Study: Damage from Dinosaur Killing Asteroid Worse Than Expected All

KOMPAS.com – A study finds new evidence of impact after asteroid destroyer dinosaur hit Earth, 66 million years ago.

The study said a large amount of sulfur whose volume was more than previously thought was thrown into the Earth’s stratosphere.

After being thrown into the air, the huge cloud of gas containing sulfur then blocks the Sun and cools the Earth for decades to centuries.

It’s not over yet. The new study finds these sulfur-laden clouds then fall as deadly acid rain on Earth, altering the chemistry of the oceans for tens of thousands of years.

Also read: The Most Complete Triceratops Dinosaur Fossil Finds Reveals Its Life in the Past

“We have underestimated the amount of sulfur created by this asteroid impact,” said James Witts, study researcher and lecturer at the University of Bristol in England.

As a result, climate change associated with the event is much greater than previously thought.

The fact that sulfur has continued to flow to the Earth’s surface for so long could help explain why it takes so long for life, especially in the oceans, to recover. This is because some of the sulfur that falls on land is then also washed away into the ocean.

Accidental discovery

Citing Live Science, Tuesday (22/3/2022), this finding actually happened by chance.

“It wasn’t something that was planned at all,” Witts said.

The research team originally planned to study the geochemistry of ancient shells near the Brazos River in Falls County, Texas. This place was underwater during the Late Cretaceous extinction, when non-avian dinosaurs became extinct.

The place is also not too far from the Chicxulub crater on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where the asteroid 10 kilometers in diameter hit.

At that time the researchers took some sediment samples in a location they did not plan to do.

The samples were then taken to the University of St Andrews in Scotland to be analyzed for various sulfur isotopes or variations of sulfur that have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei.

The results of the analysis found an unusual signal. Isotopes of sulfur have an unexpectedly small change in mass. The change occurs when sulfur enters the atmosphere and interacts with ultraviolet (UV) light.

“This really can only happen in two scenarios, an atmosphere that doesn’t have oxygen in it or has a lot of sulfur in it. The sulfur content rises very high into the oxygenated atmosphere,” said Witts.

Also read: When did the dinosaur-killing asteroid hit Earth? Researchers Find the Answer

The fact that this signal was present in Cretaceous marine rocks also suggests that there must have been a large amount of sulfur in the atmosphere after the collision.

But Witts said if the asteroid hit somewhere else there probably wouldn’t be as much sulfur released into the atmosphere and the climate change that followed might not be as severe.

Previously, sulfur aerosols that entered Earth’s atmosphere after the asteroid impact ranged from 30 to 500 gigatons.

This sulfur will then turn into sulfate aerosols that will cause a 2 to 8 degree Celsius cooling of the Earth’s surface for decades after the impact.

But the new findings reveal that more sulfur is being produced than previously thought, suggesting climate change could be even more severe.

The study was published online Monday, (21/3/2022) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Also read: How Did Birds Survive the Impact of a Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid?

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