Althouse: "It is difficult not to get choked up and passionate about this topic. We look at moment-by-moment records of one of the most notable impact events in Earth’s history."

April 2, 2019

"It is difficult not to get choked up and passionate about this topic. We look at moment-by-moment records of one of the most notable impact events in Earth’s history."

"No other site has a record quite like that. And this particular event is tied directly to all of us — to every mammal on Earth, in fact. Because this is essentially where we inherited the planet. Nothing was the same after the impact. It became a planet of mammals instead of a planet of dinosaurs."

Said University of Kansas doctoral student Robert A. DePalma, quoted in "KU student’s major find: Scene of devastation from dinosaur-killing asteroid" (Kansas City Star).

84 comments:

Nonapod said...: The paper reveals how the impact created a magnitude 10 or 11 earthquake, sending a seismic wave thousands of miles upland.

It's difficult to imagine such an event. What would it be like to have the ground suddenly jump up 8 or 9 feet in less than a second and drop back down just as quickly as a literal wave of the earth's crust passed through?; 4/2/19, 1:44 PM
Ralph L said...: He found them in 2012 and he's still a grad student?; 4/2/19, 1:45 PM
Curious George said...: What, no Ross the paleontologist in Friends video?; 4/2/19, 1:45 PM
Michael K said...: Great article. I almost forgive the New Yorker for two years of bullshit.

Blogger Ralph L said...
He found them in 2012 and he's still a grad student?

Read the article.; 4/2/19, 1:46 PM
Lucid-Ideas said...: The NewYorker piece on this find was particularly good. The Chixculub impact rates high on my periods-in-time-to-visit-with-time-machine-if-real list. Visit...and view...from my spaceship...high in orbit.; 4/2/19, 1:47 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I thought that this was really interesting. Mostly PhD research is pretty benign. My kid’s dissertation was essentially tacking together four papers, only two of which had been published at that point (all have been by now). Apparently fairly typical, at least in their department. But occasionally a PhD student will do something really great, really big, and I think that that is the case here. It appears that dinosaurs may have died out much more quickly than we had believed was the case. And, they hadn’t died out, mammals would still be tiny scurrying things, and humans not even on the horizon.; 4/2/19, 1:51 PM
Nonapod said...: The Chixculub impact rates high on my periods-in-time-to-visit-with-time-machine-if-real list. Visit...and view...from my spaceship...high in orbit.

I'd want to vist the period of "The Great Dying"... also high in orbit. I'd be interested to see the continent sized molten sea of fire that was responsible for the formation of the Siberian Traps.; 4/2/19, 1:53 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: The work by Robert A. DePalma, a 37-year-old geology student...

So, what, he's on the 15 year PhD plan? Talk about a slow learner. At this point his adviser's probably like yeah, whatever, just finish your damn thesis...; 4/2/19, 1:54 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: This Guy is a FAN! Wanna see some pictures before I die.; 4/2/19, 1:55 PM
Dave Begley said...: Choked up? Really?

Dude, it was millions of years ago and they were just animals; not people. What the hell is wrong with you?; 4/2/19, 2:07 PM
Danno said...: I had just finished reading another article on this on the St. Paul Pioneer Press website. A very interesting geological find.; 4/2/19, 2:09 PM
bagoh20 said...: I read over at Instapundit today an article about what it would be like if mankind turned all the uranium on earth into atomic weapons and detonated them all at once. It's estimated to be about the same as this impact.; 4/2/19, 2:11 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Dave Begley:

Dude, it was millions of years ago and they were just animals; not people. What the hell is wrong with you?

People are animals.; 4/2/19, 2:13 PM
Curious George said...: "People are animals."

But that is logically reversed. Animals are not people.; 4/2/19, 2:23 PM
n.n said...: they were just animals; not people

The physiological correlations are evidence that people are animals. It's an article of faith based on what some, many, perhaps a consensus of people assume/assert about the ability of science to characterize human consciousness and discern between origin and expression.; 4/2/19, 2:25 PM
Sheridan said...: I have real empathy for the dinosaurs because it's the mammals' turn next. After Asteroid AOC 11697 hit the earth last November (it was in Venezuela, I think) and even though the ground swells were minimal, the mass starvation effects of that strike will be felt worldwide in about, oh, ten years give or take. If dinosaurs were cognizant, I wonder what they were thinking the day before their world ended. "Hey guys, block party at TRex's place tomorrow noon. Bring your own mammal hors d'ouevres! Sweet triceratops, life is great, isn't it!".; 4/2/19, 2:25 PM
roesch/voltaire said...: the New Yorker carried an in-depth article about this which is worth the read, and thank goodness for the blast from the past which gave us a chance to evolve.; 4/2/19, 2:26 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Curious George:

But that is logically reversed. Animals are not people.

That is true. But then again, I know people who have gotten choked up at the Grand Canyon.; 4/2/19, 2:28 PM
rehajm said...: Very cool. Number one on the hit list ahead of glacial lake Missoula.

If it hadn’t have happened wouldn’t we all just be wicked smart dinosaurs?; 4/2/19, 2:33 PM
rehajm said...: #1 on my hit list...; 4/2/19, 2:35 PM
bagoh20 said...: What if today is the anniversary of this event? Shouldn't we have a holiday - paid day off?; 4/2/19, 2:36 PM
MikeR said...: "and view...from my spaceship...high in orbit." Be careful to be high enough, or be ready to dodge, or turn on your force field. A lot of impact material was thrown into orbit, moving real fast.; 4/2/19, 2:38 PM
BJM said...: @Bumble Bee

Do I have the book for you! "Hunting Dinosaurs" by renowned NatGeo photojournalist Louie Psihoyos is equal parts spectacular color photography and a font of information. Psihoyos conveys the importance of the science with the humor and exuberance of an Indiana Jones movie. You will not be able to put it down. Do buy the hardback if you can as the quality is superb.

"Dragon Teeth" released posthumously in 2017 by Michael Crichton's estate is a fun read (or listen) set in the late 1800's Wild West with cast of fictional characters interlaced with two real-life paleontologists who founded modern paleontology in what was known as the "Bone Wars".; 4/2/19, 2:39 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: The guy struck lucky with his find. Good for him.; 4/2/19, 2:39 PM
Earnest Prole said...: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Asteroid.; 4/2/19, 2:41 PM
Ralph L said...: "But the lead author is DePalma, based on what he knew was a major find in 2012."
I see nothing in the linked article that says he got his PhD.; 4/2/19, 2:45 PM
wild chicken said...: I'm heartened that de Palma did this, rather than hang out in Hollywood waiting for crumbs from his more famous relative.

Way too much of that going on.; 4/2/19, 2:49 PM
Ralph L said...: He's a lot more photogenic than your typical TV scientist, too, but someone needs to tell him that full beards and staches have replaced stubble (unless it's an old photo).; 4/2/19, 2:53 PM
traditionalguy said...: In the beginning God created the earth and the Dinosaurs. Genesis 1:1 and He creates very well . But by verse 2 everything was smashed and destroyed. That asteroid was a tool. Then re-creation comes with deluxe Mammals.; 4/2/19, 3:04 PM
Wince said...: Wasn't there a near mass extinction during the last Ice Age due to LOW levels of CO2 in the atmosphere?; 4/2/19, 3:11 PM
Michael K said...: see nothing in the linked article that says he got his PhD.

The article says he is still a "Candidate." He is a pretty eccentric guy. Great article.; 4/2/19, 3:11 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: "Choked up"

Too soon?; 4/2/19, 3:11 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Worst case is an impact with an Oort cloud comet. Oort cloud comets can come in from any direction at any time, and Oort cloud comets are very fast, meaning not just a more powerful impact, but also less to deflect it or prepare for impact.
A bigger danger is a solar Carrington Event. They happen on the scale of centuries, and the last one was in 1860.; 4/2/19, 3:19 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Some perspective on just how long 60 million years is.
Imagine a mountain range emerging from a flat plain. In one thousand years, it grows one foot more than it erodes. In 15 million years you have a mountain range 15,000 feet tall. Now it erodes at the same rate. In 60 million years two such mountain ranges could grow from the plain, and be completely eroded away.; 4/2/19, 3:25 PM
Nonapod said...: Worst case is an impact with an Oort cloud comet.

The worst would be a gamma ray burst within a few thousand lightyears. At least with an oort cloud comet there's some concievable things we could do in terms of mitigation. Or there will be at least within the next hundred years or so. There's pretty much nothing we could do about a GRB other than leave Earth before something like that happens... unless we become so advanced that we come up with some sort of insanely powerful electromagnetic global shield.; 4/2/19, 3:28 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/2/19, 3:29 PM
wwww said...: I read the article this weekend. A beautiful read. He is not yet finished with his PhD. He may have found such an amazing site because he's been obsessively working in the field & not writing or teaching.; 4/2/19, 3:54 PM
mockturtle said...: Fascinating! Good for him.; 4/2/19, 4:12 PM
MountainMan said...: I also read the article in The New Yorker this weekend and it was fascinating. This is really good work.

Along with addressing the impact of an EMP attack (preventable) or another Carrington Event (not preventable), establishing an effective program to monitor potential asteroid/comet impacts should be one of our highest priorities. However, the progressives are too tied up with dragging us through the global warming/climate change nonsense and diverting attention away from two significant issues that could lead to the extinction of much of the human race or perhaps most of life on earth.; 4/2/19, 4:15 PM
Jersey Fled said...: An impact equal to 1 billion atomic bombs, and yet the Earth survived, and even thrived.

Makes you think.; 4/2/19, 4:19 PM
Hagar said...: Luis Alvarez said he estimated the asteroid was 10 km. in diameter meaning it must have been BIG, and the media since has consistently reported it as a fact that it was 6.2, or even 6.214 miles "wide." The oil companies have since mapped out the crater in much more detail, and the consensus now is that the asteroid was even bigger and is estimated to have been 13-14 km. "wide," if their estimates of its density and approach velocity are correct.

And no one still knows for sure if the non-avian dinosaurs perished with the impact or were already gone for other reasons.; 4/2/19, 4:33 PM
Anonymous said...: The scales of this much happening - over this much space - in this short amount of time - is far beyond what you ever normally encounter as a geologist. Yet it all makes sense.; 4/2/19, 4:34 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: I read the whole article in the New Yorker, it was very well worth the time. He has found a fantastic site. The tricky part is how to interpret what it tells us.

Judging from what I read there, the geology world is rife, even today, with skulduggery and character assassination. Many of the guys who didn't find it, who do most of their digging in the library or in less interesting places, seem to have the knives out. DePalma, knowing this and having been nailed before for being a bit too exuberant, is being extra careful to have everything lined up and checked by others before he publishes the whole thing.

It's brutal, but that's science for you. Plate tectonics, as I recall, had a rough go of it for quite some few years before it was generally accepted. (The traces of past magnetic field reversals, equally spaced on both sides of the mid-Atlantic ridge, was powerful evidence for it.)

As Max Planck said, science advances one funeral at a time.; 4/2/19, 4:35 PM
Paul McKaskle said...: A year or so ago Nature (or Nova) had a program which illustrated a very similar result from the Chixculub collision. Possibly based on the same data.

As to not yet having a PhD, as I recall Donald Glaser won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1960 based on his PhD thesis.; 4/2/19, 4:37 PM
Oso Negro said...: Some the world end in fire, some say in ice.; 4/2/19, 4:42 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: I think it's an interesting paper, but these guys tend to oversell things. It's pretty easy not to get passionate or choked about it, thanks.; 4/2/19, 4:43 PM
Lance said...: It is difficult not to get choked up and passionate about this topic

Emotion from a scientist is a red flag for me. Let the discovery speak for itself.; 4/2/19, 4:43 PM
Leland said...: Nice puff piece to get people excited about paleontology. Now if we could only get people interested in a defense system against such asteroids; for starters, a better detection system. Instead, we have the Green New Deal, which would actually prevent research on step two: a rocket with payload capacity to steer an asteroid away. Even Obama was better on this than AOC or Sanders.; 4/2/19, 4:49 PM
Curious George said...: "That is true. But then again, I know people who have gotten choked up at the Grand Canyon."

Sure, so have I. But for different reason. Just admit you were stupid. It's cleansing.; 4/2/19, 4:56 PM
mockturtle said...: Now if we could only get people interested in a defense system against such asteroids; for starters, a better detection system.

Nice try, Leland, but the Bible tells us that an asteroid will destroy 1/3 of life on earth, although it is called a 'great star burning like a torch'.

One thing we learned [I think] from the Mt. St. Helens eruption is that the earth is self-recreating.; 4/2/19, 4:58 PM
Quaestor said...: There are about 10,000 living species of birds versus about half as many mammalian species.

It's still the planet of the dinosaurs.; 4/2/19, 5:00 PM
RobinGoodfellow said...: Blogger Jersey Fled said...
An impact equal to 1 billion atomic bombs, and yet the Earth survived, and even thrived.

Makes you think.

It makes me think that humans could never “destroy the earth.”; 4/2/19, 5:02 PM
Darrell said...: A 5-billion-ton iron meteorite once slammed into Greenland — between 12,000 and 3 million years ago--and scientists found its Paris-size crater under the ice.; 4/2/19, 5:15 PM
MountainMan said...: One factoid from The New Yorker article: Robert DePalma's first cousin is movie director Brian DePalma.; 4/2/19, 5:26 PM
William said...: I hope this helps Democrats to put the election of Trump into perspective.......I read somewhere that every few hundred years an asteroid belt passes through our solar system and the shit hits the fan. Cataclysms happen with fair regularity although not measured by mortal time....... One nice thing about being old is that if the world ends tomorrow the only thing you miss out on is arthritis and the final season of GOT......I'd like to align the cosmos with some kind of divine purpose, but so much of it is random. We're some kind of chance byproduct of primeval sludge, and here we are with our fine cathedrals pointing to the sky. I don't wish to second guess God, but I do wish that He had effected his purpose in a more elegant, straight forward way.; 4/2/19, 5:45 PM
fizzymagic said...: progressives are too tied up with dragging us through the global warming/climate change nonsense and diverting attention away from two significant issues that could lead to the extinction of much of the human race or perhaps most of life on earth.

My theory on this is that they can't figure out a way to blame it on human evil so it does not suit their political needs.

It might tend to make people realize that the claims that human-caused global warming will destroy all life on the Earth are, well, a little exaggerated, huh?; 4/2/19, 5:47 PM
chickelit said...: Somewhere, someone is sorely disappointed that DePalma is a white male who looks like Indiana Jones. Why can't we suppress these stories and report on advances in Women's Studies instead?; 4/2/19, 6:05 PM
rcocean said...: Crying over dead dinosaurs? Look, at it this way, all those dinosaurs would be dead now anyway.; 4/2/19, 6:28 PM
sinz52 said...: "What would it be like to have the ground suddenly jump up 8 or 9 feet in less than a second and drop back down just as quickly as a literal wave of the earth's crust passed through?"

The magnitude of the blast itself is hard to imagine.

It's estimated that the asteroid hit the Earth with a force of 200 million megatons. That's roughly a thousand times more powerful than all the nuclear weapons on Earth combined.

It shot billions of tons of debris literally into orbit.; 4/2/19, 6:31 PM
BJM said...: rcocean said...
Crying over dead dinosaurs? Look, at it this way, all those dinosaurs would be dead now anyway.

Especially if they tasted like chicken.; 4/2/19, 7:09 PM
Michael K said...: report on advances in Women's Studies instead?

Well, we did have that woman designed bridge in Florida.. It was pretty and who cares if it flattened six cars ?; 4/2/19, 7:11 PM
rhhardin said...: Alas, like every New Yorker article, the prose eventually screams that the writer is paid by the word.

No consideration for the reader's time.; 4/2/19, 7:14 PM
Hagar said...: "What would it be like to have the ground suddenly jump up 8 or 9 feet in less than a second and drop back down just as quickly as a literal wave of the earth's crust passed through?"

New Madrid 1812?

Didn't part of Alaska jump up 30+/- feet in 1964?; 4/2/19, 7:47 PM
Paul Ciotti said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/2/19, 7:59 PM
stephen cooper said...: rhhardin - the New Yorker did a good job profiling Michael Savage a few years ago.

If you want to be profiled in the New Yorker, the guy who did the Savage profile would be the guy to hire.

I wonder if there cartoons are still funny, I haven't looked at more than a couple dozen or so in the last 20 years.; 4/2/19, 8:05 PM
stephen cooper said...: rhhardin - the New Yorker did a good job profiling Michael Savage a few years ago.

If you want to be profiled in the New Yorker, the guy who did the Savage profile would be the guy to hire.

I wonder if there cartoons are still funny, I haven't looked at more than a couple dozen or so in the last 20 years.; 4/2/19, 8:05 PM
Molly said...: Ieaglebeak)

Agree with Quaestor--I have long enjoyed looking out the window and seeing all the little feathered dinosaurs flitting around. It's a wonderful way for the dinosaurs to have wound up.; 4/2/19, 8:21 PM
chuck said...: The paper describes the geology of the site and makes the case for it capturing the immediate result of the impact. There should be many more papers coming describing the finds in detail and they say about life at the time. Impact modelers will also have more data to work with. Those papers should be *very* interesting.; 4/2/19, 8:23 PM
Fernandinande said...: Video or it didn't happen.; 4/2/19, 8:26 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Molly said: "It's a wonderful way for the dinosaurs to have wound up."

Dinosaurs are tough, tough, tough. How do I know? I mix cayenne pepper powder in with the oilseeds in my dinosaur feeder. The dinosaurs' appetites are unabated, while the tree rats seem to find the cuisine too stimulating for their palate.

So much for the superiority of mammals.

OTOH, the Mexicans today seem to take cayenne in stride. Of course, Mexico is where the asteroid landed. I guess they must be tough too, in some sense.

It is a wonderful thing, how all this fits together in Nature's Plan.

I have to sign off now, I'm starting to get choked up.; 4/2/19, 8:50 PM
Joan said...: Just popping in to say, as a science teacher who discusses the KT extinction event with my students every year, I love this story. So much good science!; 4/2/19, 8:52 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: I agree with you, Joan. It's a great time to be alive in the West. So much has been learned about Nature in just our lifetimes.

I was so excited when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory verified Einstein's prediction about the existence of gravity waves. That was, I believe, the last of his predictions to be demonstrated by experiment.

And it all came from the math.

Separately, we humans landed a robot on a comet. When I was a kid, we weren't sure what comets were. (Carl Sagan was right, BTW.)

What a gift for us!; 4/2/19, 9:13 PM
Joe said...: I wasn't impressed with the article as many here (and at Instapundit) were. The article seems more hype than substance; it doesn't show what the headline and lede claimed. There are also obvious questions that weren't raised by the writer--is this really recording an instant in time or did the geography of the location and other chance circumstances make it appear to be something it isn't?

To be fair, the actual science may be good, but I found the article deficient.; 4/2/19, 10:45 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I for one am thankful for the asteroid- we avoided the giant lizard Trump regime.; 4/2/19, 11:54 PM
Zach said...: To be fair, the actual science may be good, but I found the article deficient.

Did you read the article, or the actual paper?

The paper describes a major dying event (mass fish kill, lots of plant life) that is intimately associated with several unique signatures of an asteroid impact. There are spherical bolides (glassy bodies that form when the ejected material condenses) of the kind that are usually associated with the KT boundary scattered throughout the deposit. They are chemically identical to other bolides associated with the Chixculub impact. Some of the heavier bolides are associated with splash craters, like you'd get if you dropped a rock into mud. There are oceanic shells deposited in an inland ecosystem, such as you would get from major waves washing into shore. There are multiple water flow directions in the same deposit, indicating that water was flowing first one way then another. The fish had bolides in their gills, indicating that they breathed them in while alive.

So you've got a major killoff of animals that were alive when millions of BB sized glass beads from the Chixculub impact were falling into the water. The beads are much bigger than the grain size which was laid down by the river, indicating that the normal current wasn't strong enough to move them around. So the only time they would be in the water where the fish could breathe them in is between hitting the water and sinking to the bottom of the river. Even though you've got hundreds or thousands of big fish corpses lying around on the river bank, nothing comes around to scavenge them -- the fossils show intact animals. That's pretty strong evidence that the fish were alive on the day of the impact and were killed by the aftermath.; 4/3/19, 12:48 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Hey wait... the science was settled!; 4/3/19, 4:46 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Dude, it was millions of years ago and they were just animals; not people. What the hell is wrong with you?

Why do think "just animals" are less important or to be less valued than humans? (In fact, humans are "just animals."); 4/3/19, 6:41 AM
Robert Cook said...: "It makes me think that humans could never 'destroy the earth.'”

It makes me think some people are arguing in bad faith or simply don't listen. No one says humans will destroy the earth. What many argue is that we could sufficiently affect the current ecology and climate of the earth such that we would effectively destroy the conditions necessary to sustain much or most current terran life forms.

The earth would abide even if all life forms on the planet today died out. Some other other life forms would probably arise and develop in the long millennia following the demise of existing forms.; 4/3/19, 6:51 AM
robother said...: Support for those PhD candidates who say they just need a bit more research before finalizing their thesis. This guy's doctoral thesis will be highly (and almost literally) impactful.; 4/3/19, 8:22 AM
Nichevo said...: Why do think "just animals" are less important or to be less valued than humans? (In fact, humans are "just animals.")

4/3/19, 6:41 AM

Hey Bob, I gotta steer stuck in the chute here...He's wondering if you'd like to fill in for him tonight? Dinner's at eight; wear whatever, but a bath would be a good idea and an enema if at all possible would help with the cleanup.; 4/3/19, 9:18 AM
Tina848 said...: I live in PA and we have weird geological formations that show a huge impact of some kind and it flipped the mountain. This has been known for decades. Could have been the glacier, could have been the asteroid? Normally, when you dig, the deeper you go, the older the era. Instead of getting older, it is skewed. For example, it should be 10K years ago, 20K years ago, 30K, 40K, 50K, 60K, 70K years ago. Instead, it is 10K years ago, 20K, 50K, 40K, 30K, 60K, 70K years ago.; 4/3/19, 10:00 AM
tommyesq said...: Sheridan,

I thought starvation was estimated to occur in twelve years, not ten?; 4/3/19, 10:39 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Hey Bob, I gotta steer stuck in the chute here...He's wondering if you'd like to fill in for him tonight? Dinner's at eight; wear whatever, but a bath would be a good idea and an enema if at all possible would help with the cleanup."

Is this non-sequitur supposed to answer my question?; 4/3/19, 11:40 AM
mikee said...: Here in Austin, Texas, there are Late Cretaceous sediments exposed in road cuts and construction sites, creek beds and hillsides. These were formed when this part of Texas was a shallow sea, and one of the index (i.e., very common) fossils to be found is Exogyra ponderosa, a giant oyster. The fist to head sized lower shells are impressive, and often found with their flat upper "covering" shell attached, and tightly closed. As I explained this to elementary school kids on Science Day at my daughter's school, these closed bivalves "were alive when they died." They were buried in mud. Maybe during the tidal waves from the meteor impace, maybe from a storm long before.

Fish coprolites, however, were more popular with the 6 to 13 year old kids, once I explained what they were. Go figure.; 4/3/19, 11:58 AM