Thursday, August 18, 2011
If the asteroid killed the dinosaurs, then where's its crater?
The asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs crashed into the Earth at the present day coastline of Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula, centered under the town Chixchulub. The crater blasted out by this enormous impact was over 100 miles across and initially 10-miles deep. Since the impact, erosion and geological activity have filled in the crater, burying it and leaving more than half of it under the Gulf of Mexico. Traces of it's immense rim can be seen from ground level, in the form of cenotes or springs. First aerial surveys showed a ring shaped magnetic anomaly under the ground and sea bed. Then the core samples revealed the presence of shocked quartz and shatter cones, signatures of an impact from space because only an impact from space can create the extreme pressure and temperature required to form these minerals. Shatter cones are tell tale fractures in the rock in a conical pattern, the point aimed at ground zero. Evidence for mega-tsunamis and debris ejected from the crater can be found all over the Americas and indeed world wide. The ejecta deposits are in fact thicker right around the crater than anywhere else.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment