Impact that killed the dinosaurs triggered “mega-earthquake” that lasted weeks to months
PhD candidate Hermann Bermudez discusses the topic of his upcoming presentation at the Geological Society of America’s Annual Conference
Posted in: Student Research
66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. The amount of energy released in this “mega-earthquake” is estimated at 1023 joules, which is about 50,000 times more energy than was released in the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004.
Hermann Berm煤dez will present evidence of this 鈥渕ega-earthquake鈥 at the upcoming GSA Connects meeting in Denver this Sunday, 9 October through the presentation, The Chicxulub Mega-Earthquake: Evidence from Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. Earlier this year, with support from a GSA Graduate Student Research Grant, Berm煤dez visited outcrops of the infamous Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event boundary in Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi to collect data, supplementing his previous work in Colombia and Mexico documenting evidence of the catastrophic impact.
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