The Sylacauga Astrobleme may offer one of the best chances yet to solve the still unsolved mystery of how the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction occurred. It has been obvious for some time that the event was characterized by the impact of a rather large asteroid somewhere in the Gulf Coast region of the United States and for almost 25 years it was assumed the giant Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan Peninsula was it. But it was not.
The very fact that the crater has stayed hidden from scientist for so long says a lot about it. Tightly cradled against a mountain range with a history of two orogenic events to the north, the eastern part totally destroyed, and the rest of it lying along a ridge of small sandy hills, it was virtually invisible.
All of this is in spite of the fact it was at the very center of the K-T debris field and was about equal distances from debris locations.
Although it has not been explored or tested, verification of the astrobleme as the cause of the K-T extinction could once and for all answer the question:
What killed the dinosaurs?
| Introduction/Main | The Sylacauga Astrobleme | Photographs | Conclusion |
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