When the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs collided with the earth 66 million years ago, a large number of sulfur – volume more than previously thought – thrown high on the ground to the stratosphere, a new study found Once Airborne, the vast cloud of these sulfur gas blocks the sun and cools the earth for decades until the centuries, then falls as a rainy acid rain on earth, changes the chemistry of the ocean for tens of thousands of years, which is longer than before. Thinking, studies found.
The findings show that “We have underestimated the number of sulfur made the impact of this asteroid,” Study Co-Researcher James Witts, a lecturer at the Earth Sciences School at Bristol University in England, told Live Science As a result, “Climate change associated with him is far greater than we think before” The fact that Sulfur continues to flow to the surface of the earth so long can help explain why it takes a long time for life, especially marine life, to recover, because some sulfur fall to the ground, Witts said.
Accidental finding
The findings of the researchers are fully serendipitis. “It’s not something planned at all,” Witts said The team initially planned to study the ancient shell geochemistry near the Brazos River in Falls County, Texas – a unique place under water during the limestone of the limestone, when the non-camping dinosaur died It is also not too far from the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Mexican Peninsula, where asteroids are 6 miles wide (10 kilometers) struck.
The researchers took several sediment samples at that location, which they had not planned This sample was taken to St Andrews University in Scotland, where study colleagues Aubrey Zerkle studies, a geochemical and geobiologist, analyzed different sulfur isotopes, or variations of sulfur which had a different number of neutrons in their neutrons.
The researchers found “very unusual signals” – sulfur isotopes had unexpected little changes to their masses, Witts said. Such mass changes occur when sulfur enters the atmosphere and interacts with ultraviolet light (UV) “It really can only happen in two scenarios: either in an atmosphere that doesn’t have oxygen in it or when you have so much sulfur, it’s already very high into the oxygenated atmosphere,” Witts said.
Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and has been enveloped by an oxygenated atmosphere since around 2.3 billion years ago “We are the first to see this kind of thing in a newer time,” at least in sediments that have not been in the earth pole, Witts said. (That’s because the volcano eruption releases high sulfur into the atmosphere, which can get along with snow and end in high concentration in the ice core in the polar, where no other sulfur or sulfur is to withdraw the signal, Witts said.)
“You don’t see [this signal] on the sea rocks,” he said. “The sea has a signature of its own isotophemed that really cares for a small amount of sulfur from this volcano. The fact that this signal is present in the marine stone from Cretaceous shows that, “there must be a lot of sulfur in the atmosphere after this impact,” Witts said “And that, of course, has great implications for climate change related to the impact because of the aerosol sulfur, we know from a modern volcanic eruption, causing cooling. Many sulfur comes from sulfur rich limestone on the Yucatan Peninsula “If the asteroids have been about elsewhere, maybe there will be no sulfur released into the atmosphere and climate change which is followed may not be as severe,” Witts said. “And because of that extinction events may not be too bad.”
The initial estimate of the sulfur aerosol enters the Earth’s atmosphere after the asteroid impact ranges from 30 to 500 gigatons; According to the climate model, this sulfur