The Chicxulub Crater

Over time, other scientists began finding iridium evidence at many different locations around the world that supported the Alvarez theory. In 1991, an immense meteor crater, about 110 miles in diameter, was discovered on the the Yucatán Peninsula. The crater even extended to the Gulf of Mexico. The Chicxulub Crater, as it was called, was named after a nearby village. Scientists believe the meteor that formed this massive crater was around 6 miles in diameter. It is also believed that it struck the earth at 40,000 miles per hour and released 2 million times more energy than the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated. This great impact would have caused so much heat that would have boiled the earth’s surface. The scorching temperatures would have caused wildfires throughout the globe and the Earth would turn into complete darkness because debris would have filled the sky. It is believed that mile-high tsunamis could have the momentum to cover the continents, which would drown multiple species of life. Massive shock waves would even have the power to trigger earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all over the planet.

Eventually, the darkness would have dropped the Earth’s temperatures into the freezing zone. The freezing zone would have killed plants everywhere, which would leave herbivores without food. The results of this gigantic collision would have caused many dinosaurs to die within a matter of weeks. Carnivores who spent their life feasting on the herbivores would die a month or two later once the herbivores had died off. Ultimately, the loss of biodiversity would have caused monumental suffering, leading to death and extinction. It was only the small mammals that could live and search in the ground that would have survived as they ate from whatever was left on the