Meteor impact. Or not?

The dinosaurs became extinct because of a meteor impact. Or not? Or is it? A report
Controversial scientific issues can develop quite entertaining character. One can sit on the bleachers and cheer. The ball travels once into one, sometimes the other field. From time to time a goal is scored, but the game remains exciting until the end. Perhaps it even comes to penalties.

In the contest for one of the most controversial debates in the Geosciences last weeks score fell once ( I wrote about it for Raumfahrer.net).

What triggered the third largest mass extinction in the last 500 million years On one side are the proponents of the impact hypothesis: Before 65.5 million years a 10 km large meteorite crashed before today’s Yucatán Peninsula. He left behind a 200 km-diameter crater and a lot of dead animals. For 30 years, the impact hypothesis is in the room and there are signs that it’s true.

But the opposing team quickly formed and in 2003 she managed the equalizer. The largest volcanic province of the world, the Deccan Traps in India, was built at the same time as the impact in Mexico. Two potential trigger a mass extinction. Which team can win the game?

How did the recent goal of Impaktbefürworter? Last week appeared whose publication in the journal Science. 40 researchers are involved. It states:

We carry here together global knowledge collected along the layer boundary to decide between the various discussed causes of mass extinctions. Obviously, a single layer at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary occurs worldwide, is directly related to the Chicxulub impact event. The temporal sequence of ejection layers and the extinction event combined with changes in the ecosystem in the fossil record and models on the effects of felling (such as darkness and cooling) suggest to us that the Chicxulub impact triggered the mass extinction.

Summary: Researchers are finding that two different causes for the great dying come into consideration. And from the information gathered by us arguments, we conclude that the impact was to blame.

That was a safe passing game, well simulated, clean shot. The keeper had no chance even get close. But the game is not out yet. The other side to regroup, their own (perhaps only seemingly refuted) arguments underpin new and launch a counterattack. After all, we are moving in a scientific competition. And just in the geosciences that is not so easy with the evidence.

The jubilation in the own fan curve is of course great . “Death came from outer space,” headlines the press department of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. And somehow it sounds so good, think because the science journalists and Scieneblogger. A lurid subject, well illustrated with dramatic impact images . Complete agreement itself is the community of researchers now:

International study confirms meteorite impact caused the dinosaurs to die out.

Proof. So it is. Otherwise. According to the blaring whistle of the referee. Not yet the final whistle: there is extra time. The Fish Blog gives hope that perhaps could still fall a goal.

But what then has exterminated the dinosaurs? We do not know. Many paleontologists tap — for simplicity — still on the Chicxulub impact, either alone or in connection with the formation of the Deccan Traps , a vast volcanic structure in India. However, unpublished results suggest may indicate that approximately parallel to the lowering of the sea level, the continents were afflicted by a previously unknown catastrophe that affected the marine life only slightly. The mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous is with every new discovery to more puzzles. .