An asteroid strike slightly over 66 million years ago that is now widely accepted as the primary cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, the mass extinction of 75 percent of plant and animal species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, closing the Mesozoic era and opening the Cenozoic. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Magnitude or ScaleImpactor roughly ten kilometers across; crater about two hundred kilometers in diameter, buried about one kilometer deep 1 LocationYucatán Peninsula, Mexico, partly onshore and partly under the Gulf of Mexico 1 Connections
Causes
The impact is the primary accepted cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that ends this period.
Source Chicxulub Crater (Wikipedia)
Source Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event (Wikipedia)
In Discipline
Source Chicxulub Crater (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Chicxulub Crater (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
The Chicxulub crater is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.
Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationCauses: Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, Lead sectionQuote, Causes: Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, Lead section
It is generally thought that the K-Pg extinction resulted from the impact of a massive asteroid 10 to 15 km (6 to 9 mi) wide, creating the Chicxulub impact crater and devastating the global environment primarily through a lingering impact winter which halted photosynthesis in plants and plankton.
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