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New NASA Maps Show A Bad Day On Earth

Posted by timothy on from the that-is-a-bad-day dept.

Stephen Lau writes "ScienceDaily has an article talking about the new NASA maps that reveal the geography of the North American continent in amazing detail. One of the maps provides strong evidence of a 112 mile wide, 3000 foot deep impact crater which they believe was the comet/asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs and more than 70% of Earth's living species 65 million years ago."

12 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by ArmorFiend · · Score: 5, Funny

    It seems whenever anyone finds a reasonably large crater, they declare "this is it, this is the one that killed the dinos". It grabs headlines. I'd hate to be a dinosaur, because it seems like I'd've been extinctified about 12 times over by genocidal asteroid de jour.

    1. Re:Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by Malc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They've been talking about an asteroid landing in the Gulf of Mexico since before I studied Geology in 1990. I remember being taught about the ejector blanket evidence they'd discovered in amongst the rock layers. The actual crater is rather harder to find due to it being submerged and eroded - it's not like it's obvious like the one in the desert in Arizona.

    2. Re:Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by rabiteman · · Score: 5, Funny
      It seems whenever anyone finds a reasonably large crater, they declare "this is it, this is the one that killed the dinos". It grabs headlines. I'd hate to be a dinosaur, because it seems like I'd've been extinctified about 12 times over by genocidal asteroid de jour.

      Well, the first asteroid was just a warning. Then the next ten were warnings, too. This current one, on the other hand... was the final chance for the dinosaurs to get their act in gear. In a few months, satellites will discover evidence of a 13th apocalyptic asteroid in Siberia. That's the one that took out the dinosaurs.

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      Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee. -Bender

    3. Re:Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 5, Informative
      Quote from the article:

      ... the flat limestone plateau of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula

      In this particular case, though, this research is verifying a long held belief that a giant asteroid/comet hit the Yucatan Peninsula. This is not news of a new asteroid.

      --
      Very popular slashdot journal for adul
    4. Re:Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by Drachemorder · · Score: 5, Interesting
      "Carbon dating the ring shows that it occurred 65 million years ago"

      Um, you can't carbon date an asteroid. You can only carbon date organic material, and that only up to maybe 10,000 years old or so.

      If you want to date rocks, you have to use other forms of radiometric dating, which is what I assume you were referring to.

    5. Re:Man, every asteroid kills the poor dinosaurs by fermion · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I don't remember when the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction was recognized as a good possibility, but it must have late 80s. At that time we didn't know if was one or many. I know that in the early 90s the the Yucatan crater was identified as the most likely culprit, as it was big enough and contemporaneous with the extinction which put the single asteroid extinction at the forefront.

      So, through most of the 90's we accepted that a single impact event wiped out the dinosaurs. Now, however, more impact craters are being found to have been formed within the crucial 65 million time frame (a search on multiple impact and dinosaur extinction). This is good news because perhaps a single big asteroid might not be fatal, and we may be more able to detect a swarm of meteors.

      Anyway, science is a self correcting system, and at this point is may be best just to say it is likely that at least one asteroid hit the earth and was a major contributor to the extinction of the dinosaur. But I know that is too long for a soundbyte.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  2. Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the 7th - NASA Releases New Topographic Map of North America

  3. Re:If you support Slashdot, you support terrorism by Monkey+Angst · · Score: 5, Funny
    Personally I hope the whole lot of you are arrested and subjected to sleep-deprivation interrogation techniques.
    Sure. Then they can try the Chinese water torture on Aquaman. These are Linux geeks, for God's sake.
    --
    stripShow - Where WordPress meets webcomics
  4. no nuclear winter by wwest4 · · Score: 5, Informative
    The most important finding as a result of new imaging is that the mass extiction may have been caused by sulfur fumes, and fires started by hot falling debris. Before they thought photosynthesis was halted by solar obstruction from the dust cloud.


    Which means that a similarly-sized asteroid may be slightly less apocalyptic than thought. Sort of comforting, though I wonder how we'd deal with global forest fires when we can't even handle a relatively small number now.

  5. Not Shown... by Vampyre_Dark · · Score: 5, Funny

    The crater that used to be their server before it was slashdotted.

  6. Re:Alternate image by micromoog · · Score: 5, Funny
    [617.7 megabyte TIFF]

    I take it that the "112 mile wide, 3000 foot deep impact crater" is actual size?

  7. Re:Alternate image by mithras+the+prophet · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since this is a dupe from last week, I had already downloaded the TIFF of the North America image, and converted it to a 1600x1200 JPEG.

    You can grab it here.

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