# The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event had to have been crazy fast, right?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Tags:** science-math\
**Created:** [August 2, 2026, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096 "2026-08-02T15:55:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096/21 "2026-08-05T03:12:19Z")

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There’s a whole ecosystem underground. Animals, insects, fungi, bacteria. At some depth, the disruption above would have much less impact. Enough survivors to restart the surface world.

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**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096/22 "2026-08-08T21:33:58Z")

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Saw this article today.

“This new hypothesis posits that most land-dwelling creatures were dead within hours of the asteroid’s impact.”

> **[Heat-trapping asteroid dust may have incinerated the dinosaurs within hours  ](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/asteroid-dust-incinerated-dinosaurs)**
>
> Within minutes of impact, debris began heating Earth’s atmosphere. Fine dust trapped that heat, potentially killing the dinosaurs quickly.

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**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2026, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096/23 "2026-08-09T12:24:47Z")

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Yep, that’s just a popsci article referencing the JoGR paper I linked above.

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**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-event-had-to-have-been-crazy-fast-right/1032096/24 "2026-08-11T15:53:59Z")

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> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> > [@snowthx](#):
> >
> > So, what did the survivors subsist on after that if sunlight was locked down for years?
> 
> Mushrooms…  
> [https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/fungal-surges-marked-cretaceous-mass-extinction-that-ended-age-of-dinosaurs](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/fungal-surges-marked-cretaceous-mass-extinction-that-ended-age-of-dinosaurs)

Can we be sure it wasn’t actually mushroom-infested zombie dinosaurs that killed off the rest of the dinosaurs? This hypothesis is actually fleshed out pretty well as a thought experiment in a documentary on HBO. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? I believe it’s called _The Last of Us_.

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