Fossil Site Reveals Day That Meteor Hit Earth and, Maybe, Wiped Out Dinosaurs

[Threegoofs]

Fossil Site Reveals Day That Meteor Hit Earth and, Maybe, Wiped Out Dinosaurs - The New York Times

Fossil Site Reveals Day That Meteor Hit Earth and, Maybe, Wiped Out Dinosaurs

Sixty-six million years ago, a giant meteor slammed into Earth off the coast of modern-day Mexico. Firestorms incinerated the landscape for miles around. Even creatures thousands of miles away were doomed on that fateful day, if not by fire and brimstone, then by mega-earthquakes and waves of unimaginable size.

Now, scientists have unearthed a remarkable trove of fossils that appear to date from the very day of the impact. The burial site consists of more than four feet of sediments and organic remains that were dumped in North Dakota almost instantly and transformed into rock over the eons. It evidently captures, in unparalleled detail, the repercussions of the giant doomsday rock that cleared the way for the evolution of mammals, including the primates known as humans.

The article goes on to describe a fossil find that is the aftermath of a Tsunami, with freshwater fish, marine animals and apparently, large numbers of dinosaurs all perishing simultaneously.
The fish gills are clogged by tektites, little glass droplets that rained out of the sky from the meteor.

This is one of the most impressive finds in paleontology..possibly ever. It will be reported (partially) in PNAS tomorrow.

 

[j-mac]

Fossil Site Reveals Day That Meteor Hit Earth and, Maybe, Wiped Out Dinosaurs - The New York Times



The article goes on to describe a fossil find that is the aftermath of a Tsunami, with freshwater fish, marine animals and apparently, large numbers of dinosaurs all perishing simultaneously.
The fish gills are clogged by tektites, little glass droplets that rained out of the sky from the meteor.

This is one of the most impressive finds in paleontology..possibly ever. It will be reported (partially) in PNAS tomorrow.

Wow....very cool....I love this stuff....

 

[Verax]

I didn't think of the shoreline being different back then as compared to now. I was thinking damn that must have been one hell of a tsunami to take sea life from the gulf of Mexico and deposit it in North Dakota. Pretty amazing they can study evidence from that very day.

 

[ralphcdp]

Science always wins the day, even when it takes decades or longer.

 

[noonereal]

Wow....very cool....I love this stuff....

You love meteors wiping out the planet?

 

[noonereal]

Science always wins the day,

Don't tel that to a deplorable.

 

[AlbqOwl]

I didn't think of the shoreline being different back then as compared to now. I was thinking damn that must have been one hell of a tsunami to take sea life from the gulf of Mexico and deposit it in North Dakota. Pretty amazing they can study evidence from that very day.

There is this graphic that I think is pretty much accepted by most scientists who study ancient Earth. And there one image for 65 million years ago which was approximately when the giant meteor was supposed to have hit:

 

[Threegoofs]

I didn't think of the shoreline being different back then as compared to now. I was thinking damn that must have been one hell of a tsunami to take sea life from the gulf of Mexico and deposit it in North Dakota. Pretty amazing they can study evidence from that very day.

Much of the Great Plains were a shallow sea.

The Tsunami might not have come from Mexico- it may have been a seiche- massive earthquakes causing shallow bodies of water to slosh around.

 

[JacksinPA]

I didn't think of the shoreline being different back then as compared to now. I was thinking damn that must have been one hell of a tsunami to take sea life from the gulf of Mexico and deposit it in North Dakota. Pretty amazing they can study evidence from that very day.

There was an inland sea connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the arctic ocean in the central states & provinces. The Tsunami would have been funneled northward, taking everything in its path. Truly devastating.

 

[JacksinPA]

You love meteors wiping out the planet?

S**t happens.

 

[j-mac]

You love meteors wiping out the planet?

Wait...What? How do you get that from what I said? Unless you just look to argue in every post....

 

[ElChupacabra]

Fascinating stuff! What's always intriguing about science are the discoveries which challenge existing theories. In this case it will be interesting to learn more about the impact of that meteor strike.

 

[noonereal]

Wait...What? How do you get that from what I said? Unless you just look to argue in every post....

Put me down for argue in every post. :shock:

 

[Erod]

Bernie Sanders was the lone survivor. Lol

This was a cool article. Thanks for posting.

 

[Threegoofs]

I’ll also note that the paleontology community is a bit mixed here. They really don’t like these revelations being published in the press before the scientific literature.

Apparently, tomorrow’s PNAS article says nothing about dinosaurs or mammal burrows, and is supposed to be the first of many papers that describe the site.

Steve Brusatte on Twitter: "Update: I've now gone through the paper's supplement.

Only a single dinosaur bone is mentioned: a partial ceratopsian ilium that was 'extensively transported' before deposition.

This is an awesome site, but I don't see any evidence for a dinosaur graveyard! Something is weird.… https://t.co/MXZVDWKujZ"

 

[Stealers Wheel]

FAKE NOOZ! Every Christian evangelical knows that this could not have happened because it would have also wiped out Adam and Eve's descendants. The dinosaurs were wiped out because there was no room on the ark for them. DUH!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Bernie Sanders was the lone survivor. Lol

This was a cool article. Thanks for posting.

That actually made me laugh pretty hard. :lamo

But he's still smarter than the moron you supported, and it's likely he will outlive your orange buffoon, too.

 

[Xelor]

There is this graphic that I think is pretty much accepted by most scientists who study ancient Earth. And there one image for 65 million years ago which was approximately when the giant meteor was supposed to have hit:

I suspect the above image is meant to be a very high-level graphic not intended to depict a "Niobraran Sea level" (a little pun intended) of detail. To add a bit of detail to the matter, I've added the following images. (Source)

115 Million Years Ago

75 Million Years Ago

65 Million Years Ago

(For those who care about such things, the above graphic illustrates the hierarchy of and relationship among the temporal classifications eon, epoch, era, period and age....Yes, when speaking of things pertaining to time measured on a geologic scale, those tems have specific meanings, even though outside of that context, they mostly mean "a long time." The same concept -- that context must drive diction -- is seen in other disciplines. For instance, in law, there's no crime called "collusion" but there is one called "conspiracy." Collusion can be abundant without conspiracy being extant. Thus, colloquially, sure, one can say "collusion," but when discussing legal matters, one needs to use the appropriate term.)
​

 

[AlbqOwl]

I suspect the above image is meant to be a very high-level graphic not intended to depict a "Niobraran Sea level" (a little pun intended) of detail. To add a bit of detail to the matter, I've added the following images. (Source)

115 Million Years Ago

75 Million Years Ago

65 Million Years Ago

(For those who care about such things, the above graphic illustrates the hierarchy of and relationship among the temporal classifications eon, epoch, era, period and age....Yes, when speaking of things pertaining to time measured on a geologic scale, those tems have specific meanings, even though outside of that context, they mostly mean "a long time." The same concept -- that context must drive diction -- is seen in other disciplines. For instance, in law, there's no crime called "collusion" but there is one called "conspiracy." Collusion can be abundant without conspiracy being extant. Thus, colloquially, sure, one can say "collusion," but when discussing legal matters, one needs to use the appropriate term.)
​

Somewhat different but both illustrate how a massive tsunami off the coast of what is now Mexico could have washed up in the Dakotas.

 

[Threegoofs]

Somewhat different but both illustrate how a massive tsunami off the coast of what is now Mexico could have washed up in the Dakotas.

The Tsunami actually probably came from a seiche secondary to the magnitude 10-11 earthquakes.

Seismic Seiches

 

[Erod]

That actually made me laugh pretty hard. :lamo

But he's still smarter than the moron you supported, and it's likely he will outlive your orange buffoon, too.

He's brilliant. How many socialists do you know that have three homes worth more than a million, financed by public service jobs?

 

[Xelor]

Somewhat different but both illustrate how a massive tsunami off the coast of what is now Mexico could have washed up in the Dakotas.

Well, yes. Most certainly a meteor/asteroid/comet striking the Yucatan would have sent an "unimaginably" massive tsunami right up that "bay" that terminates about ND's northern border. "Stuff" from the land and the sea would have been transported, spewn and deposited "all over the place" in that region.

 

[Napoleon]

Fascinating stuff! What's always intriguing about science are the discoveries which challenge existing theories. In this case it will be interesting to learn more about the impact of that meteor strike.

The impact hypothesis is certainly the easiest explaination but there is still some disagreement that it is correct. There are no fossils in the several hundred thousand years leading up to the K-T boundary. There’s practically nothing in the record where one might expect to find cascades of fossils except the same kinds of fragments that have been found after it. The K-T boundary is not the termination point of the dinosaur fossil record so there are still those who believe that the dinosaurs were, for all intents and purposes, either already extinct or well on their way out at the time of impact.

 

[Threegoofs]

The impact hypothesis is certainly the easiest explaination but there is still some disagreement that it is correct. There are no fossils in the several hundred thousand years leading up to the K-T boundary. There’s practically nothing in the record where one might expect to find cascades of fossils except the same kinds of fragments that have been found after it. The K-T boundary is not the termination point of the dinosaur fossil record so there are still those who believe that the dinosaurs were, for all intents and purposes, either already extinct or well on their way out at the time of impact.

...and this may completely change that thinking.

 

[Napoleon]

...and this may completely change that thinking.

I’d say probably not. What they found are marine specimens.