tektites tagged posts

66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. The amount of energy released in this mega-earthquake is estimated at 1023 joules, which is about 50,000 times more energy than was released in the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004.

Hermann Bermúdez will present evidence of this “mega-earthquake” at the upcoming GSA Connects meeting in Denver this Sunday, 9 October...

Tektites of different shapes from Australia. The force of the impact hurled the glass bodies thousands of kilometres. Some left the earth’s atmosphere and acquired their flanged edge on re-entry into the atmosphere (bottom left). Credit: © Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University

~790,000 years ago there were multiple cosmic impacts on Earth with global consequences. Geoscientists from Heidelberg University reached this conclusion after dating tektites from various parts of the world and studied several of such rock glasses, which originated during impacts of asteroids or comets. The dating method is based on naturally occurring isotopes that allowed them to date tektites more accurately than ever...