Crater Formed From Earth's Extinction Produced by Carbon-Rich ‘C-Type’ Asteroid, Scientists Suggest
upstart writes:
When a massive space rock slammed into Earth 66m years ago, it wiped out huge swathes of life and ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Now scientists say they have new insights into what it was made from.
Experts studying material laid down at the time of the event say they have found tell-tale signs to support the idea the Chicxulub impact crater was produced by a carbon-rich, "C-type", asteroid that originally formed beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Mario Fischer-Godde, co-author of the research from the University of Cologne, said the team are now keen to look at deposits associated with an impact some suggest was behind a large extinction about 215m years ago.
"Maybe this way we could find out if C-type asteroid impacts would have a higher probability for causing mass extinction events on Earth," he said.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers report how they studied different types, or isotopes, of ruthenium within a layer of material that settled over the globe after the impact 66m years ago.
"This layer contains traces of the remnants of the asteroid" said Fischer-Godde.
The team chose to look at ruthenium because the metal is very rare in the Earth's crust.
"The ruthenium that we find in this layer, therefore, is almost 100% derived from the asteroid," said Fischer-Godde, adding that offers scientists a way to determine the makeup, and hence type, of the impactor itself.
The team found samples of the layer from Denmark, Italy and Spain all showed the same ruthenium isotope composition.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.