# The KT impact: deaths on the day found in Dakota **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 30, 2019, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757 "2019-03-30T09:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/1 "2019-03-30T09:47:37Z")
BBC story [here](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47755275). Scientists have found creatures that were killed on the day of the impact and were immediately covered by mud and thus preserved as fossils. > [@](#): > > Scientists have found an extraordinary snapshot of the fallout from the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. > > Excavations in North Dakota reveal fossils of fish and trees that were sprayed with rocky, glassy fragments that fell from the sky. > > … > > Robert DePalma, from the University of Kansas, and colleagues say the dig site, at a place called Tanis, gives an amazing glimpse into events that probably occurred perhaps only tens of minutes to a couple of hours after the giant asteroid hit the Earth. Amazing. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/2 "2019-03-30T11:12:37Z")
[Excellent and comprehensive article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died) in the _New Yorker_. Amazing, indeed. Although I understand there’s some controversy around it if only because the site is restricted and other researchers have not yet been able to independently verify the work. But to have, in effect, a detailed dated snapshot of the most significant single moment in the history of life on earth is beyond amazing. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/3 "2019-03-30T11:48:05Z")
Awesome find. Very exciting. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/4 "2019-03-30T11:50:38Z")
[This](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190329144223.htm) is a good summary without all the long-winded “human interest” fluff from the _New Yorker_ article. And [the _Gizmodo_ article](https://gizmodo.com/scientists-find-fossilized-fish-that-may-have-been-blas-1833671176) isn’t particularly well-written, but it does have an image of tektites in a fish fossil not shown in the other articles. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/5 "2019-03-30T12:13:09Z")
I read the first article this morning and immediately felt this could be the most significant scientific discovery in my lifetime. Absolutely fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/6 "2019-03-30T14:47:23Z")
That is fascinating, well done New Yorker On the other end of the scale, regarding evolutionary expansion rather than extinction, there were some very [exciting discoveries in China](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47667880) recently showing hosts of new creatures during the cambrian explosion preserved in wonderful detail. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/7 "2019-03-30T15:08:45Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > That is fascinating, well done New Yorker It even has cartoons! > [@](#): > > On the other end of the scale, regarding evolutionary expansion rather than extinction, there were some very [exciting discoveries in China](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47667880) recently showing hosts of new creatures during the cambrian explosion preserved in wonderful detail. Both are incredible discoveries. And the [largest known T. Rex skeleton](https://www.history.com/news/worlds-biggest-t-rex-canada-scotty-dinosaur) was revealed recently as well. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/8 "2019-03-30T15:48:01Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [This](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190329144223.htm) is a good summary without all the long-winded “human interest” fluff from the _New Yorker_ article. And [the _Gizmodo_ article](https://gizmodo.com/scientists-find-fossilized-fish-that-may-have-been-blas-1833671176) isn’t particularly well-written, but it does have an image of tektites in a fish fossil not shown in the other articles. Not to digress, but that is an absurdly asinine statement even if I generously assume that you know nothing about the _New Yorker_ and its journalistic standing and didn’t read past the first three sentences. And wrongness of this magnitude deserves a response. To be clear, I don’t go to the _New Yorker_ for the scientific rigor I would expect in a scholarly journal, but that’s not what most people are looking for here. Those who do can feel free to read the PNAS article when it comes out. What I go to the _New Yorker_ for is accurate, in-depth and balanced reporting. The author of that article is both a writer and an award-winning journalist who had corresponded with DePalma for some years before this discovery and was the first outsider to have access to the Hell Creek site. The extensive _New Yorker_ article provides far more detail and background than either of the two things you cited; the _Science Daily_ piece was copied from a Berkeley press release that reads like it was written by a high school junior for a creative writing contest, and the _Gizmodo_ article is just laughably superficial. But beyond all that, a particularly salient question here is how it came to be that the principal investigator of such a groundbreaking discovery – if indeed that’s what it turns out to be – is just a graduate student who has not yet earned his doctorate and who many might regard as unqualified. The _New Yorker_ piece helps inform our objective understanding of how these events came to pass and helps us judge, as best as anyone can right now, how to balance the natural excitement of discovery with appropriate skepticism. Which is ultimately what science is all about. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/9 "2019-03-30T18:10:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > [Excellent and comprehensive article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died) in the _New Yorker_. I had to smile at the field clothes of De Palma and his assistant in the lead photo. They look like they just stepped out of the Bone Wars. I thought of [Barnum Brown](https://alchetron.com/cdn/barnum-brown-29054bd5-3328-4156-bb13-6f41462e00c-resize-750.jpeg) and [Roy Chapman Andrews.](http://roychapmanandrewssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/roy-chapman-andrews/roy-chapman-andrews-standing-james-b-shackelford-AMNH.jpg) (The latter, of course, was one of the models for Indiana Jones.) But old-timey clothes continue to be practical in that environment. (I just wonder how many rattlers are about to make knee high boots necessary.) ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/10 "2019-03-30T19:28:02Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not to digress, but that is an absurdly asinine statement even if I generously assume that you know nothing about the _New Yorker_ and its journalistic standing and didn’t read past the first three sentences. And wrongness of this magnitude deserves a response. It might be useful for somebody who knows nothing about paleontology, but otherwise you are having to slog through a lot of 101-level material before you get to the actual new information. It would be like an article on the 737 Max spending several thousand words talking about the childhood of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the history of semiconductors before mentioning the software problem that the story was about. The article I linked cut straight to the chase for people who don’t need to be reminded of the basics. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/11 "2019-03-30T19:36:13Z")
BTW, his dinosaur book [sounds like absolute garbage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaur_Canyon). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/12 "2019-03-30T20:03:44Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > It might be useful for somebody who knows nothing about paleontology, but otherwise you are having to slog through a lot of 101-level material before you get to the actual new information. It would be like an article on the 737 Max spending several thousand words talking about the childhood of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the history of semiconductors before mentioning the software problem that the story was about. The article I linked cut straight to the chase for people who don’t need to be reminded of the basics. I would characterize the _New Yorker_ piece as “in depth” rather than “fluff.” The Science Daily article isn’t really all that more technical than the New Yorker one. It does just give the basics; however the New Yorker article give far more depth and detail even on the science, not just on the personal aspects of the story. You might want to read the Science Daily one first to get the gist; but if you are seriously interested in the topic you’ll want to read the New Yorker one too. I know a great deal about paleontology and I found it very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/13 "2019-03-30T20:12:10Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I It would be like an article on the 737 Max spending several thousand words talking about the childhood of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the history of semiconductors before mentioning the software problem that the story was about. No, it wouldn’t. It would be more like an article on the 737 Max describing the competitive challenges that aircraft manufacturers face today, then describing some aeronautical basics like stabilizer trim and the pertinent factors that make jet engines more efficient, and finally how these economic and technical factors came together to drive some of the bad engineering decisions that Boeing made. Because that’s the real story here, and that kind of in-depth analysis is part of what makes the _New Yorker_ what it is. I can imagine you reading an article like that and declaring that there was too much “fluff” before they “got to the point”. No, journalists call that “background”, and it’s an essential part of the complete story. The _New Yorker_ doesn’t do “fluff”. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > BTW, his dinosaur book [sounds like absolute garbage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaur_Canyon). You seem to be flailing now, and throwing around irrelevancies. We’re not concerned with his fiction writing. In any case, being “absolute garbage” seems at odds with [it getting 4½ out of 5 stars on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Tyrannosaur-Canyon-Douglas-Preston/dp/0765311046/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1386845342)! 😉 The _New Yorker_ piece is a great resource for this story, pending the availability of the PNAS paper on Monday for those interested. Meanwhile, I’ll do my part to keep this on track by not responding to any more hihacks. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/14 "2019-03-30T20:24:05Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > BTW, his dinosaur book [sounds like absolute garbage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaur_Canyon). I was wondering what you were talking about until I realized you meant the author of the New Yorker piece rather than DePalma. I fail to see what relevance a science-fiction novel about a dinosaur find has to the accuracy of a non-fiction piece. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/15 "2019-03-30T20:26:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Meanwhile, I’ll do my part to keep this on track by not responding to any more hihacks. The hijack that you started? What I did was link two relevant articles (one of [which I had already posted here](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21564735&postcount=89) deep in a separate thread close to 7 hours before this thread was started.) > [@](#): > > You seem to be flailing now, and throwing around irrelevancies. We’re not concerned with his fiction writing. I just wonder why DePalma chose to contact a writer of Dan Brown-style books of conspiracy drivel rather than one of many real science writers. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/16 "2019-03-30T20:35:28Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I was wondering what you were talking about until I realized you meant the author of the New Yorker piece rather than DePalma. I fail to see what relevance a science-fiction novel about a dinosaur find has to the accuracy of a non-fiction piece. See my post just before this–it would be like getting popular hack Michael Crichton to come to his site and write about it–why not a professional paleontologist that is also an accomplished writer? (Peter Douglas Ward would have been at the top of my list \*) \*Because he wrote a book about the government covering up the discovery of a dinosaur fossil covered with deadly “Venus particles”, possibly created by aliens to kill off the dinosaurs to pave the way for humans? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/17 "2019-03-30T20:41:28Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > The hijack that you started? What I did was link two relevant articles (one of [which I had already posted here](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21564735&postcount=89) deep in a separate thread close to 7 hours before this thread was started.) That would have been fine if you hadn’t included the silliness about the \*New Yorker \* piece being a piece of fluff, followed up with the pretentiousness of saying it was “101 material” and only for people who “didn’t know anything about paleontology.” You should probably stop digging now. > [@](#): > > I just wonder why DePalma chose to contact a writer of Dan Brown-style books of conspiracy drivel rather than one of many real science writers. You evidently don’t know a lot about Preston. From Wiki: > [@](#): > > From 1978 to 1985, Preston worked for the American Museum of Natural History as a writer, editor, and manager of publications. He served as managing editor for the journal Curator and was a columnist for Natural History magazine.[1] In 1985 he published a history of the museum, Dinosaurs In The Attic: An Excursion into the American Museum of Natural History, which chronicled the explorers and expeditions of the museum’s early days. I’ve read _Dinosaurs in the Attic_ and liked it. He has quite a few other non-fiction titles. As a professional science writer myself, I thought the _New Yorker_ article was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/18 "2019-03-30T21:18:19Z")
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the picture at the start of the [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47755275) article? I think it’s the bubbles that really make it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/19 "2019-03-30T21:19:51Z")
Some of the particularly fascinating finds mentioned in the _New Yorker_ article but not in _Science Daily_ or _Gizmodo_, are mammal burrows, at least one of which had the bones of the digger still inside it. Even more astonishing, the burrow seems to have been dug _through_ the KT boundary layer. That is, the mammal survived the disaster, then dug down through the layers of rubble afterward. It was born in the Cretaceous and died in the Paleogene. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/20 "2019-03-30T21:20:04Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I had to smile at the field clothes of De Palma and his assistant in the lead photo. They look like they just stepped out of the Bone Wars. I thought of [Barnum Brown](https://alchetron.com/cdn/barnum-brown-29054bd5-3328-4156-bb13-6f41462e00c-resize-750.jpeg) and [Roy Chapman Andrews.](http://roychapmanandrewssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/roy-chapman-andrews/roy-chapman-andrews-standing-james-b-shackelford-AMNH.jpg) (The latter, of course, was one of the models for Indiana Jones.) But old-timey clothes continue to be practical in that environment. (I just wonder how many rattlers are about to make knee high boots necessary.) After all, Andrews was a great popularizer and wrote the first “real” dino book I read. Nothing wrong with writing for the general public. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=2)