K-T Event

[George Lindsay <glindsay@orion.neca.com>]

An article in "Science News," New Jersey's link to a global crisis (Vol.
151, June 14, 1997), discusses work done by Richard Olsson and Kenneth
Miller of Rutgers.  They were investigating the sedimentary evidence of
events before and after the Chicxulub impact.  According to the article,
"The New Jersey borehole contains the thickest layer of ejected material
outside the Gulf of Nexico...This includes a 6-centimeter-thick layer of
microscopic spheres that settled onto a quiet seafloor at the end of the
Cretaceous.  Many scientists interpret the spheres as the remnants of
molten rock sprayed into the air by the impact."  The researchers found
that the evidence ties the impact to mass extinctions at the end of the
Cretaceous, since few ocean species survived the boundary.

Six cm of ejecta in New Jersey from an impact in the Yucatan?!--what a
blast.  A destructive force of such magnitude certainly seems capable of
explaining the demise of the dinosaurs, in and of itself.

George Lindsay