Scientists are planning on drilling 5,000 feet below the seafloor to take samples of the crater left by the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs and reptiles ruled the planet for 135 million years, but about 65 million years ago an asteroid slammed into the planet, killing off most of its resident creatures, the University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geosciences reported. Now, researchers are planning to acquire and closely examine a sample from the 125-mile-wide impact site near the Yucatan Peninsula.
We currently have very few samples of the impact crater from this apocalyptic event, but an international team of researchers is hoping to change that. They plan to take the first offshore core samples from near the center of the impact crater caused by the nine-mile-wide asteroid. The samples will be taken from the crater's "peak ring," which is an area of elevated rocks surrounding the crater's center.
By analyzing these features, the researchers hope to gain insight into the ancient impact and the chain of events that caused one of the most significant mass extinctions in history. The samples could also reveal traces of ancient life hidden within the rocks.
"The sediments that filled in the [crater] should have the record for organisms living on the sea floor and in the water that were there for the first recovery after the mass extinction event," Gulick said. "The hope is we can watch life come back."
The expedition is planned for spring 2016, and received about $10 million in funding approved by the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) , which is part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP).
