Dinosaurs’ Last Spring: Study Pinpoints Timing of Chicxulub Asteroid Impact
upstart writes:
Results of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, greatly enhances the ability to trace the first stages of damage to life on Earth. [...]
"Time of year plays an important role in many biological functions such as reproduction, feeding strategies, host-parasite interactions, seasonal dormancy, and breeding patterns," said DePalma. "Hence, it is no surprise that the time of year for a global-scale hazard can play a big role in how harshly it impacts life. The seasonal timing of the Chicxulub impact has therefore been a critical question for the story of the end-Cretaceous extinction. Until now, the answer to that question has remained unclear."
For decades, it has been known that the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid impact hit the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago. The impact triggered the third-greatest extinction in Earth's history, dramatically changing global biomes in ways that directly relate to current global ecological crisis. Yet, the finer details of what happened after impact and how those events led to the third-worst mass-extinction in Earth's history remain very hazy.
The new study was a long-term effort that started in 2014 and applied a combination of traditional and cutting-edge techniques to piece together a trail of clues enabling identification of the season for the Chicxulub impact event. DePalma examined the Tanis research locality in southwestern North Dakota, one of the most highly detailed Cretaceous-Paleogene (KPg) boundary sites in the world, to understand the inner workings of the extinction event. The research provides important new data while building new academic bridges.
"This unique site in North Dakota had yielded a wealth of new and exciting information. Field data collected at the site, after hard work that went into analyzing it, provided us with new incredibly detailed insight of not only what happened at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, but also exactly when it happened," said Oleinik. "It is nothing short of amazing how multiple lines of independent evidence suggested so clearly what time of the year it was 66 million years ago when the asteroid hit the planet. One of the great things about science is that it allows us to look at seemingly well-known facts and events at different angles and with different precision, therefore advancing our knowledge and understanding of the natural world. It also proves that geology and paleontology is still a science of discovery, even in the 21st Century." [...]
Journal Reference:
DePalma, Robert A., Oleinik, Anton A., Gurche, Loren P., et al. Seasonal calibration of the end-cretaceous Chicxulub impact event [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-03232-9)
Lots snipped - it does look like it was a multidisciplinary approach which is expanded on in the article itself.
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