Steve Koppes
News Office
This painting by Donald Davis depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. The geological studies conducted by the University’s Lawrence Grossman and Denton Ebel of the American Museum of Natural History explain the complex chemistry of the fireball that the asteroid impact produced.
Scientists at the University and the American Museum of Natural History recently released a study explaining how a globe-encircling residue formed in the aftermath of the asteroid impact that triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs. The study, published in the April issue of the journal Geology, draws the most detailed picture yet of the complicated chemistry of the fireball produced in the impact.
The residue consisted of sand-sized droplets of hot liquid that condensed from the vapor cloud produced by an impacting asteroid 65 million years ago.
Scientists have proposed three different origins for these droplets, which they call “spherules.” Some researchers have theorized that atmospheric friction melted the droplets off the asteroid as it approached Earth’s surface. Still others suggested the droplets splashed out of the Chicxulub impact crater off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula following the asteroid’s collision with Earth.
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050414/fireball.shtml
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
