle so much. David Christian of Big History says that "humans would drown if we were left in water for too long and would freeze or asphyxiate if we were shot ten kilometers into the atmosphere" (Christian; n. pag). This is exactly why the theory of the destructive meteor is, in fact, accurate. If, or when, this meteor strikes, humans will face the same struggle in which the dinosaurs faced and they too will be classified extinct. The magnitude of this meteor will act like a self destruct button, destroying everything in its path, leaving no sign of further evolution

Now that we can observe earth from outer space, we can find impact crater’s on the earth’s surface. The three largest craters are found in Ontario, Canada , Vredefort, South Africa and the Chicxlub crater (Carter). All three of these craters are massive and the Chicxlub crater has been hypothesized to have destroyed the dinosaurs. According to Charles S. Quoi, in order to make an impact the size of the Chicxlub crater, an asteroid would have had to have been at least six miles in diameter and hit earth at a speed of 12.4 miles per second. In comparison, the largest fragment of SL9 to hit Jupiter was slightly more than 2 miles in diameter (Koppes). To answer our question then, yes, meteorite’s have collided with earth, but will they again

The small asteroid that had collided with it was completely destroyed as well. I wished it had killed us on impact. So we didn’t have to float to our deaths. We didn’t deserve this.

Many people often assume the asteroid completely wiped off the land and marine species with just the impact of the asteroid, but was rather the tipping point of what came next. In fact Choi stated that “ "We have shown that these events are synchronous to within a gnat's eyebrow, and therefore, the impact clearly played a major role in extinctions, but it probably wasn't just the impact.” ( Choi). The ultimate reasons for the dinosaurs and other species extinction was the blockage of sunlight which initially darkened and chilled to earth to extreme temperatures ( Jones). At this point many animals and even plants started to die off because of the chilling conditions, but that wasn't the only reason for the extinction of these species. Soon after the dust had settled and the earth was able to receive light, the planet initiated a greenhouse affect. Which not only put the remaining species at high temperatures, but their food also became inhabitable (Choi). The evidence of an asteroid theory is supported by the impact crater, rare metal, melted rock, fractured crystals, and the fossil record (Jones). The impact crater is actually one the main key examples of why the asteroid may have been responsible for the cretaceous mass extinction. It showed the asteroid landing on the Yucatan peninsula, and traveling at 30 kilometers per second (Jones). Not

The End Cretaceous impact hypothesis states that an asteroid impact on the earth caused the extinction. The evidence that supports this hypothesis include the crater found in the Yucatan Peninsula, the rare metal Iridium, and fractured “shocked quartz” crystals that have been shown to cause high-energy explosions. The End Cretaceous flood volcanism hypothesis states that a giant volcano eruption, or a series of volcano eruptions caused the extinction The evidence that supports this hypothesis includes immense lava flow, and volcano explosions, which happen to exposed iridium.

Lisa Randall, a cosmologist who studied at Harvard, affirms on her theory that sixty-¬six million years ago, based on her dark-matter disk model, a miniscule tic, caused by an invisible force in the distant reaches of the cosmos, threw a comet three times the width of Manhattan towards the Earth at about 38,500 miles per hour. The crash created the most powerful earthquake of all time and released energy a billion times that of an atomic bomb, like a burning incinerator, the atmosphere dramatically heated and killed three-quarters of life on Earth. As a result, creatures less than 55 pounds survived; among them were some dinosaurs: the Microraptor that stood about 16 inches, the Theropod which averaged about two feet long and weighed about seven pounds and the Saltopus, also standing about two feet. As you might know, ordinary matter contains an

Then in 1991, a massive meteor crater 110 miles in diameter was discovered on the edge of the Yucatán Peninsula, extending into the Gulf of Mexico. The Chicxulub Crater, as it was dubbed, was named for a nearby village. Scientists believe the bolide that formed it was roughly 6 miles in diameter, struck the earth at 40,000 miles per hour and released 2 million times more

A NASA spokesman said today that if the rumored mile-wide asteroid hit the earth next month the explosion would be in the one million megaton range. The asteroid would have the energy that's 10 million times greater than the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. It will be able to flatten everything for 100 to 200 miles out from ground zero. If the asteroid were to directly hit New York City, the force of the impact would completely flatten every single thing from Washington D.C. to Boston, and would cause extensive damage perhaps 1,000 miles out, that's as far away as Chicago. The amount of dust and debris thrown up into the atmosphere would block out the sun and cause most living things on the planet to perish. If the asteroid crashes in the ocean,

Scientist Estimates the diameter of the impact crater110 miles wide, so the meteor that caused such a massive impact had to be going attest 40,000-45,000 miles per hour heading straight for earth, An asteroid of that size striking the Earth would have had devastating consequences, including hundreds of earthquakes, worldwide wildfires, tsunamis, and "raining" of hot rock that was blasted into space reentering the atmosphere.

Undoubtedly, credit has to be given to the Earth's atmosphere, which played its important role in breaking the Allende meteorite monolith to smaller pieces. It's only to be speculated about the extent of possible devastation that the planet could suffer if all of the material that has been collected, have reached the ground as a single piece. Scientist's calculation point to a minimum estimation of around 4 tons of meteorite specimens with various sizes, and luckily, this cosmic rock never reaches the surface in one

The Yucatan-6 borehole provided significant evidence to suggest that there was an impact event that took place. The composition of the melt rock was believed to have been the result of an impact rather than volcanic events (Kring and Boynton, 1992). What allowed scientists to confirm this, was the surviving clasts of target rock they discovered within the melt, were similar to that seen In the Manicouagan impact crater. (Kring, 2007) Furthermore, these clasts were said to be composed of shocked quarts and feldspar, which are indicative of an impact

The multiple impact theory is that not one, but many asteroids hit the earth all around the globe. The asteroids that are suspected include the Chicxulub Meteor, impact crater in Chicxulub, Mexico, the Silverpit Meteor, impact crater in the Silver Pit area of the North Sea, near Great Britain, and the Boltysh Meteor, in the Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine. All three of the meteors were dated around 66-62 million years of age; However the Boltysh Meteor is, according to scientists, dated up to two thousand years before the Chicxulub crater. The multiple impact theory states that more than one object slammed into earth; these three impacts are most likely just a few of the many yet undiscovered craters. This theory is actually one of the most possible of ideas for the extinction of life 65 million years ago. Another theory for life dying is a single meteor instead of

How exactly the asteroid damaged the Earth remains unclear, but the power released by such an impact is unquestionable. Effects possibly include reduced sunlight over a period of several months which possibly led to the decline or even total halt of primary production (via photosynthesis). One of the dominant signatures of the extinction at the KT boundary was the low activity of primary production, the possibility of reduced sunlight is high (Schulte et al. 2010) . Even if the primary production proved to be on a decline when this impact occurred, there is still some uncertainties as to where exactly the impact hit. This was why asymmetries in subsurface features of the Chicxulub crater were observed via geophysical methods were analyzed and it was calculated from estimates that the