Chicxulub Crater: Meteor Impact Killed Dinosaurs

Photos

NYC - AMNH: Tyrannosaurus Rex - T-REX

see larger image

uploaded by skyliner

• 

  uploaded by skyliner | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Ricardo Ko | add comment

Chicxulub Crater in Gulf of Mexico: Ground Zero for K-T Boundary, Dinosaur Extinction

Pointing to the Chicxulub crater as the smoking gun, scientists have agreed that the dinosaurs, along with half of Earth's species at the time, were wiped out when a meteor struck the earth 65.5 million years ago. The asteroid, which was 7.5 miles wide, would have released the energy of a billion atomic bombs in what's referred to as the K-T extinction event.

• Chicxulub Crater images
  

The Chicxulub crater is over 110 miles in diameter, and is located at the tip of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. As will be published in Science, dinosaurs met their demise due to a catastrophe from outer space.

The K-T Boundary

The catastrophic meteor strike defined the K-T Boundary, which is the geological boundary between the Cretaceous Period and the Tertiary Periods. The Cretaceous Period, which began roughly 145 million years ago,  followed the Jurassic Period, as in "Park".  As "Tertiary" isn't very specific, some refer to the K-T extinction event as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. The overlap of the event and the geographical boundary is marked by the absence of dinosaur fossils above the K-T boundary.

The dinosaurs had a good run, though: 160 million years. Still, the K-T extinction event would have wiped them out within days. Warm-blooded mammals survived, though, and took center stage.