Tag: impact
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Earth Had a Ring 466 Million Years Ago, Study Says
The New York Times has a nice review of a study published in the journal Science Direct that postulates the Earth had a ring during the Ordovician Period, some 466 million years ago. There are numerous (21!) impact craters that date to the period. At the time, Earth was an island world, with life being…
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Video for ESCONI June 2021 General Meeting – “The Glasford Structure: A Marine Target Impact Crater with a Possible Connection to the Great Ordovician Meteorite Shower”
The speaker at our June 2021 meeting was Charles Monson from ISGS. Charles recently published on the Glasford Illinois impact structure and its relation to the Ordovician meteor event. WCBU, a joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University, interviewed Charles back in November 2019. Their program is online and available for listening. His paper was…
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‘Giant impact’ theory of moon’s formation gets another boost
Space.com has a story about the formation of the moon. A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Scieces lends more evidence for the “Giant-Impact Hypothesis” of the creation of the moon. Scientists have found fresh evidence in lunar rocks showing that the moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized planet crashed into…
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Palaeocast Episode 112: Extinction of the dinosaurs
Palaeocast has an episode on the extinction of the dinosaurs. The episode is an interview with Dr Alessandro Chiarenza about some very thorough analysis that compares the Chicxulub asteroid event with the volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Traps. The paper detailing this analysis can be found in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of…
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Dinosaur-dooming asteroid struck earth at ‘deadliest possible’ angle
Phys.org has a story about the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. A study at Imperial College London did simulations and found that the angle of attack for the asteroid that struck the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period hit at the “deadliest possible” angle. All the details are in a paper published…
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800,000 Years Ago, a Meteor Slammed Into Earth. Scientists Just Found the Crater
LiveScience has a story about a century long search to find a meteor crater. About 790,000 years ago, a meteor hit the Earth and spread tektites, shiny black lumps of rock, over about 10% of the surface of the planet. The tektites were found from Indonesia to eastern Antarctica and from the Indian Ocean to…
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Quicks & Quarks: A catastrophe frozen in time — a new fossil site shows how the dinosaurs died
CBC Radio’s Quicks & Quarks has a segment on a newly discovered fossil deposit that reveals many clues about the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. The site is a snapshot in time from a few hours after the impact. The North Dakota site, nicknamed Tanis after the “lost” ancient Egyptian city, lies on private…
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New analysis of Chicxulub asteroid suggests it may have struck in vulnerable spot
Phys.org has a story about the Chicxulub asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. A paper published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that had the asteroid struck the Earth in a different location it is possible the non-avian dinosaurs may have survived the event. The researchers from Tokohu University analysed multiple data sources about the…
