… dinosaur‑killing asteroid armageddon: a blow‑by‑blow account
"The Tyrannosaurus rex strides through the conifer trees of her territory, sniffing the air. She picks up the scent from the carcass of a dead horned dinosaur, Triceratops, that she was feeding on yesterday. She walks over and strips off some more shreds of meat, but the smell is foul even for her.
She goes down to the lake to drink and small crocodiles and turtles scuttle into the water. But she hardly sees them. Of more interest is an armoured dinosaur, Ankylosaurus, lurking nearby. However, she knows this dinosaur won't be an easy kill and she isn't desperate enough for food to risk a fight. Little does she know there are bigger dangers ahead. She looks up and sees a bright light racing downwards accompanied by faint crackling and sizzling noises.
Our T. rex has excellent hearing for low frequency sounds and she is disturbed by the vibrations she can feel. But her upset only lasts for a moment. In a flash, she has been burnt to a crisp and her world changed forever.
This all happened 66 million years ago, when a huge asteroid famously hit the Earth in the area of what is now the Caribbean. At the end of the Cretaceous period, sea levels were 100–200 metres higher than today, so the shores of the Caribbean lay far inland over eastern Mexico and the southern United States. The impact happened entirely within these waters.
The event triggered instant changes to our planet and its atmosphere and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and about half Earth's other species. But what would it have been like to experience such a gargantuan impact? What would you have seen, heard or smelled? And how would you have died – or survived?…"
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Armand
