Dinosaur extinction by an asteroid. A scientist with a 65 million year-old sample of rock showing the K/T Boundary between Cretaceous chalk and Tertia

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Dinosaur extinction by an asteroid. A scientist with a 65 million year-old sample of rock showing the K/T Boundary between Cretaceous chalk and Tertiary limestone. At the bottom of the dark band is a thin, brown clay containing nickel-rich magnetites. The unusually high abundance of magnetite particles could have resulted only from the passage of an asteroid through the atmosphere. This supports the catastrophic impact hypothesis for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs observed at the K/T Boundary. The discovery was made by Professor Robert Rocchia, seen here in his laboratory at Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in 1993.

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Size: 3543px × 5322px
Photo credit: © CATHERINE POUEDRAS/EURELIOS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: /, /pg, boundary, cretaceous, dinosaur, earth, event, extinction, geologist, geology, kt, layer, magnetite, palaeogene, paleogene, robert, rocchia, rock, sample, science, strata