# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/81 "2019-04-03T12:54:30Z")
Niiiice chemical analysis of the tektites protected in amber blebs! ---
**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 3, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/82 "2019-04-03T14:18:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And it’s a touch hyperbolic to call this “the single most important day in the history of the Earth”. There have been other mass extinctions, some of them larger, and some of them also caused by asteroid impacts. No other major extinction event is so strongly linked to an impact. Most took place over millions of years, rather than suddenly. Impacts have been suggested to have been involved in the Jurassic-Triassic mass extinction, but that was somewhat smaller, and the Permian, the biggest of all, but many other factors were involved in the Permian, some of them prolonged. If you are talking about the biggest single-day catastrophe to life on Earth, this is it. ---
**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 3, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/83 "2019-04-03T14:23:35Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Note that this is just the initial paper. It was received for review in October 2018, and was probably being written for a couple of months before that. In due course we will get feedback from the experts about it. Stephen Brusatte (quoted in the article I posted last night) [_is_ one of the experts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte). His feedback boils down to “what the hell, dude?” ---
**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 3, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/84 "2019-04-03T14:38:25Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > If you are talking about the biggest single-day catastrophe to life on Earth, this is it. Yeah, more “most important single day” than “single most important day.” (Though I’d argue that When Earth Met Theia (coming soon to a theater near you) was the most important single day in the history of Earth.) ---
**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 3, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/85 "2019-04-03T14:47:12Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I wish their embargo rules were stronger so we didn’t have to suffer so much fluff “science journalism” prior to the paper coming out. [Here’s the PNAS embargo rules.](https://www.pnas.org/page/about/press) They restrict publication to 3 PM the Monday of the publication week. The _New Yorker_ article is not really based on the PNAS paper (although it is mentioned as to be published “next week,” so they were aware of it), so embargo rules wouldn’t apply to that. The _New Yorker_ almost certainly would not have been sent a copy in advance of publication, although DePalma could have provided one. Embargo rules would have applied to the BBC, Berkeley and Science Daily press releases, but and they are all dated March 29, three days before the official publication of the article. Perhaps they received permission to publish before the weekend. Embargo rules wouldn’t prevent a publication like the New Yorker from publishing additional details about a find based on interviews with scientists. There is a lot of confusion, especially on the part of non-scientists, in thinking that all the details in the New Yorker need to be supported by the first scientific article about the find. ---
**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 3, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/86 "2019-04-03T15:06:22Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Stephen Brusatte (quoted in the article I posted last night) [_is_ one of the experts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte). His feedback boils down to “what the hell, dude?” Despite his credentials, his comments were pretty stupid for a scientist: > [@Stephen Brusatte](#): > > “This is an awesome site, but I don’t see any evidence for a dinosaur graveyard! Something is weird,” he wrote on Twitter. > > In an e-mail to news.com.au, he said he was “very excited about this discovery” but noted aside from a single partial dinosaur hip bone mentioned in the paper, ideas of a dinosaur graveyard being reported in the media lack any real evidence so far. > > “The New Yorker article reports a dinosaur graveyard with bones of many types of dinosaurs, along with feathers, eggs, and even embryos,” he said. “I’m afraid there just isn’t any evidence, aside from a single partial bone, for me or other dinosaur palaeontologists to assess right now.” _The Wire_ article says this: > [@The Wire](#): > > The otherwise frequently celebrated magazine claimed that the team had unearthed a mass of dinosaur fossils at a North Dakota dig site. What the New Yorker article actually says is: > [@The New Yorker](#): > > At the bottom of the deposit, in a mixture of heavy gravel and tektites, DePalma identified the broken teeth and bones, including hatchling remains, of almost every dinosaur group known from Hell Creek, as well as pterosaur remains, which had previously been found only in layers far below the KT boundary. It also mentions DePalma’s find of the ceratopsian, and nine probable dinosaur feathers. It’s evident that most of the dinosaur remains consist of teeth and bone fragments. These would be adequate to identify different dinosaur groups, but would not be very spectacular. Calling this a “dinosaur graveyard” or a “mass of dinosaur fossils” is nonsense, and seem to be deliberate exaggerations intended to discredit the article. They are a kind of “reverse hype,” claiming the article said something it never said. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/87 "2019-04-03T15:16:36Z")
If anything, it’s a “fish graveyard” but I guess that’s not as sexy-sounding. ---
**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:** [April 3, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/88 "2019-04-03T15:20:23Z")
There isn’t enough room for a mass of dinosaur fossils. It’s what, four feet thick? ---
**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 3, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/89 "2019-04-03T15:53:14Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > If anything, it’s a “fish graveyard” but I guess that’s not as sexy-sounding. That’s pretty much what the Berkeley and Science Daily articles say: > [@](#): > > This unique, fossilized graveyard — fish stacked one atop another and mixed in with burned tree trunks, conifer branches, dead mammals, mosasaur bones, insects, the partial carcass of a Triceratops, marine microorganisms called dinoflagellates and snail-like marine cephalopods called ammonites — was unearthed by paleontologist Robert DePalma over the past six years in the Hell Creek Formation, not far from Bowman, North Dakota. The New Yorker article never uses the word “graveyard.” The only people using the term “dinosaur graveyard” are those complaining that it doesn’t exist, even though they are the ones that made it up. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/90 "2019-04-03T16:16:58Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > There isn’t enough room for a mass of dinosaur fossils. It’s what, four feet thick? A lot of dinosaurs are small (arguably, I have three of them living in my house with me and not one of them is more than 10 inches long including the tail and no more than 3 ounces in weight) and there’s no requirement that dinosaur remains in this _lagerstatte_ be intact in any way. Certainly some of the _fish_ shown are in pieces. ---
**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 3, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/91 "2019-04-03T21:13:18Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Stephen Brusatte (quoted in the article I posted last night) [_is_ one of the experts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Brusatte). His feedback boils down to “what the hell, dude?” So [Brian Switek](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=HyClXPXCKpK2tQXY-bvAAg&q=%22Brian+Switek%22&oq=%22Brian+Switek%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2j0i7i30j0l2j0i7i30j0j0i7i30j0l2.159891.161784..163133...0.0..0.1522.2625.7-1j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i22i30.ncK1qkguQ-k)–the other guy quoted in that article–has [his latest article](https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/what-the-new-yorker-dinosaur-story-gets-wrong.html) out (he posts under the name “Riley Black”, for some reason) and there is something wrong with it because it was discovered by a white guy, or something? ---
**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 3, 2019, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/92 "2019-04-03T21:41:12Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So [Brian Switek](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=HyClXPXCKpK2tQXY-bvAAg&q=%22Brian+Switek%22&oq=%22Brian+Switek%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2j0i7i30j0l2j0i7i30j0j0i7i30j0l2.159891.161784..163133...0.0..0.1522.2625.7-1j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i22i30.ncK1qkguQ-k)–the other guy quoted in that article–has [his latest article](https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/what-the-new-yorker-dinosaur-story-gets-wrong.html) out (he posts under the name “Riley Black”, for some reason) and there is something wrong with it because it was discovered by a white guy, or something? I thought the label “apoplectic ham hocks” on that page was particularly appropriate. Yeah, and also more with the “mass dinosaur boneyard” shit, and not acknowledging that the New Yorker article didn’t violate any embargo any more than the Berkeley and other releases did. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/93 "2019-04-03T22:01:36Z")
Haven’t had a chance to get my hands on a hard copy here in London yet. But Douglas Preston has had a superb record of archaeology articles in the _New Yorker_, so I do have a sense of anticipation about this one. Seriously, someone should do an anthology of his _New Yorker_ pieces. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/94 "2019-04-03T23:57:48Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Embargo rules wouldn’t prevent a publication like the New Yorker from publishing additional details about a find based on interviews with scientists. Sure they would. Tell researchers we won’t publish your work if you first publicize it elsewhere. Be that by publishing it yourself, disclosing it to a journalist who publishes it, or presenting it at a conference. They clearly don’t do that now and seem ok with that. ---
**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 4, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/95 "2019-04-04T01:40:36Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Sure they would. Tell researchers we won’t publish your work if you first publicize it elsewhere. Be that by publishing it yourself, disclosing it to a journalist who publishes it, or presenting it at a conference. > > They clearly don’t do that now and seem ok with that. Pretty much because it would be ridiculous and stupid. I take it you don’t work in any scientific field? Conferences and seminars mainly consist of unpublished results, since if they are published other scientists will be aware of them and wouldn’t have a reason to attend. (Plenary lectures may present an overview and synthesis of previously published work.) Such presentations are an important way to get feedback from your peers, refine your research, and identify collaborators. Prohibiting that would fundamentally change how science is done. And if you give a presentation at a conference, then it is available to journalists, many of whom attend such conferences. I regularly present some of my unpublished research that could eventually lead to publications in public seminars, and also have discussed it with interviewers from the press and seen it published in newspapers and magazines. I would hate to think I would have to be secretive if I wanted to get something published. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/96 "2019-04-04T06:12:24Z")
I can fully understand why they are keeping the location of the site secret, and being very careful who they invite there. Imagine having large numbers of journalists, scientists, assorted crackpots, and amateur and commercial fossil hunters turning up there every single day. How would it be possible to work? How much expensive security would it take to keep them out? How much damage would it do to the site? In this case secrecy makes sense, as does the long interval between the discovery of the site and publishing results. One day perhaps it will be properly funded, there will be proper security, maybe a large roof built over the site, a small museum. Until then, the least said about the location the better. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/97 "2019-04-04T06:39:01Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I thought the label “apoplectic ham hocks” on that page was particularly appropriate. > > Yeah, and also more with the “mass dinosaur boneyard” shit, and not acknowledging that the New Yorker article didn’t violate any embargo any more than the Berkeley and other releases did. Saying the New Yorker violated the embargo is particularly stupid considering that Preston was shown the site five years ago, and has kept quiet ever since. Embargoes make sense to keep an article from being leaked early, but that isn’t remotely what happened here. I was struck by how little the New Yorker article talked about dinosaurs. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/98 "2019-04-04T06:40:07Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So [Brian Switek](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=HyClXPXCKpK2tQXY-bvAAg&q=%22Brian+Switek%22&oq=%22Brian+Switek%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2j0i7i30j0l2j0i7i30j0j0i7i30j0l2.159891.161784..163133...0.0..0.1522.2625.7-1j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i22i30.ncK1qkguQ-k)–the other guy quoted in that article–has [his latest article](https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/what-the-new-yorker-dinosaur-story-gets-wrong.html) out (he posts under the name “Riley Black”, for some reason) and there is something wrong with it because it was discovered by a white guy, or something? Just out of curiosity, were you in the “dinosaurs were almost dead anyhow” camp? ---
**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:** [April 4, 2019, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/99 "2019-04-04T07:20:40Z")
“snail-like marine cephalopods called ammonites” That’s just … inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/100 "2019-04-04T07:59:57Z")
True. I found that really jarring. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=6)