Chixculub: was it a precise hit on purpose? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 11, 2017, 04:56 (2349 days ago) @ David Turell

Another good aim finding. It hit an area ,loaded with hydrocarbon that created an enormous amount of soot to cloud the atmosphere nd block the sun:

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-analysis-chicxulub-asteroid-struck-vulnerable.html

"A pair of researchers at Tohoku University has found evidence suggesting that if the asteroid that struck the Earth near Chicxulub 66 million years ago had landed almost anywhere else, it would not have been nearly as destructive. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, Kunio Kaiho and Naga Oshima suggest that had the asteroid struck another part of the planet it is likely the dinosaurs would have survived.

"Scientists around the world have reached a consensus regarding the reason that the dinosaurs (except for bird relatives) went extinct—a large asteroid struck the Earth just off what is now the Yucatan peninsula, hurling so much soot and other material into the atmosphere that the planet became too cold (for approximately three years) for the dinosaurs and most other land animals to survive. But now, it appears that they might have survived had the asteroid struck almost anywhere else.

"To learn more about the event that had such a huge impact on the history of our planet, Kaiho and Oshima used a computer to analyze multiple data sources surrounding the impact and the location where it struck—the resulting simulation showed how much soot would have been generated based on the amount of hydrocarbon material in the ground near the impact site. Such hydrocarbons would include not just oil or coal deposits, but other rocks that also contained oil—more hydrocarbons would mean more soot and gases making their way into the atmosphere. The research pair also created a map showing surface hydrocarbon densities across the globe at the time.

'They found that the site where the asteroid struck was particularly dense in hydrocarbons—87 percent of the planet surface was less dense. That means, they claim, that if the asteroid had struck a place where it was less dense (which would have been almost anywhere else), much less soot would have been generated, and thus, the planet would not have cooled as much. And if the planet had not cooled so much, the dinosaurs might have survived, and that might have meant that we humans would never have had a chance to evolve.

Another take:

https://www.livescience.com/60898-asteroid-struck-unlucky-spot-doomed-dinosaurs.html?ut...

"To explain why the Chicxulub impact winter proved so catastrophic, Japanese scientists previously suggested the superhot debris from the meteor strike not only caused wildfires across the planet, but also ignited rocks loaded with hydrocarbon molecules such as oil. They calculated that such oily rocks would have generated vast amounts of soot.

"The amount of hydrocarbons in rocks varies widely depending on location. In the new study, the Japanese researchers analyzed the places on Earth where an asteroid impact could have happened to cause the level of devastation seen with the Chicxulub event.

"The scientists now find the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs happened to hit an unlucky spot — had it landed in about 87 percent of anywhere else on Earth, the mass extinction might not have occurred.

***

"The researchers calculated the level of climate change needed to cause a mass extinction was a 14.4 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 10 degrees Celsius) drop in global average surface air temperatures. This would involve an asteroid impact sending 385 million tons (350 million metric tons) of soot into the stratosphere.

"The scientists found that a mass extinction would have occurred from the impact only if it had hit 13 percent of the surface of the Earth, including both land and oceans. "If the asteroid had hit a low- to medium-level hydrocarbon area on Earth, occupying approximately 87 percent of the Earth's surface, mass extinction could not have occurred," Kaiho told Live Science."

Comment: God knows how to aim it where it needs to hit! Not unlikely as God is in charge.