It has long been suspected that one of the causes of the extinction of the dinosaurs is an asteroid hit. The incident occurred during the Tertiary and Creatcous known as the KT event.

Now, geologists find new evidence that what is alleged is true. Geologists analyze the impact crater 180 km wide near the town of Chicxulub, Mexico. A 10 km asteroid impacts that releases energy as much as 100 trillion tons of TNT, billions of times the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

The results of the analysis revealed that the collision that formed the Chicxulub crater and the KT event only difference 33,000 years. These results were obtained with high precision radioactive dating techniques, see the proportion of radioactive material in the crater impact.

The fact revealed by this study to update the results of previous research which states that the difference with the KT impact event that formed the Chicxulub is between 300,000 and 180,000 years old.

"We show that the impact and mass extinction occurred coincident in time so that one can be demonstrated with existing dating techniques," said Paul Renne, an expert geokronologi and Berkeley Geochronology Center director in California.

Although the impact and mass extinctions occurred within huddle, asteroid impact can not be said to be the sole cause of extinction. Climate change is happening millions of years in the future also contribute herding animals on the brink of extinction.

"The phenomenon that happened before makes a global ecosystem becomes more sensitive to triggers that are relatively small," Renne said as quoted by LiveScience, Thursday (02/07/2013) ago. This research was published in the journal Science, Friday (02/08/2013).
sources:
LiveScience



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