The dinosaur extinction was a slow poisoning, not a sudden strike
In short: For decades, we've been told a single asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in a cinematic instant. But a controversial paleontologist argues the truth is far messier. She suggests the planet was being poisoned by massive volcanic eruptions for hundreds of thousands of years before the final blow.
Dr. Gerta Keller, a geoscientist at Princeton University, has spent over 35 years challenging the dominant 'asteroid hypothesis.' While the Chicxulub impact is the standard narrative in textbooks, Keller argues that the Deccan Traps—a series of colossal volcanic eruptions in India—were the primary drivers of the mass extinction. These eruptions were not a singular event but a sustained period of activity that released enough material to alter the global environment over hundreds of thousands of years. Keller's evidence relies on 'biotic evidence'—fossilized traces of plants and animals—collected from sites in the United States, Mexico, and India. Her research, including data from a 2004 excavation at El Peñon in Mexico, suggests that a massive die-off did not occur immediately after an asteroid strike. Instead, she found 'aftermath' sediments that remained undisturbed, showing signs of active life and burrows from creatures colonizing the ocean floor. This evidence serves to quash theories of a massive, immediate tsunami following an impact. The debate has been notoriously hostile. In 1988, Keller faced significant backlash at a major conference for her claims, leading some to label her the 'most hated woman in the world' within the field. The 'Dinosaur Wars' involve high-level friction, including a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who dismissed paleontologists as 'stamp collectors.' Despite the personal cost to her career, Keller continues to advocate for a model of extinction driven by environmental degradation, a perspective that may offer critical insights into how we understand modern climate change.
topics [ paleontology , geology , extinction
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Most Dangerous Woman in Science Says We Got the Dinosaur Extinction Totally Wrong
- Also: The Nastiest Feud in Science
- Also: Princeton geoscientist offers new evidence that meteorite did not wipe out dinosaurs
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