Drilling for what doomed the dinosaurs
Researchers will be drilling 1.5 km down to sample the long-buried crater from the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.
An expedition seeks to sample the Chicxulub impact crater
66 million years ago, a fourteen-kilometre diameter asteroid slammed into the Caribbean, and caused a global catastrophe that killed most life on Earth and exterminated the dinosaurs. The 200 km diameter crater from that massive impact is currently buried under 600 meters of sediment under the Caribbean Sea.
Later this month, scientists will depart on an expedition to drill down to directly sample the crater. Dr. Sean Gulick, a research professor at the Institute for Geophysics of the University of Texas at Austin, is co-chief scientist of the International Ocean Discovery Program's Chicxulub Impact Crater Expedition.
They hope to drill down and sample impact rock and overlying sediment to better understand the intensity of the impact, and also to look at how life recovered in the time immediately after the catastrophe.
Related Links
- Chicxulub Drilling Expedition
- Science Magazine story
- CBC News story