The Chicxulub impact and the dawn of a new era (Science for Alaska Lecture Series)
February 9, 2018
The UAF Geophysical Institute presents the 2018 Science for Alaska Lecture Series.
Come to the Raven Landing Center at 1222 Cowles Street on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. to learn
about exciting science from a history of Alaska weather to how beavers are colonizing
the Arctic, and more.
On Feb. 13, Mike Whalen will present "The Chicxulub impact and the dawn of a new era."
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid a little larger in diameter than downtown
Fairbanks smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This caused one of the greatest
upheavals recorded in Earth history, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. The
impact led to the loss of 75 percent of all species on Earth, including the most charismatic
of megafauna, the dinosaurs. In May 2016, the International Ocean Discovery Program/
International Continental Drilling Program recovered a new core from the impact crater,
Chicxulub (Cheek-zoo-lube), created by the asteroid. This talk will explore the ways
the impact affected the Earth’s crust, producing a 125-mile-wide crater with a ring
of mountains around its center. The talk will also investigate the types of deposits
left by the impact and subsequent tsunami that reverberated around the Gulf of Mexico,
and the evidence for recovery of life in the crater. The Chicxulub impact marks the
dawn of a new geologic Era as the giants of the Mesozoic fell, making way for the
rise of mammals in the Cenozoic.
For more information visit www.gi.alaska.edu/science-alaska-lecture-series/.