Author:
Premovic, Pavle I.
Category:
Research Papers
Date Published:
July 19, 2022
Keywords:
Cretaceous-Paleogene, asteroid, impact, boundary, clays, iridium
Abstract:
The prominent Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary clays of marine origin are characterized by their 0.2 - 0.4 cm thick basal layer so-called the ejecta layer anomalously enriched with mostly extraterrestrial iridium. It is now generally agreed that this iridium originated from the globally dispersed submicron impact dust originated from the carbonaceous chondritic impactor of the Chicxulub impact (Mexico). This note shows that the previous estimation of the mass (1013 - 1014g) of this dust by Pope [1] is probably greatly underestimated. On the other hand, the far higher mass assessments (ca. 1017 g) by Alvarez et al. [2], Toon et al. [3], and Moore et al. [4] are far more satisfactory.
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