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墨書 Inktalez
In the 4.6 billion years of Earth's evolutionary history, one type of organism dominated the planet for an astonishing 160 million years.
At that time, no species could challenge its supremacy: the Dinosaur.
However, even empires in absolute dominance cannot escape the fate of destruction when disaster strikes unexpectedly.
What exactly happened on the last day of the Dinosaur?
Why do people generally believe that the extinction of the Dinosaur was caused by an Asteroid impact?
Scientists revealed the harrowing events of that day 66 million years ago at the famous Tanis Dinosaur Site.
Based on a Dinosaur fossil discovered at the excavation site, all the joints were intact, and its surface was covered with skin, showing no signs of bite marks. CT scans revealed that it had been torn apart by some immense force capable of severing bodies in an instant.
This force was likely due to a massive flood or some powerful impact.
At the same time, another new discovery supports this hypothesis.
In 2019, while excavating Dinosaur fossils, scientists found an almost complete Cretaceous period turtle fossil.
From the fossil, a piece of wood was discovered inside the turtle, piercing directly from its head to its tail. This was similar to previous findings of Dinosaurs, which also perished due to a powerful impact against branches.
However, these two new discoveries were still insufficient to link the extinction of the Dinosaur to an Asteroid impact until a Cretaceous period fish fossil was found, revealing clues to the truth.
In the skull and ribs of the fish, many round particles were found. Upon testing, it was surprisingly discovered that the elemental composition of these particles did not belong to any materials found on Earth.
They are likely from an Asteroid.
As a result, when the Asteroid collided with Earth, debris was ejected into space. Due to its extremely high speed, some of it even escaped Earth's gravity and fell onto the Moon, while most of the debris was pulled back to Earth by gravity. Some of it landed in water and was inhaled by fish through their gills, leading to their immediate death.
Thus, the deaths of these fish and other related clues suggest that the extinction of the Dinosaurs was highly likely caused by the impact of the Asteroid.
But what exactly happened that day?
On a certain day 66 million years ago, an Asteroid approximately 10 kilometers in diameter, known as the Chicxulub Asteroid, was hurtling toward Earth at a speed of up to 70,000 kilometers per hour, striking the ocean off the coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
The explosion generated by the impact was equivalent to one billion atomic bombs, incinerating all life within a radius of 1,500 kilometers and ejecting over 30 trillion tons of debris into space.
The shockwave traveled at speeds of several thousand kilometers per hour, triggering a massive tsunami.
At this moment, 3,000 kilometers away from the impact site, Tanis had yet to realize that doomsday was approaching; here, the Dinosaurs still lived in peace.
The disaster rapidly advanced toward Tanis, annihilating everything in its path in an instant.
When the seismic waves reached Tanis, violent shaking caused the river waters to churn violently. A 10-meter-high wall of water surged upstream along the waterway, drowning many animals beneath its depths.
Although large Dinosaurs managed to escape this calamity, the disaster was far from over.
Immediately afterward, the debris from the explosion fell like rain, with high-temperature particles igniting widespread wildfires.
Whether on land or in the sky, all the Dinosaurs had nowhere to escape.
Dust filled the sky, blocking out sunlight for decades.
Not only did this plunge the Earth into extreme cold weather, but plants also withered due to their inability to photosynthesize.
Those Dinosaurs that survived could not adapt to the changes in their environment and ultimately perished, leading to a complete collapse of the entire ecosystem, leaving the Earth in silence.
Thus, this brutal Cretaceous Catastrophe marked the end of the most fascinating era of Dinosaurs in biological history.
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