# 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:** 7
**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 4, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/121 "2019-04-04T21:20:31Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Well, of the last 65 million years. Let’s not get carried away with ourselves, OK? 😉 Well, notwithstanding the smiley winky-face, I think a case could be made that the statement is literally true. Which reminds me, I was going to comment on this: > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > 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.) “… in the history of the earth” was not what I said, nor what the subhead of the article says. What both said is “… the most significant single moment _ **in the history of life on earth** _”. Which is arguably true. What other such moment was there, that we know of, where the entire trajectory of life on earth changed forever in what was, geologically, a blink of an eye? The Theia event occurred when life did not yet exist – and would have wiped out any that did. True, the creation of the moon and, more importantly, the hypothesized effect on the earth’s axial tilt had important effects on the evolution of life on earth, but those were long-term indirect effects very far in the future. What the Chicxulub impactor did was set in motion virtually instantaneously a chain of evolutionary events that would not otherwise have happened. Many years ago my son had a dinosaur book that had at the end of it a speculative picture of what a highly evolved medium-sized dinosaur might look like today. I have not been able to find either that book or that particular picture online (I have found others not nearly as good). I’ve tried to find it because it was rather a remarkable thing to look at. A little bit reptilian like a dinosaur, but with obvious intelligence in its gaze and its facial emotion. Were it not for that asteroid, that might be you and me today. ---
**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 4, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/122 "2019-04-04T21:22:02Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You may also have been chewed out in the past for junior modding.😉 I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that. 😉 ---
**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 4, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/123 "2019-04-04T21:59:25Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Many years ago my son had a dinosaur book that had at the end of it a speculative picture of what a highly evolved medium-sized dinosaur might look like today. I have not been able to find either that book or that particular picture online (I have found others not nearly as good). I’ve tried to find it because it was rather a remarkable thing to look at. A little bit reptilian like a dinosaur, but with obvious intelligence in its gaze and its facial emotion. Were it not for that asteroid, that might be you and me today. Not [the](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/dinosauroids-revisited-revisited/) [dinosauroid](https://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Reptilian_Troodon_Sapiens.html)? Or [this](http://dinosauroidia.blogspot.com/2011/11/bioraptor-macloughlini.html) one? ---
**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 4, 2019, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/124 "2019-04-04T22:14:55Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Not [the](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/dinosauroids-revisited-revisited/) [dinosauroid](https://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Reptilian_Troodon_Sapiens.html)? Or [this](http://dinosauroidia.blogspot.com/2011/11/bioraptor-macloughlini.html) one? No, the dinosauroid (second link) has very vague similarities but it seemed to me at the time to be much more impressively impactful than that. IIRC, it was a closeup of the face that I thought was so spectacularly well done. ---
**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, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/125 "2019-04-04T22:30:07Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Not [the](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/dinosauroids-revisited-revisited/) [dinosauroid](https://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Reptilian_Troodon_Sapiens.html)? Or [this](http://dinosauroidia.blogspot.com/2011/11/bioraptor-macloughlini.html) one? I always thought the dinosauroid was stupid. All it was was a human with scales and three fingers. There is no reason that a dinosaur should have evolved in that direction. Humans look the way we do because we evolved from a brachiating arboreal animal that became terrestrial, and lost our tails in the process. Any dinosauroid ancestor would already have been terrestrial, and there would be no reason for it to evolve a different kind of terrestrial locomotion from the one it already had. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/126 "2019-04-05T00:38:27Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > In Computer Science, the better conferences are run like this: > > You submit an “extended abstract” of your paper. Maybe 10+ pages depending on the conference’s limit. Wow! It’s rate for us to see 10 \* sentences\*. Maybe we need to just run better conferences. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/127 "2019-04-05T02:02:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Are you under the impression that general-audience magazines like the _New Yorker_ have aspirations to be scholarly journals, but just aren’t good enough? Or are you under the impression that their sole purpose is to generate “hype”? I’m under the impression that some people learn about science from magazines, come here, and try to argue about topics they know very little about. Sometimes they misunderstand what they read. Sometimes the article is wrong. If there’s a published, peer-reviewed scholarly work that the article is based on, then we can at least go to the actual scientific work to explain why they’re wrong. E.g., [Different kinds of humans - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=711039) . It’s teachable. There’s actual science going on If there’s nothing but a few-sentence abstract and flashed-by slides, or, even worse, just an interview with the researcher or a quote in a university press office blurb, then all we have is hype. The PNAS paper is largely about whether the formation in question is, in fact, the KPg barrier. And Preston does cover this. Good for him, us, everyone. Better if it’d waited until PNAS was released, but at least they’re now directly linking to it. But he’s also got stuff in there about “‘It solves the question of whether dinosaurs went extinct at exactly that level or whether they declined before. And this is the first time we see direct victims.’” _That_ is inappropriate hype. We don’t have a paper on this topic. I don’t even know if we have a presentation on it; DePalma didn’t present on that in 2016 when he first disclosed the formation.There’s no way to evaluate the claim. Nothing that’s been published this week resolves the supposed three-meter gap. ---
**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 5, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/128 "2019-04-05T02:06:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I see you are in computer science, which is another field with significant commercial interests. > > What, do you have to submit a paper for review _before_ giving a presentation at a conference? Is the article in its entirety published in the conference proceedings before the presentation is given? If not, the presentation includes unpublished research. > > In my field, all you generally have to do is to provide an abstract in order to present at a conference. Abstracts aren’t generally peer-reviewed, although I expect the conference organizers look at them to exclude any flaky ones. The abstracts are published in the conference materials, but there is no requirement to provide a paper afterward, except for organized symposiums on a particular topic in which participants have agreed to provide papers subsequently for a symposium volume. But these are often published years after the fact. They count for tenure, but of course you can’t really calculate the “impact factor” of a one-off publication. If you work for a company, you have to clear the paper. But respectable conferences require entire papers for review. And the publication is done at the same time, more or less, as the conference. Before we went totally on-line we handed out CDs at the registration desk, but now we publish about a week ahead to let people download the proceedings ahead of time. Each paper gets reviewed by at least five people, which is as many or more than non-conference papers. I’ve edited a couple of issues of IEEE magazines, and the conference process is more rigorous, though you don’t have revise and resubmit as an option. Papers from the conference go into the IEEE paper database, just like journal papers. Only a small portion of the conference papers get expanded with new material for transactions, but about 50% of our papers come from industry. Since our topic is related to IC design, and industrial people have the data, probably more than half the significant papers from the past 50 years have come from industry. We do have posters, but they aren’t nearly as significant as posters in some fields. ---
**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 5, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/129 "2019-04-05T02:12:51Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > In Computer Science, the better conferences are run like this: > > You submit an “extended abstract” of your paper. Maybe 10+ pages depending on the conference’s limit. 10+ pages? I hope that’s paper, not abstract. We have 10 pages max and some conferences limit you to 6. Is your conference ACM or IEEE? ---
**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 5, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/130 "2019-04-05T13:06:41Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > The PNAS paper is largely about whether the formation in question is, in fact, the KPg barrier. And Preston does cover this. Good for him, us, everyone. Better if it’d waited until PNAS was released, but at least they’re now directly linking to it. But he’s also got stuff in there about “‘It solves the question of whether dinosaurs went extinct at exactly that level or whether they declined before. And this is the first time we see direct victims.’” _That_ is inappropriate hype. We don’t have a paper on this topic. I don’t even know if we have a presentation on it; DePalma didn’t present on that in 2016 when he first disclosed the formation.There’s no way to evaluate the claim. Nothing that’s been published this week resolves the supposed three-meter gap. I’m curious about this because that statement is not from Preston. Everything he writes is carefully modified by by qualifiers such as “May” or “if.” The article itself has this right after the title > [@](#): > > A young paleontologist **may** have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth. my bolding. The particular statement you quoted is actually a quote from Jan Smit, a Dutch paleontologist. From Wiki: > [@](#): > > He was described by Nobel prize winner Luis Alvarez, the theory’s originator, as “a KT expert [who] has studied more KT sites around the world than anyone else”. The New Yorker quotes experts who openly doubt the results. I’m by no means even a particularly well informed amateur, but as a general interest science reader, my overall impression was that this is something which could well be an extraordinary find but it’s not settled. Why do you consider presenting both sides of the issue to be “_That_ is inappropriate hype. “ The author doesn’t take that position, he quotes an expert saying that but also quotes others who have doubts. I’ve read far too many “cures for cancer “ and such in popular publicans over the years which were clearly hype. This does not seem to me to be such. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/131 "2019-04-05T13:22:41Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I’m curious about this because that statement is not from Preston. Everything he writes is carefully modified by by qualifiers such as “May” or “if.” The article itself has this right after the titlemy bolding. > > The particular statement you quoted is actually a quote from Jan Smit, a Dutch paleontologist. From Wiki: The New Yorker quotes experts who openly doubt the results. > > I’m by no means even a particularly well informed amateur, but as a general interest science reader, my overall impression was that this is something which could well be an extraordinary find but it’s not settled. > > Why do you consider presenting both sides of the issue to be “_That_ is inappropriate hype. “ > > The author doesn’t take that position, he quotes an expert saying that but also quotes others who have doubts. > > I’ve read far too many “cures for cancer “ and such in popular publicans over the years which were clearly hype. This does not seem to me to be such. It’s titled “The Day the Dinosaurs Died” FFS. There aren’t even any two real sides to debate here until we actually have some actual material to work with. Science journalists fill their articles with quotes that often don’t actually reflect the reality of the research being conducted. See the SDMB thread I linked above. I had a guy writing for [C&EN](https://cen.acs.org/index.html) flat out make up a quote and ask me if he could write that I had said it to him (I declined to be quoted at all after that.) University press offices are notorious for this IM(limited)E. Yes, it could very well be an extraordinary find, but until we have the details, there is no find, just hype. And hell, it works, doesn’t it? I’m hyped and want to read the next paper. It took two years from first disclosing the formation at a conference for then to submit the paper describing it. Let’s hope the next one arrives quicker. ---
**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 5, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/132 "2019-04-05T15:17:36Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > It’s titled “The Day the Dinosaurs Died” FFS. There aren’t even any two real sides to debate here until we actually have some actual material to work with. Even if there had been zero dinosaur fossils found in the deposit, that still would be an appropriate title for the article. Despite a few contrarians, the general consensus is that the KT event caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. As I’ve already posted, the so-called three-meter gap is questionable, and dinosaur fossils have been found much closer to the KT boundary. There have been many articles debating whether the KT event killed the dinosaurs, or whether volcanism did it, but I think the consensus is that volcanism may have played a subsidiary role but was not the final blow. _If_ you accept the fact that the KT event killed the last dinosaurs, and that this deposit represents the day the KT event took place (which the PNAS article documents), then it is from the day the dinosaurs died. > [@](#): > > Yes, it could very well be an extraordinary find, but until we have the details, there is no find, just hype. And hell, it works, doesn’t it? I’m hyped and want to read the next paper. It took two years from first disclosing the formation at a conference for then to submit the paper describing it. Let’s hope the next one arrives quicker. It is an extraordinary find, even without the dinosaurs, and we have an extremely detailed article on it in one of the most prestigious scientific journals. The press releases and the New Yorker article came out only three days before the PNAS article, so it isn’t like there was a huge lead time. If the New Yorker was going to report on this find at all, it would be a little ridiculous to keep the fact that there were dinosaur fossils also found there a secret. That would also have been considered peculiar once the followup articles came out. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/133 "2019-04-05T15:52:52Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > It’s titled “The Day the Dinosaurs Died” FFS. FTR, article titles are rarely chosen by the article’s author. It’s fine to take issue with _The New Yorker_ for this title if you don’t like it, but Preston probably didn’t choose it himself. > [@](#): > > Science journalists fill their articles with quotes that often don’t actually reflect the reality of the research being conducted. See the SDMB thread I linked above. I had a guy writing for [C&EN](https://cen.acs.org/index.html) flat out make up a quote and ask me if he could write that I had said it to him (I declined to be quoted at all after that.) University press offices are notorious for this IM(limited)E. That is terrible, I agree! But you have no evidence that Preston did that here. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/134 "2019-04-05T16:20:44Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > That is terrible, I agree! But you have no evidence that Preston did that here. We have no published peer-reviewed evidence of anything about the site beyond the recent PNAS article. Until then, there is no “presenting both sides” because one doesn’t exist yet. ---
**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 5, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/135 "2019-04-05T16:28:26Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > We have no published peer-reviewed evidence of anything about the site beyond the recent PNAS article. Until then, there is no “presenting both sides” because one doesn’t exist yet. What “debate” are you talking about? You referred to “The Day the Dinosaurs Died” with respect to “two sides of the debate.” The PNAS article documents that this deposit was made by the KT event. If you accept, as most paleontologists do, that the KT event caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, then the title is accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/136 "2019-04-05T16:30:31Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Even if there had been zero dinosaur fossils found in the deposit, that still would be an appropriate title for the article. Despite a few contrarians, the general consensus is that the KT event caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. As I’ve already posted, the so-called three-meter gap is questionable, and dinosaur fossils have been found much closer to the KT boundary. There have been many articles debating whether the KT event killed the dinosaurs, or whether volcanism did it, but I think the consensus is that volcanism may have played a subsidiary role but was not the final blow. _If_ you accept the fact that the KT event killed the last dinosaurs, and that this deposit represents the day the KT event took place (which the PNAS article documents), then it is from the day the dinosaurs died. Preston presents the issue as unresolved. The PNAS article does not address the matter. Thus, there is no new science to support it one way or another and nothing of substance to report on. It’s like writing an article about a new cancer drug after just looking at my lab notebook interviewing me instead of waiting until I actually have the report submitted and reviewed. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/137 "2019-04-05T16:32:44Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > What “debate” are you talking about? You referred to “The Day the Dinosaurs Died” with respect to “two sides of the debate.” The PNAS article documents that this deposit was made by the KT event. If you accept, as most paleontologists do, that the KT event caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, then the title is accurate. Take it up with Preston. He wrote the magazine article presenting it as a debate. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/138 "2019-04-05T16:36:07Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > That is terrible, I agree! But you have no evidence that Preston did that here. More importantly, we have no evidence to support the quote in question, because the science hasn’t been published yet. Thus, publishing the quote does not advance science in the least. ---
**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 5, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/139 "2019-04-05T17:35:27Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Take it up with Preston. He wrote the magazine article presenting it as a debate. If you are referring to the hypothesis that the KT event caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, there are lots and lots of peer-reviewed articles about that debate. Saying that we have no evidence to evaluate that debate is silly. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757/140 "2019-04-05T17:51:33Z")
No new information from the PNAS article. That’s not too deprecate its value; it just doesn’t address the matter. So Preston shouldn’t have either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-kt-impact-deaths-on-the-day-found-in-dakota/831757.md?page=8)