According to the current scientific state, the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid colliding with the Earth's surface 66 million years ago. Traces of the Chicxulub crater on and near the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula have been preserved on the sea floor with a diameter of 170 km.
However, according to recent research results, the disaster was not caused by one asteroid, but by two.
Scientists from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland found a very interesting formation while surveying the seabed near Guinea. He and his team mapped an 8.5-kilometre-wide depression off the coast of Africa that, based on measurements, is 66 million years old – meaning it struck at roughly the same time as the asteroid that hit the coast of Africa. North America – writes hvg.hu.
The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Communications Earth & Environment.
According to a study published in 2021, the North American asteroid could have hit Earth sometime in the spring, but it would have been deadly in any other season: the impact force could have reached 100 million megatons.
The impact was devastating: a tsunami several kilometers high ensued, sending dust, soot and sulfur into the atmosphere, wiping out 75 percent of ancient life on Earth.
