The bad guy in the neighborhood would not come alone

Indeed, before coming, he may have sent his minions to play havoc. I am talking about the asteroid that is believed to have impacetd the Earth about 65 million years ago and that is thought to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event.


The discovery of a crater in Ukraine and its date would strengthen the theory that the end of the reign of dinosaurs was not caused by a single impact of an asteroid with our planet, but by a meteor shower that would have lasted several thousand years.

The Boltysh crater (Kirovohrad, Ukraine) was discovered in the 60s during an oil exploration. However, its correct dating could only be done until recently through the study of fossil spores, establishing that the asteroid that caused it would have impacted between 2 and 5 thousand years before the most famous meteorite responsible for the Chicxulub crater (Yucatan, Mexico).

The date of the impact, established by a team of investigators of the Aberdeen University leaded by the Geology Doctor David Jolley, was published through an article of the Geology magazine in August 2010. The study states that it is highly probable that between the impacts of Boltysh and Chicxilub may have been several similar collisions, being a millenary meteor shower the responsible for the massive extinction event of the end of the Cretacic and not a single happening.

The meteor that fell onto the Cretaceous Ukraine may have eradicated much of the biodiversity that at that time populated Eastern Europe and Russia. Similar events over thousands of years would have done the same in different parts of the globe, until the end of the Mesozoic party was declared by the arrival of the Yucatan asteroid.
You may find more information here.

Finally, I leave you with a very illustrative video (with a very sardonic ending if you ask me) abaout the possible consequences of an asteroid impact with our planet.

Original image by Lee Krystek, slightly adapted by your humble servant.