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Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary |
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4-9 miles (6-15 km) in diameter hit the Earth 
about 65 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater at the tip of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The impact would have penetrated the Earth's crust, scattering dust and debris into the atmosphere, and causing huge fires, tsunamis
, severe storms with high winds
and highly acidic rain 
, seismic activity, and perhaps even volcanic activity 
. The impact could have caused chemical changes in the Earth's atmosphere, increasing concentrations of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and fluoride compounds. The heat from the impact's blast wave would have incinerated all the life forms in its path.
The Shiva crater is a another huge impact crater located under the Arabian Sea off the coast of India near Bombay. This crater also dates from the K-T boundary, 65 million years ago, when the Chicxulub crater at the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula also formed. Although theShiva crater has shifted because of sea floor spreading, when pieced together it would be about 370 miles (600 km) by 280 miles (450 km) across and 7.5 miles (12 km) deep (and may be just part of a larger crater). It is estimated to have been made by a bolide (an asteroid or meteoroid) 25 miles (40 km) in diameter. This crater was named by the paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee for Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal.
The dust and debris thrust into the atmosphere would have blocked most of the sunlight 
for months, and lowered the temperature 
globally.
The K-T mass extinction obliterated the dinosaurs 
, pterosaurs
, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, some families of birds and marsupial mammals, over half the plankton groups, many families of teleost (bony) fishes, bivalves, snails, sponges, sea urchins and others.
This catastrophe eventually led to the Age of Mammals.
During the K-T extinction, it has been estimated that 80-90% of marine species, about 50% of the marine genera, and about 15% of the marine families went extinct. For land animals, about 85% of the species, about 25% of the families, and about 56% of the genera died out. Larger animals (over about 55 pounds=25 kg) were all wiped out.
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