The worst day on Earth: The day of the Chicxulub impact (2024)

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The worst day on Earth: The day of the Chicxulub impact? ›

But sixty-six million years ago, the Earth was transformed in a single day. On that day, an asteroid or comet, seven and a half miles in diameter, hit Earth at twenty seven thousand miles per hour, and blasted a one hundred and twenty four mile wide crater.

The impact of an asteroid 66.0 million years ago on what is now the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico caused the extinction of 75% of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs, marine reptiles like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, and ammonites.

A 2013 study published in Science estimated the age of the impact as 66,043,000 ± 11,000 years ago (± 43,000 years ago considering systematic error), based on multiple lines of evidence, including argon–argon dating of tektites from Haiti and bentonite horizons overlying the impact horizon in northeastern Montana, ...

The impact hit around the Yucatan Peninsula, ejecting a nasty brew of soot, sulphur gases, and extremely fine dust into the atmosphere. Crucially, scientists found this dust proved extremely potent in blocking sunlight. A long, callous winter, with vastly reduced light for some two years, followed.

At the time of the asteroid impact, 66 million years ago, dinosaurs were the dominant land animals living across the globe. A study from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum says that they could have continued to dominate had that impact not happened.

The Chicxulub crater is not visible at the Earth's surface like the famous Meteor Crater of Arizona. There are, however, two surface expressions of the crater. Radar measurements captured from one of NASA's space shuttles detected a subtle depression in the sediments that bury the crater.

The ice age was not caused by an asteroid impact. We have been in an ice age for about 3 million years with a glaciation every 41,000 to 100,000 years, on the average.

On December 3, a scientific deep drilling projects starts on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico into the Chicxulub crater that was formed some 65 million years ago by the impact of an asteroid, which is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and other species.

Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction: 65 million Years Ago

Scientists refer to the major extinction that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs as the K-T extinction, because it happened at the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Tertiary period.

While it's hard to say with certainty, by many accounts the deadliest day in human history was actually the result of a natural disaster. On the morning of 23 January 1556, a massive earthquake rocked China's Shaanxi province, at the time considered the 'cradle of Chinese civilization'.

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At the time the Chicxulub asteroid hit, dinosaurs were not in decline. Scientists have long debated why non-bird dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, became extinct – whereas mammals and other species such as turtles and crocodiles survived.

The asteroid hit at an estimated speed of 20 kilometers per second (more than 58 times the speed of sound) at a relatively steep angle of between 45 and 60 degrees to the Earth's surface.

Previous estimates of the sulfur aerosols entering Earth's atmosphere after the asteroid impact range from about 30 to 500 gigatons; according to climate models, this sulfur would have turned into sulfate aerosols, which would have caused 3.6 to 14.4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 8 degrees Celsius) cooling of the Earth's ...

The Chicxulub impactor

The asteroid hit at 20 kilometres per second from an angle of 60 degrees above horizontal – just right for sending the maximum amount of vaporised rock into the atmosphere. Plumes of sulphur-based gases and fine dust blocked out the sun, causing an “impact winter” that lasted for 15 years.

Birds: Birds are the only dinosaurs to survive the mass extinction event 65 million years ago. Frogs & Salamanders: These seemingly delicate amphibians survived the extinction that wiped out larger animals. Lizards: These reptiles, distant relatives of dinosaurs, survived the extinction.

The Chicxulub crater is the site of an asteroid impact linked with the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction at ∼66 Ma. This asteroid struck in shallow water and caused a large tsunami.