‘Unlucky’ dinosaurs: no extinction if asteroid had hit almost any other part of Earth | Science | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/...aurs-no-extinction-if-asteroid-had-hit-almost-any-other-part-of-earth
Only 13% of the Earth’s surface harboured rich enough hydrocarbon deposits to cause a mass extinction following an impact, research reveals
The massive asteroid that slammed into Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs might never have triggered a mass extinction had it struck almost
any other part of the planet, scientists claim.
In work that reveals just how unlucky the prehistoric beasts were, researchers calculate that the odds of the enormous space rock wreaking
such havoc were low across 87% of the Earth’s surface.
Unfortunately for the dinosaurs, the 9km-wide asteroid thumped into the ground in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where the concentration
of hydrocarbons in the rocks was so high that the soot and sulphate aerosols sent into the sky caused global cooling and drought. The impact crater
near the town of Chicxulub is 180km wide and 20km deep.
A glimpse of when Canada's badlands were a lush dinosaur forest by the sea
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Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Kunio Kaiho and Naga Oshima at Tohoku University in Japan describe calculations that suggest only 13%
of the Earth’s surface harboured rich enough hydrocarbon deposits to cause a mass extinction in the event of such a devastating impact.
