Search the Community

Join the Arizona Geological Society, AGS, on their March 11th Zoom talk about the Chicxulub Impact Crater, the event that ended the Cretaceous by Dr. David Kring. Doors open at 6:00 PM Mountain Standard Time; talk starts at 6:30 PM. https://www.arizonageologicalsoc.org/resources/Documents/DKring-11March-Presentation (2).pdf https://www.arizonageologicalsoc.org Arizona Geological Society - 11 March 2021 Virtual presentation Drilling into the Chicxulub Impact Crater Dr. David Kring Center for Lunar Science & Exploration USRA - Lunar and Planetary Institute Thurs., 11 Mar 2021 | 6:30 p.m. ZOOM foyer https://arizona.zoom.us/j/87568360382 opens at 6:00 p.m. ZOOM Password (required) 007430 Abstract: The discovery of the Chicxulub impact crater added tremendous credibility to the impact mass extinction hypothesis. That discovery led, in turn, to detailed studies of the impact’s environmental effects. More recently, deep subsurface drilling by IODP and ICDP provided an opportunity to study the formation of the extraordinary ~180 km diameter basin, which shattered the Yucatan Peninsula and uplifted deep crustal granitoid rocks to the surface to produce a peak ring of rock. The heat of the impact spawned a vast hydrothermal system that persisted for more than a million years. That hydrothermal system is currently being used as a proxy for Hadean Earth systems that may have hosted Earth’s earliest life in the midst of an intense impact bombardment of the Earth’s surface. Illustration: Kring_Chicxulub Hydrothermal Microbes_(Victor O.) From Dr. Kring’s Webpage The Center for Lunar Science and Exploration is led by Dr. David A. Kring. Kring received his Ph.D. in earth and planetary sciences from Harvard University. He specializes in impact cratering processes produced when asteroids and comets collide with planetary surfaces. Kring is perhaps best known for his work with the discovery of the Chicxulub impact crater, which he linked to the K-T boundary mass extinction of dinosaurs and over half of the plants and animals that existed on Earth 65 million years ago. He has also studied the environmental effects of impact cratering and shown how impact processes can affect both the geological and biological evolution of a planet. This work includes studies of the dramatic environmental perturbations (e.g., prolonged darkness, acid rain, wildfires) expected after the Chicxulub impact event, plus studies of several smaller local, regional, and global effects produced by the thousands of impact events that affected Earth after life evolved. Since 1991, Dr. Kring authored or co-authored scores of peer-reviewed papers. In 2002, the Arizona Geological Society published David’s popular geology text on the origin of the Tucson Mountains, ‘Desert Heat & Volcanic Fire: The Geologic History of the Tucson Mountains and Southern Arizona’. (For a listing of Kring’s publications https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/research.shtml . )

The open access paper is: Smith, V., Warny, S., Grice, K., Schaefer, B., Whalen, M.T., Vellekoop, J., Chenot, E., Gulick, S.P., Arenillas, I., Arz, J.A. and Bauersachs, T., 2020. Life and death in the Chicxulub impact crater: A record of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Climate of the Past Discussions, pp.1-17. Related open access papers are: Smith, V., Warny, S., Jarzen, D.M., Demchuk, T., Vajda, V. and Expedition 364 Science Party, 2020. Palaeocene–Eocene miospores from the Chicxulub impact crater, Mexico. Part 1: spores and gymnosperm pollen. Palynology, 44(3), pp.473-487 Smith, V., Warny, S., Jarzen, D.M., Demchuk, T., Vajda, V. and Gulick, S.P., 2020. Paleocene–Eocene palynomorphs from the Chicxulub impact crater, Mexico. Part 2: angiosperm pollen. Palynology, pp.1-31. More papers of Dr. Vann Smith More papers Sophie Warny Yours, Paul H.

Update: Drilling of dinosaur-killing impact crater explains buried circular hills by Eric Hand, Science News, Nov. 17, 2016 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/update-drilling-dinosaur-killing-impact-crater-explains-buried-circular-hills Wendel, J., 2016, Cores from crater tied to dinosaur demise validate impact theory, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO063123. Published on 17 November 2016. https://eos.org/articles/cores-crater-tied-dinosaur-demise-validate-impact-theory the paper is: Morgan, J. V., S. P. S. Gulick, and many others, 2016, The formation of peak rings in large impact craters. vol. 354, no. 6314, pp. 878-882 DOI: 10.1126/science.aah6561 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6314/878 Yours, Paul H.

Chicxulub 'dinosaur crater' investigation begins in earnest by Jonathan Amos, BBC News, October 11, 2016 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37625348 In addition, Moon impacts are more frequent and hazardous then have been previously estimated. Go see; The moon has hundreds more craters than we thought Daily News, October 12, 2016 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2108929-the-moon-has-hundreds-more-craters-than-we-thought/ How old is our Moon? Hundreds of previously unseen craters could finally unlock its true age: New estimates suggest 180 craters of at least ten metres in diameter form each year by Liat Clark, Wired, A facelift for the Moon every 81,000 years, October 12, 2016 http://phys.org/news/2016-10-facelift-moon-years.html http://phys.org/news/2016-10-reveals-lunar-surface-features-younger.html The paper is: Speyerer, E. J., R. Z. Povilaitis, M. S. Robinson, P. C. Thomas, And R. V. Wagner, 2016, Quantifying crater production and regolith overturn on the Moon with temporal imaging. Nature. Vol. 538, pp. 215–218 (13 October 2016) doi:10.1038/nature19829 http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature19829 Yours, Paul H.