Fingerprinting the asteroid that determined the fate of the dinosaurs 

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Artistic rendition of a cataclysmic impact, such as the Chicxulub event that cau
Artistic rendition of a cataclysmic impact, such as the Chicxulub event that caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, 66 million years ago. The impact of a multikilometer-sized asteroid into a shallow ocean is depicted a few seconds after the initial surface contact. Image : Dona Jalufka (Vienna, Austria), 1994/2005.

A team of geoscientists, including members from the Archaeology, Environmental Changes and Geo-Chemistry large research unit of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has investigated traces of the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

The team examined samples from the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary layer, which marks the extinction of 70% of all species that existed at the time, including the dinosaurs. According to the widely accepted theory, the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous was caused by the impact of an asteroid over 10 km in diameter on Earth, at the location of what is now the city of Chicxulub (Mexico). ...

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