Discovery of Chicxulub crater
 |
| NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
Chicxulub Crater, whose impact is suspected to be the known cause of dinosaur extinction, is situated in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Chicxulub Crater was named after the village Chicxulub which is close to its geographic center. Antonio Camargo and Glen Penfield were two geophysicists who discovered the Chicxulub in the late 1970s while they were looking for petroleum in the Yucatán Peninsula. This Chicxulub Crater has been confirmed as the second-largest impact on Earth which is 180 kilometers in diameter and 20 kilometers in depth. The asteroid which caused the crater some 66 million years ago coincides with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (Mass extinction of more than half of Earth’s plant and animal species which includes all Non-Avian Dinosaurs).
The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
The theory of Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction which was caused by an impact event was first proposed by a geologist named Walter Alvarez and his father Luis Walter Alvarez who was awarded the Noble Prize in 1968 for his discovery of resonance states in particle physics using the hydrogen bubble chamber. Walter Alvarez and his colleagues reported that an asteroid impact can abnormally increase the concentration of iridium on Earth’s surface. The evidence for iridium element was found on Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary in Gubbio, Italy. But many paleontologists rejected the impact hypothesis of Walter Alvarez due to the lack of fossils near Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.
What really happened after the impact?
 |
| NASA/JPL-Caltech, modified b, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
When the asteroid struck Earth, it caused a devastating impact on Earth which eventually drove Dinosaurs and 75% of Earth’s species to extinction. A team of scientists at the University of Michigan simulated the devastating scenario of the impact using powerful computers and data collected from more than 100 geologic sites. One of the researchers from Michigan University named Brian Arbic says “The waves were about 5 meters high in the North Atlantic and South Pacific oceans.” This Chicxulub impact also caused acid rain which had a negative impact on life on Earth. It also caused wildfires which filled the skies with dust and soot and darkened the planet for years. Due to the lack of sunlight plants would have not been able to survive.
Chicxulub Crater was slowly buried by sediments and corals as the world healed.