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About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the planet, wiping out all non-avian dinosaurs and about 70 percent of all marine species. The huge crater formed in the Gulf of Mexico functioned as a cradle for recovery of marine life enriching the overlying ocean for at least 700,000 years, according to research published today in Nature Communications .

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.

What exactly happens during and immediately after the impact of a meteorite? That was the question posed by a team of geologists from the research group Archaeology, Environmental Changes & Geo-Chemistry (AMGC) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The Chicxulub crater in Mexico is best known because of the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago.

Fine dust from pulverised rock released by the impact of the Chicxulub meteorite 66 million years ago played a major role in climate cooling, disruption of photosynthesis and the mass extinction of dinosaurs, VUB researchers have found. Until now, the exact circumstances surrounding the mass extinction of the dinosaurs - such as the effect on the global climate of the material ejected by the meteorite's impact - have been unclear.

Fine dust from pulverized rock released by the Chicxulub meteorite impact 66 million years ago played a dominant role in the cooling of the climate, the disruption of photosynthesis and the mass extinction in which most dinosaurs went extinct. Until now, the precise circumstances of the mass extinction, such as the effect of the different types of impact material ejected from the crater on global climate were unclear .

Researchers use new techniques to determine when limestone layers and fossils were formed during dinosaur age, 66 to 73 million years ago Wednesday, March 30, 2022 — Geologists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and KU Leuven, in collaboration with Maastricht Natural History Museum and Dutch conservation organisation Natuurmonumenten, have mapped the million-year-old rocks in the quarries near Maastricht.

New climate reconstruction method provides precise picture of climate 78 million years ago Palaeoclimatologists study climate of the geological past. Using an innovative technique, new research by an international research team led by Niels de Winter (VUB-AMGC & Utrecht University) shows for the first time that dinosaurs had to deal with greater seasonal differences than previously thought.