# 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:** 3
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/41 "2019-04-01T00:06:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Follow-up question: how did they find the impact crater, which is off the coast of Yucatán? [Oil company exploration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater#Discovery). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/42 "2019-04-01T01:19:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So yes, there turns out to be good stuff there, if you get past the fluff. I agree with previous posters that “fluff” is a silly and superficial way to describe an in-depth multifaceted article that looks at these remarkable paleontological discoveries from a lot of different angles, historical and cultural as well as scientific. For example, the bits about DePalma’s personal background are relevant to the issue of why some other scientists were originally hesitant (and some still may be) about believing his findings. Calling the non-technical parts of the article “fluff” just comes across as a form of bragging that you are already familiar with some of the technical background. Well, good for you, dear, but that doesn’t mean that other aspects of the subject are necessarily trivial or unimportant, which is what the term “fluff” suggests. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/43 "2019-04-01T01:36:06Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > Maybe I missed it, but why does this necessarily mean that the mammal was born in the Cretaceous? Couldn’t it have simply dug a hole down through the KT layer hundreds or thousands of years later? The article indicates the burrow started at the top of the KT layer, rather than above it. Admittedly this doesn’t prove it was made immediately after the layer was laid down, rather than a few years later. But as has been said, DePalma is speculating. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/44 "2019-04-01T02:00:08Z")
[Here](https://thewire.in/the-sciences/new-yorkers-dino-fossils-profile-features-pitfalls-of-science-as-performance) is an article about the _New Yorker_ article. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/45 "2019-04-01T02:43:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Here](https://thewire.in/the-sciences/new-yorkers-dino-fossils-profile-features-pitfalls-of-science-as-performance) is an article about the _New Yorker_ article. Interestingly, the part of the _New Yorker_ article that your linked article critiques as somewhat overhyped and sensationalistic is the part that you said **wasn’t** “fluff”: i.e., the description of new findings. The thoughtful scientific and biographical contextual material that you contemptuously dismissed as 17 paragraphs of ‘“Cretaceous Extinction 101” recap’ is fine. There’s a lot to be said for popular science writing that can explain background knowledge well and integrate it with new discoveries, rather than just breathlessly emphasizing how world-shaking (pun intended) the new discoveries are. In fact, self-proclaimed science-junkie readers who dismiss this kind of big-picture science writing as mere journalistic “fluff” encourage the unfortunate tendency to over-hype new discoveries and make them out to be more revolutionary than they are. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/46 "2019-04-01T04:11:44Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Here](https://thewire.in/the-sciences/new-yorkers-dino-fossils-profile-features-pitfalls-of-science-as-performance) is an article about the _New Yorker_ article. Seriously? That article is pretty much bullshit itself. They haven’t seen the actual PNAS article either, and don’t know what’s in it. And the New Yorker article doesn’t claim to be based just on what’s in the PNAS paper either. And if that article is correct about what’s in the PNAS paper, then the Science Daily and BBC articles are misrepresenting it as well. And fer chrissakes, they use one Catherine Crocker, “a postdoc at the Mailman School of Public Health, New York,” who advocates “understand[ing] the land and its secrets using the languages and cultures of the indigenous people who have been living there for millennia.” Talk about “fluff”! I’ll be interested to see what’s actually in the PNAS article when it’s officially published tomorrow. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/47 "2019-04-01T04:29:50Z")
That is [the second comment](http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/93793-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-mark-on-north-dakota/&do=findComment&comment=1034342) I’ve seen saying that the paper is only about the triceratops bone. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/48 "2019-04-01T07:44:24Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Here](https://thewire.in/the-sciences/new-yorkers-dino-fossils-profile-features-pitfalls-of-science-as-performance) is an article about the _New Yorker_ article. I started to read that article, but discovered this fluff: > [@](#): > > The discovery is concerned with the so-called KT (a.k.a. K-Pg) boundary. As palaeontologists and geologists dig the ground, they see layers of soil and rock that correspond to older and older periods of Earth’s history. At a depth corresponding to 66 million years ago, there is a centimetre-thick layer of soot to be found at all dig sites on the planet. This is the KT boundary. > > Scientists think it was deposited by a meteor that struck Earth at the time and wiped the dinosaurs out. Talk about an insult to our intelligence!!! Do you have cites which don’t treat us like preschoolers? ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/49 "2019-04-01T08:21:51Z")
Enough of the literary criticism, we should be marvelling at the wonders of nature. No, I’m not being sarcastic. This \*shit \*is fascinating (which was in fact a comment from Dickens that was plastered on the 1st edition dust jacket of Darwin’s “on the origin of species”. Sadly none now survive). A question for those with greater knowledge than my own. \*Assuming \*that the re-sized T-Rex is probably a representative from the the middle of the bell-curve in terms of adult size, have the experts done a calculation to say how big the biggest individual may have been. e.g. if elephants were fossilised today and dug up 3 million years hence then the likelihood is it would show a creature of 3.5 height and 5000kg in weight. The tallest ever individual is 4.2 m and 8000kg. Is there any reason to think that the same isn’t true of T-Rex or any prehistoric creature? ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/50 "2019-04-01T11:15:54Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > (…) > > To me, the most interesting thing in the _New Yorker_ article is [this photo](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5c9d2658dec8304049bc4de1/master/w_1548,c_limit/190408_r34054.jpg)–the tektite at the bottom (too big to be a “micro” tektite) has punched through a number of [varves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varve), distorting the edges, and left a conical crater at the surface (with the “surface” halfway down the specimen) that was infilled with light colored sediment. Below the tektite the sediment is compressed downwards in a lens shape, and the fact that the tektite is off-center of the area of damage _may_ indicate the angle that it was traveling as it fell. Thank you for the explanation of the photo. It was appreciated. Does the photo show something important or unique? Is there a scarcity of fossilized tektite paths showing angle of entry? ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/51 "2019-04-01T14:30:08Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Here](https://thewire.in/the-sciences/new-yorkers-dino-fossils-profile-features-pitfalls-of-science-as-performance) is an article about the _New Yorker_ article. Why are you so obsessed with defending your comically indefensible original accusation that the _New Yorker_ article was “fluff”? Every time you try you just dig yourself in deeper. That article you cite is stupid and nonsensical, written by a self-described “science communicator” who seems to know less than just about anybody else here about either the science or the context in which the _New Yorker_ discusses it. It goes on about violating “embargoes” for some reason, when in fact it’s pretty much routine standard procedure for stories to appear in the mainstream media in advance of a major scientific paper. It happens constantly, the news story generally beginning with wording like “a forthcoming paper to be published on [_date_] in the journal [_name of journal_] …”. And then the writer obsesses about the fact that the _New Yorker_ piece cites information that isn’t in the paper. What? I thought the _New Yorker_ piece was all “fluff”, according to you! 😉 But what the hell kind of comment is that, anyway? Of course it has more information! Preston spent weeks talking to DePalma and other researchers. Now, any such additional information would not have been peer reviewed, so is the problem – as your ridiculous cite tries to claim – that the _New Yorker_ article is bad science that might leave the reader with unsubstantiated impressions? If you and your cited friend think the _New Yorker_ piece is perverting science and sensationalizing the facts for the benefit of DePalma, read this (bolding mine): One prominent West Coast paleontologist who is an authority on the KT event told me, “ **I’m suspicious of the findings**. They’ve been presented at meetings in various ways with various associated extraordinary claims. He could have stumbled on something amazing, but he has a reputation for making a lot out of a little.” … Johnson, too, finds the lack of transparency, and the dramatic aspects of DePalma’s personality, unnerving. **“There’s an element of showmanship in his presentation style that does not add to his credibility” …** Know where those critiques come from? **From that same _New Yorker_ article!** That’s called balanced reporting. In-depth about the science, balanced about the controversies. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I started to read that article, but discovered this fluff: Talk about an insult to our intelligence!!! > > Do you have cites which don’t treat us like preschoolers? Agreed, that’s a ridiculous article written by a moron. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/52 "2019-04-01T15:19:06Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That is [the second comment](http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/93793-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-mark-on-north-dakota/&do=findComment&comment=1034342) I’ve seen saying that the paper is only about the triceratops bone. If that is the case, then as I have already pointed out the other articles you yourself linked to as well as the BBC report are gross exaggerations. Note that the actual press release is from the [University of California at Berkele](https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/29/66-million-year-old-deathbed-linked-to-dinosaur-killing-meteor/)y, and was written by Robert Sanders, manager of Science Communications at Berkeley. And if that is the case, _The Wire_ article is also wrong, since it says the article is mainly about fish. DePalma is only one of the authors of the PNAS paper. They also include Walter Alvarez, one of the discoverers of the KT boundary layer, and a number of other senior scientists. Why you seem to prefer citing individuals who haven’t seen the original paper and evidently have no idea what is in it is beyond me. It’s quite ironic that you cite an article decrying sensationalism in science reporting that itself is an example of sensationalistic reporting. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/53 "2019-04-01T15:40:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Why are you so obsessed with defending your comically indefensible original accusation that the New Yorker article was “fluff”? It is other people obsessing about my opinon of he fucking\* New Yorker\* article. I was trying to link to more reports about it until you derailed the thread–and continue to do so even though you said that you wouldn’t. I concidered it a “breaking science news” story and considered most of the _New Yorker_ story to be irrelevant to the breaking news aspect. If that continues to rub you the wrong way, tough shit. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/54 "2019-04-01T15:42:29Z")
The irony of it all is that both articles that **Darren Garrison** cited are breathlessly sensational and completely uncritical endorsements of the paper, gushing about what a fantastic discovery this is, while the _New Yorker_ article is the only one that quotes independent researchers calling for more study and healthy skepticism, along with providing a lot more scientifically pertinent background. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/55 "2019-04-01T15:56:18Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Thank you for the explanation of the photo. It was appreciated. > > Does the photo show something important or unique? Is there a scarcity of fossilized tektite paths showing angle of entry? If there are other known tektites that visibly penetrate several layers of strata, I haven’t heard of them. And preserving angle of entry would go a long way towards finding the location of craters for “[orphaned](https://www.livescience.com/62250-glass-spherules-ancient-crater.html)” [tektites](https://www.meteorite-times.com/once-a-decade-muong-nong-tektite-article/). But the main significance of finding that example and others in the same layer as (and imbedded in) the fossils is in showing that the fossil-forming event happened at the same time that the tektites were raining down. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/56 "2019-04-01T16:06:36Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The irony of it all is that both articles that **Darren Garrison** cited are breathlessly sensational and completely uncritical endorsements of the paper, gushing about what a fantastic discovery this is, while the _New Yorker_ article is the only one that quotes independent researchers calling for more study and healthy skepticism, along with providing a lot more scientifically pertinent background. Will it shut you the hell up on this if I apologize? I’m sorry–I didn’t consider the lay audience. I’m used to sharing articles in this area [to people](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Darren+Garrison%22+meteorite+mailing+list&ei=pjaiXIjXEI6IsQXQ_6WYCw&start=0&sa=N) for whom the _New Yorker_ article would largely be a manual on teaching grandmothers how to suck eggs. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/57 "2019-04-01T16:10:15Z")
[This article](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astonishment-skepticism-greet-fossils-claimed-record-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact) just published an hour ago by _Science_ magazine also quotes independent researchers calling for caution and further independent verification. In the article, _Science_ magazine – a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – quotes the _New Yorker_ article several times. Strangely, it doesn’t quote either [sciencedaily.com](http://sciencedaily.com), Gizmodo, or thewire.in. 😉 ETA: > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Will it shut you the hell up on this if I apologize? I’m sorry–I didn’t consider the lay audience. You mean you thought we were all paleontologists? That’s still not an explanation. The _New Yorker_ article contained a lot more actual science, and it also contained a more objectively balanced perspective. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/58 "2019-04-01T16:19:07Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Will it shut you the hell up on this if I apologize? I’m sorry–I didn’t consider the lay audience. I’m used to sharing articles in this area [to people](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Darren+Garrison%22+meteorite+mailing+list&ei=pjaiXIjXEI6IsQXQ_6WYCw&start=0&sa=N) for whom the _New Yorker_ article would largely be a manual on teaching grandmothers how to suck eggs. You really, really, really, really should just stop digging. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/59 "2019-04-01T16:32:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > [This article](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astonishment-skepticism-greet-fossils-claimed-record-dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact) just published an hour ago by _Science_ magazine also quotes independent researchers calling for caution and further independent verification. > > In the article, _Science_ magazine – a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – quotes the _New Yorker_ article several times. Strangely, it doesn’t quote either [sciencedaily.com](http://sciencedaily.com), Gizmodo, or thewire.in. 😉 The strangest thing to me about that article is that it says that the article was first submitted to a journal with a higher impact factor than PNAS, but the reviewers were too demanding. PNAS is an extremely prestigious journal with a very high impact factor, and the only higher ranking journals that come to mind are _Science_ itself and _Nature_. Any scientist I know would be ecstatic to have a paper accepted by PNAS. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/60 "2019-04-01T16:57:39Z")
It does need to be mentioned that this paper was released on April Fools Day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=4)