TY - JOUR
T1 - Chicxulub impact predates the K-T boundary mass extinction
AU - Keller, Gerta
AU - Adatte, Thierry
AU - Stinnesbeck, Wolfgang
AU - Rebolledo-Vieyra, Mario
AU - Fucugauchi, Jaime Urrutia
AU - Kramar, Utz
AU - Stüben, Doris
PY - 2004/3/16
Y1 - 2004/3/16
N2 - Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that proves the hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs and caused the mass extinction of many other organisms at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago. Here, we report evidence from a previously uninvestigated core, Yaxcopoil-1, drilled within the Chicxulub crater, indicating that this impact predated the K-T boundary by ≈300,000 years and thus did not cause the end-Cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed. The evidence supporting a pre-K-T age was obtained from Yaxcopoil-1 based on five independent proxies, each with characteristic signals across the K-T transition: sedimentology, biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, stable isotopes, and iridium. These data are consistent with earlier evidence for a late Maastrichtian age of the microtektite deposits in northeastern Mexico.
AB - Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that proves the hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs and caused the mass extinction of many other organisms at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago. Here, we report evidence from a previously uninvestigated core, Yaxcopoil-1, drilled within the Chicxulub crater, indicating that this impact predated the K-T boundary by ≈300,000 years and thus did not cause the end-Cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed. The evidence supporting a pre-K-T age was obtained from Yaxcopoil-1 based on five independent proxies, each with characteristic signals across the K-T transition: sedimentology, biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, stable isotopes, and iridium. These data are consistent with earlier evidence for a late Maastrichtian age of the microtektite deposits in northeastern Mexico.
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.0400396101
DO - 10.1073/pnas.0400396101
M3 - Article
C2 - 15004276
AN - SCOPUS:1642404383
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 101
SP - 3753
EP - 3758
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 11
ER -