Binary_Bark
Forging
The last time the world was ending, two cataclysms aligned. On one side of the planet, a wayward asteroid dropped like a cartoon anvil, punching through the edge of the Yucatan Peninsula and penetrating deep into Earth’s crust. Around the same time — 66 million years ago — a million cubic kilometers of lava were in the process of bubbling up to the surface, releasing climate-altering carbon dioxide and sulfur into the atmosphere and forming what would become the Deccan Traps of modern-day India.
Rock layers around the world show what happened next. No dinosaurs besides the birds made it out. Neither did the squidlike ammonites that curled like rams’ horns, or marine reptiles including the plesiosaurs (Loch Ness conspiracies notwithstanding). But because of the close timing of the asteroid and the volcanism, geologists have spent years staking out increasingly acrimonious positions on which one deserves the blame for the ensuing carnage. In 2018, The Atlantic called the debate “The Nastiest Feud in Science.”
A Rapid End Strikes the Dinosaur Extinction Debate
The paleontologist Pincelli Hull has nailed down the timing and speed of the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs — details that carry ominous warnings for today.