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It is estimated that the asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs from the Earth was equivalent to 10 billion atomic bombs used during the Second World War. The impact of the giant asteroid had triggered massive tsunamis and caused wildfires thousands of miles away, according to a study conducted by the University of Texas at Austin.
According to the findings of the study, the asteroid spilled so much sulfur into the Earth's atmosphere that it blocked the sun's rays, which resulted in a global cooling that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, reported The Indian Express.
Scientists have found tangible evidence in the hundreds of meters of rocks that filled the impact crater within 24 hours of impact, according to a study published in the newspaper Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The evidence includes pieces of charcoal, piles of rock brought by the tsunami repression and substantially absent sulfur. According to Sean Gulick, a research professor at the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Texas (UTIG) at the Jackson School of Geosciences, all of these elements form a part of the rock record that provides the most detail on the catastrophic consequences that ended the dinosaurs.
Gulick had led the study and co-led the 2016 scientific discovery mission of the International Ocean Discovery Program, which helped recover the rocks at the impact site off the peninsula Yucatan, the report said.
The research is based on previous work, co-directed and led by The Jackson School, which described crater formation and rapid recovery of life at the impact site. More than two dozen international scientists contributed to the study.
Most of the materials that filled the crater a few hours after the impact were on the impact site or were washed away by seawater flowing into the nearby Gulf of Mexico crater. According to the researchers, 425 feet of material were deposited in one day, which is the highest ever recorded in the geographic archive.
Gulick explained that it was a short-lived hell at the regional level, followed by a long period of global cooling. "We fried them and then we froze them," Gulick said in a statement. "Not all dinosaurs died that day, but many dinosaurs are dead."
The researchers found coal and a chemical biomarker associated with soil fungi just above the sand layers showing signs of deposits due to the resurgence of water, the report says.
According to the researchers, the area surrounding the impact crater is full of rocks rich in sulfur. However, there was no sulfur in the nucleus. According to the researchers, this supports the assumption that the impact of the asteroid would have vaporized the sulfur minerals present at the site of the impact and would have released them into the atmosphere of the planet.
Scientists estimated that at least 325 billion tonnes would have been released into the atmosphere by the impact of the asteroid. This would have reflected sunlight away from the planet and caused global cooling.
The scientists concluded that, although the impact of the asteroid has resulted in massive destruction at the regional level, it was the global climate change that had led to the massive extinction of the dinosaurs and most other living species on Earth during this period.
"The real killer must be atmospheric," Gulick said in his release. "The only way to achieve global mass extinction like this is an atmospheric effect."
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