1
00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:06,800
This is geology B with Oliver 
stream people. 

2
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,600
The hypothesis that the mass 
extinction at the end of the 

3
00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,400
Cretaceous was caused by the 
impact of a large. 

4
00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:19,500
Asteroid was first proposed by 
Louis and Walter Alvarez and 

5
00:00:19,500 --> 00:00:25,300
independently by Ian, Schmitt in
1980, the impact hypothesis is, 

6
00:00:25,300 --> 00:00:29,100
now widely accepted by the 
scientific Community, but many 

7
00:00:29,100 --> 00:00:32,600
details as to how this 
one-of-a-kind event affected the

8
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,100
Earth and living things, remain 
unclear. 

9
00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:42,000
Then in 2019, the announcement 
of a new find in North Dakota 

10
00:00:42,100 --> 00:00:47,600
created its own Big Splash and 
astonishingly detailed snapshot 

11
00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:51,000
of the immediate aftermath of 
the impact event had been found.

12
00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:56,300
Jan Smit is Emeritus, professor 
of event stratigraphy at the 

13
00:00:56,300 --> 00:01:01,000
Free University of Amsterdam. 
Initially a paleontologist 

14
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000
studying planktonic, 
foraminifera. 

15
00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:06,300
He became intrigued by what 
appeared to be very sudden 

16
00:01:06,300 --> 00:01:08,700
events. 
In the fossil record and 

17
00:01:08,700 --> 00:01:12,400
increasingly Focus his research 
on the boundary between the 

18
00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:17,100
Cretaceous and the paleogene, 
the so-called KT boundary. 

19
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,500
He is one of the lead authors on
the paper announcing the North 

20
00:01:21,500 --> 00:01:25,100
Dakota discovery. 
Jan Smit. 

21
00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:27,900
Welcome to geology, B. 
Thank you. 

22
00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:31,800
You were one of the first to 
suggest the impact hypothesis 

23
00:01:32,100 --> 00:01:35,100
for the end, Cretaceous mass 
extinction that destroyed the 

24
00:01:35,100 --> 00:01:38,800
non-avian dinosaurs, as well as 
a myriad of other terrestrial 

25
00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:42,400
and marine organisms. 
What were the competing 

26
00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:46,600
hypotheses at the time? 
I think somebody tabulated a 

27
00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:50,700
number of 50 of either sensible 
or non sensible explanations for

28
00:01:50,700 --> 00:01:54,300
The Disappearance. 
But most of them started from 

29
00:01:54,500 --> 00:01:57,800
something which is Earthbound 
like climate changes. 

30
00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:00,900
It could have been colder. 
It could it be wetter? 

31
00:02:00,900 --> 00:02:04,600
It could have been warmer. 
The Seas might have changed. 

32
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,199
A lot of theories concerned 
about the opening and closing of

33
00:02:08,199 --> 00:02:11,000
gateways in the sea and like the
separation. 

34
00:02:11,100 --> 00:02:14,600
Between South and North America.
And a lot of people thought, 

35
00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:18,400
okay, there was a Gateway open 
and somehow the ocean currents 

36
00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:21,500
ran through between North and 
South America. 

37
00:02:21,500 --> 00:02:25,400
And they started to create 
Hayfork among organisms. 

38
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,900
Of course, volcanism was 
suggested that if you put 

39
00:02:29,900 --> 00:02:34,300
enough, toxic gases in the 
atmosphere or CO2 or SO2 or 

40
00:02:34,700 --> 00:02:38,400
something like that, we know, 
big volcanic, eruptions can have

41
00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:41,800
consequences. 
And then there was, and there 

42
00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:45,000
was the time I met Walter 
Alvarez in 1979 in the 

43
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:49,000
conference, There Was an 
explanation, which was even more

44
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,600
ingenious. 
They thought that during plate 

45
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:56,200
tectonics, the Arctic sea right 
now it's a North Atlantic is 

46
00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:59,300
open to the Arctic seas, but at 
that time, the gap between 

47
00:02:59,300 --> 00:03:03,300
Norway and Greenland was closed 
and so was probably the Bering 

48
00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:06,000
Strait. 
So the idea was that there is a 

49
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,600
huge ocean. 
Right at the spot where the 

50
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,700
North Pole is according to them.
It was probably freshwater body 

51
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:18,500
a comparable to giant-sized, 
Great Lakes like in North 

52
00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:20,700
America. 
The opening of the North 

53
00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:24,500
Atlantic was probably happening 
around the cretaceous-tertiary 

54
00:03:24,500 --> 00:03:27,700
boundary. 
So the idea was that fresh 

55
00:03:27,700 --> 00:03:32,700
water, which even if it's colder
is still lighter than normal, 

56
00:03:32,700 --> 00:03:36,800
ocean water was spilling out 
over the northern Atlantic and 

57
00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:41,400
eventually over the entire 
Roshan probably was shutting 

58
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:44,900
down the circulation between the
deep ocean and the shallow 

59
00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:47,400
Waters. 
Well, that's an elegant idea, of

60
00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,400
course, because that way, you 
can kill off the Plankton which 

61
00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:54,100
are for the most of them are 
tropical or subtropical species.

62
00:03:54,100 --> 00:03:56,700
So it happened in a fairly short
time. 

63
00:03:56,700 --> 00:04:00,900
And, of course, the dinosaurs 
were killed by the Arctic 

64
00:04:00,900 --> 00:04:03,700
flooding as they called it, 
because it would cool the 

65
00:04:03,700 --> 00:04:07,700
climate and since dinosaurs are 
reptiles the thinking was that 

66
00:04:07,700 --> 00:04:10,100
they couldn't. 
You're 52, cold spell, following

67
00:04:10,100 --> 00:04:13,700
the spillage of the Arctic Ocean
over the entire ocean. 

68
00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:17,000
So these were the sort of 
theories floating around at that

69
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:21,100
time. 
So then you and the averages 

70
00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:25,700
came up with the asteroid impact
hypothesis. 

71
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,200
Before the recent discovery in 
North Dakota. 

72
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:34,100
What did we infer about the 
nature of this impact? 

73
00:04:34,100 --> 00:04:37,800
And what was the evidence based 
on all of course the first 

74
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:40,700
evidence This was the finding of
the Platinum Group elements 

75
00:04:40,700 --> 00:04:45,100
iridium is the foremost of them 
among those Platinum Group. 

76
00:04:45,100 --> 00:04:49,900
They are all what we call iron 
loving sodaro files, so iron and

77
00:04:49,900 --> 00:04:53,200
nickel and chromium, and Cobalt 
are enriched as well. 

78
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,700
And the ratio between the 
Platinum Group elements was very

79
00:04:57,700 --> 00:05:02,000
close to what we call a 
chondritic asteroid body. 

80
00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:07,300
So that was the first indication
that the Iridium although there 

81
00:05:07,300 --> 00:05:10,600
were theories that it could be 
Spilled Out of a volcano and the

82
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:14,700
deep-seeded 4K know maybe in hot
spots volcano that even that 

83
00:05:14,700 --> 00:05:18,300
iridium would deviate from the 
what we call the chondritic 

84
00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:22,600
ratio. 
And before I found the Iridium, 

85
00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:26,400
I was looking at the tiny layer 
which separated the Cretaceous 

86
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:29,000
and the tertiary. 
In the meantime, I started 

87
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,800
looking at many places like 
Denmark, Italy, Germany, France,

88
00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:35,700
north of Spain. 
Wherever I looked there was a 

89
00:05:35,700 --> 00:05:39,100
clay layer which consisted of 
two parts. 

90
00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,300
The lower part is a very thin 
layer about 23. 

91
00:05:42,300 --> 00:05:45,700
Mm, and it doesn't matter where 
you look in the Pacific Ocean 

92
00:05:45,700 --> 00:05:48,000
and New Zealand Europe or in the
Atlantic. 

93
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:50,500
It's more or less 2 to 3. 
Hours. 

94
00:05:51,100 --> 00:05:56,100
And it's also the most enriched 
in Platinum Group elements and 

95
00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:59,100
iridium. 
The second layer is much 

96
00:05:59,100 --> 00:06:04,200
thicker, and that layer is 
created by the supply of clay 

97
00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:07,000
from land, and windblown and 
rivers, Etc. 

98
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:11,100
Because if you kill off the 
planktonic organisms, which bear

99
00:06:11,100 --> 00:06:14,500
a calcareous skeleton, they 
don't sink to the sea floor and 

100
00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:18,000
make a limestone layer. 
Now, what you get is a layer of 

101
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:20,200
clay, from the windblown dust 
and the Dust. 

102
00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:23,000
Then the clay derived from 
Reverend sources. 

103
00:06:23,700 --> 00:06:26,300
So that was the second 
indication that we have a 

104
00:06:26,300 --> 00:06:29,500
two-fold layer and within that 
lower layer 2. 

105
00:06:29,500 --> 00:06:34,000
Mm, I found earlier a whole 
Suite of spherules Tiny's 

106
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:35,800
Farrell's about half a 
millimeter. 

107
00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:39,200
We're the largest, they turned 
out to be crystalling. 

108
00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:43,600
I already suspected that they 
were the remains of what we call

109
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:47,400
Micro tektites and micro 
tektites are the product of a 

110
00:06:47,407 --> 00:06:51,900
big meteorite impact where the 
melted Stuff is squeezed, 

111
00:06:51,900 --> 00:06:55,300
underneath, the penetrating, 
meteorite and thrown out over a 

112
00:06:55,300 --> 00:06:59,100
large area of the globe. 
So, not only did we find the 

113
00:06:59,108 --> 00:07:02,100
Iridium, we know it had to 
produce these micro Tech tides 

114
00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:07,900
and that excluded, we simply 
have an accretion of 

115
00:07:07,900 --> 00:07:10,600
extraterrestrial matter how you 
can imagine that. 

116
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:14,100
Instead of a big meteorite, we 
have an enormous amount of 

117
00:07:14,100 --> 00:07:17,300
smaller, meteorites landing on 
the surface of the Earth, but 

118
00:07:17,300 --> 00:07:20,900
these ferals have proven that. 
It must have hit some And the 

119
00:07:20,900 --> 00:07:24,500
world. 
We didn't know where and it kept

120
00:07:24,500 --> 00:07:27,000
on going. 
So people found this strange 

121
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:31,600
Isotopes and Bruce bow whore. 
A few years later found in the 

122
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,100
same 2. 
Mm, thick layer, he found what 

123
00:07:34,100 --> 00:07:39,200
we call the shock cords, at tiny
grains of quartz which under a 

124
00:07:39,207 --> 00:07:44,600
microscope show signs of a 
severe Sound Shock. 

125
00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:48,200
Like a plane going through, the 
sound barrier and they're highly

126
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:52,900
diagnostic for shock pressure. 
Hours which can only be created 

127
00:07:52,900 --> 00:07:57,800
by nuclear explosions or by 
meteorite impacts. 

128
00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:03,200
So one by one, the evidence in 
the early 80s was accumulating 

129
00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,100
that we had to deal with a very 
big impact. 

130
00:08:06,900 --> 00:08:12,300
So how did the discovery of the 
so-called Tanis site in North 

131
00:08:12,300 --> 00:08:15,200
Dakota? 
Come about the tennis side? 

132
00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:18,600
First came to my attention 
because Robert De Palma. 

133
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:22,000
He just send me an email. 
And he said that he found 

134
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,600
evidence for tsunami deposit in 
North Dakota. 

135
00:08:25,300 --> 00:08:27,900
Well, at first, I forgot about 
it because I had so many 

136
00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:32,100
mentions of so called tsunami 
deposits, but then he showed me 

137
00:08:32,100 --> 00:08:34,600
a couple of pictures and one of 
them is very important. 

138
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:38,500
He showed me a piece of rock, he
collected a very big piece with 

139
00:08:38,500 --> 00:08:41,799
three phases in it. 
A sturgeon in the pedal face 

140
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:46,300
together with an ammonite. 
Now on ammonites is a purely 

141
00:08:46,300 --> 00:08:49,600
marine, sea animal, the 
squid-like organism. 

142
00:08:49,900 --> 00:08:53,100
But the sturgeon and especially 
the paddlefish are strictly 

143
00:08:53,100 --> 00:08:57,400
freshwater, and both of them are
beautifully preserved, all the 

144
00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:01,800
details of the fin tips, Etc. 
So they had to be washed 

145
00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:06,500
together by some event, and also
be very perfectly preserved, so 

146
00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:09,200
that convinced me that there was
something very unusual there. 

147
00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:12,500
Why were you so skeptical, 
though? 

148
00:09:12,500 --> 00:09:16,000
Initially that there was another
tsunami deposit there, well, 

149
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:19,500
it's far away from the Gulf and 
it's very hard to imagine a 

150
00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:22,400
Jody. 
Schwa sort of calculated the 

151
00:09:22,408 --> 00:09:25,000
hate of the tsunami. 
She came up with a couple of 

152
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,600
hundred meters, but even being a
couple of hundred meters, it 

153
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:32,900
will just diminish and disappear
within a few hundred kilometers 

154
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:36,500
and you still have to travel 
2,000 km all the way up to 

155
00:09:36,500 --> 00:09:39,600
tennis. 
So I was quite skeptical, but 

156
00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:43,000
because he showed me the 
ammonite in the fish and he also

157
00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:46,000
showed me the structure of the 
deposit, which is very similar 

158
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,400
to what we discovered around the
Gulf of Mexico. 

159
00:09:49,100 --> 00:09:52,800
I became more and more Vince and
then he sent me pictures of the 

160
00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,400
tektites he found inside the 
deposit so I offered him. 

161
00:09:56,400 --> 00:09:57,000
Yeah. 
Okay. 

162
00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:00,100
We can date those tektites in 
our lab here in Amsterdam and 

163
00:10:00,100 --> 00:10:02,800
that's what we did. 
And it turned out to be exactly 

164
00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:05,100
the same age as the tektites in 
Haiti. 

165
00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:07,600
So I was convinced and I had to 
get there. 

166
00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:12,900
So at this point, you are 
convinced that it was part of 

167
00:10:12,900 --> 00:10:16,400
the same event somehow that had 
been well, documented around the

168
00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:19,700
Gulf of Mexico and so on. 
So what happened when you 

169
00:10:19,700 --> 00:10:22,700
visited the Site and took a 
closer look, we had a 

170
00:10:22,700 --> 00:10:26,900
conversation between Robert and 
me, and when we were there, he 

171
00:10:26,900 --> 00:10:30,300
showed me all the carcasses and 
the whole deposit was sloping on

172
00:10:30,300 --> 00:10:33,200
the River Band. 
It had all the typical Hallmarks

173
00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:37,400
for me as a sedimentology stall.
So that this was a high-energy 

174
00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:42,400
deposit with 12 pulses and in 
the top one are perfectly 

175
00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:45,800
preserved, fishes. 
And then he started scratching 

176
00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:49,700
the Earth from a big fish. 
A pedal face lying upside down. 

177
00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,000
And he said to me, look here, 
here's the upper and the lower 

178
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:56,400
jaw and he started to dig 
between the both sides of the 

179
00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:01,600
lower jaw and before my eyes he 
pried out the gills of the fish 

180
00:11:01,900 --> 00:11:04,800
and in the gills and more 
importantly, the raker said 

181
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:09,800
there was a sort of catch foot 
catch stuff where a lot of those

182
00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:12,900
tektites. 
So this fish must have been 

183
00:11:12,900 --> 00:11:15,800
swallowing tektites while he was
still alive. 

184
00:11:17,100 --> 00:11:20,500
So whether he died from the 
event or not, he had to die very

185
00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:23,800
close within hours or something 
of the impact itself. 

186
00:11:24,200 --> 00:11:29,000
Let me see if I get the logic. 
So because you found the 

187
00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:33,800
tektites in the gills of these 
filter-feeding paddlefish. 

188
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,700
How does that tell you, they 
died within an hour or two of 

189
00:11:38,700 --> 00:11:42,800
the impact, a couple of things 
because they're very effective 

190
00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:46,500
in swallowing their food stuff. 
So whatever he catches while 

191
00:11:46,500 --> 00:11:48,700
swimming, He does it as a 
pelagic face. 

192
00:11:48,700 --> 00:11:50,400
Open, mouth, he swims in the 
river. 

193
00:11:51,100 --> 00:11:54,100
Sea must have caught them when 
they were still raining out of 

194
00:11:54,100 --> 00:11:56,600
the sky. 
It's not the bottom feeder, like

195
00:11:56,600 --> 00:11:59,600
a sturgeon. 
And so, he caught him in the 

196
00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:02,600
gills and they didn't get any 
farther than that. 

197
00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:06,200
We have x-ray. 
Scans in high detail in 3D and 

198
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,700
you can see that the gut, the 
beginning of the gut of those 

199
00:12:09,700 --> 00:12:12,800
fishes is also preserved, but 
none of it contains any 

200
00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:15,300
tektites. 
So I'm not a specialist in 

201
00:12:15,300 --> 00:12:18,800
fishes, but I could imagine That
he swallows, whatever he catches

202
00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:22,400
within minutes and ingested in 
his intestine. 

203
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,400
So we didn't see that. 
So in other words, there was 

204
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:29,100
time for it to get caught in the
gills, but no time before it 

205
00:12:29,100 --> 00:12:33,500
died for it to get from the 
gills into the digestive system.

206
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:37,700
So I think he has mechanisms to 
remove those objects from his 

207
00:12:37,700 --> 00:12:42,100
guilt but just swimming harder 
or, or swimming in the reverse 

208
00:12:42,100 --> 00:12:46,700
or whatever, but they still in 
there as 60% of the fishes we 

209
00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:50,700
That they're half the tektite 
still inside their gills and 

210
00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:53,800
combined with the perfect 
preservation at the body's not 

211
00:12:53,800 --> 00:13:00,900
being swollen and also because 
above the Tomb of the fishes are

212
00:13:00,900 --> 00:13:03,500
additional tektites. 
So while they are dying 

213
00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:09,400
additional tektites come from 
the sky land on succeeding layer

214
00:13:09,400 --> 00:13:12,500
of Toonami deposits, while the 
fishes are already buried. 

215
00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:16,300
So, that's the time window, you 
have it still within the reign 

216
00:13:16,300 --> 00:13:18,300
of tectonic. 
Tides coming from chicks Loop. 

217
00:13:18,700 --> 00:13:21,800
Well, and that's a very narrow 
window of the first ones arrive 

218
00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:26,100
in say, in 15 minutes and the 
latest come within an hour or 

219
00:13:26,100 --> 00:13:29,300
so, and maybe some hours, but 
that's really stretching it. 

220
00:13:29,500 --> 00:13:32,500
But that's a very narrow window 
of where they have to die. 

221
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,900
So I would submit that they are 
the direct victims of the 

222
00:13:35,900 --> 00:13:37,000
chicks. 
Look itself. 

223
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,700
There's probably no other way to
explain it, okay? 

224
00:13:39,700 --> 00:13:43,400
So both the distribution of the 
tektites inside the fish but 

225
00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,700
also the distribution around the
fish in that deposit. 

226
00:13:47,100 --> 00:13:52,300
With a tektite show that this 
whole event had to have happened

227
00:13:52,300 --> 00:13:55,200
at most within about two hours 
or something. 

228
00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:56,600
Exactly. 
Yeah. 

229
00:13:56,800 --> 00:14:00,400
And so now we're 3,000 
kilometers away from the impact 

230
00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:04,500
so that's just just doesn't 
compute for the travel time of 

231
00:14:04,500 --> 00:14:07,300
its tsunami. 
So how did you resolve this 

232
00:14:07,300 --> 00:14:10,400
conundrum? 
I happen to travel around around

233
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:13,800
the same time in India. 
Looking for the effects of the 

234
00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:17,100
Deccan traps just by way of 
background the justice. 

235
00:14:17,100 --> 00:14:21,700
The Deccan traps are a very 
extensive 2 km thick sequence of

236
00:14:21,700 --> 00:14:25,800
lava flows in central. 
India that erupted in the space 

237
00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,600
of a few tens of thousands of 
years, more or less. 

238
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:33,400
Coincident with the end of the 
Cretaceous, the volcanic gases 

239
00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,900
released during the formation of
the traps have been thought to 

240
00:14:36,900 --> 00:14:41,600
be implicated in the end. 
Cretaceous Extinction event both

241
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:43,400
via the sudden, cooling of the 
climate. 

242
00:14:43,400 --> 00:14:47,000
They may have induced as well as
through the toxicity of the gas.

243
00:14:47,100 --> 00:14:50,900
Is I think you told me you were 
traveling there with a 

244
00:14:50,900 --> 00:14:53,800
geophysicist friend called Mark 
Richards. 

245
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:56,700
Yeah. 
And he just conceived a theory 

246
00:14:56,700 --> 00:14:59,700
that Deccan traps. 
Might have been erupted more 

247
00:14:59,700 --> 00:15:02,900
severely as a consequence of the
impact. 

248
00:15:02,900 --> 00:15:05,200
The impact didn't start the 
Deccan traps with the 

249
00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:08,900
accelerated and so I told them 
the whole story because I've 

250
00:15:08,900 --> 00:15:12,300
been there just in the fall and 
in the winter, we were in India.

251
00:15:12,300 --> 00:15:14,800
So a couple of months apart, 
we're still thinking and he 

252
00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:18,100
said, John, there's no way you 
can get Get your tsunamis in 

253
00:15:18,100 --> 00:15:20,500
time there. 
And secondly, he said, I may 

254
00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:25,500
have a solution for you, and 
then he showed me a picture of a

255
00:15:25,500 --> 00:15:30,600
few short in Norway, where 
people filmed at tsunami in the 

256
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:34,700
Sonia flirt and another Fjord, 
which originated about half an 

257
00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:39,700
hour after the giant earthquake 
in Japan in 2011, and what you 

258
00:15:39,700 --> 00:15:43,700
see is really amazing, one and a
half meters sized tsunamis 

259
00:15:43,700 --> 00:15:46,200
running up shore in a fjord in 
Norway. 

260
00:15:47,100 --> 00:15:50,900
A thousand kilometers away from 
that severe earthquake 9 from 

261
00:15:50,900 --> 00:15:54,600
Japan. 
So there is a way he said to 

262
00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:58,000
trigger a body of water, 
probably by putting it in 

263
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,300
resonance with the earthquake 
waves, which are arriving there.

264
00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:04,500
And he said, since the 
earthquake caused by chicks, 

265
00:16:04,500 --> 00:16:09,600
Loop is about 50 times or two 
orders of magnitude more 

266
00:16:10,100 --> 00:16:13,900
powerful at that's the minimum 
estimate, then the largest 

267
00:16:13,900 --> 00:16:16,700
earthquake which can be caused 
by plate tectonics. 

268
00:16:17,300 --> 00:16:22,700
And which is a 9.6 in Chile and 
he believes it's an 11 point, 6 

269
00:16:22,700 --> 00:16:26,300
or 7 is the maximum by the 
impact, the waves and the 

270
00:16:26,300 --> 00:16:30,500
amplitude of the waves, at that 
distance, 34 thousand kilometers

271
00:16:30,500 --> 00:16:34,500
away from the impact. 
Could have triggered, our could 

272
00:16:34,500 --> 00:16:38,600
have pulled the body of water in
a resonant mode and cost in situ

273
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:42,600
here in North Dakota itself. 
If there is a shallow sea there 

274
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,300
and run up the tennis River 
within the required amount 

275
00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:51,000
between, half an hour and a 
couple of hours, how thick is a 

276
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,800
surge deposit and can you talk a
little bit about the different 

277
00:16:53,900 --> 00:16:58,200
layers in it and the tactics and
how much detail that provides us

278
00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:02,000
but what actually would have 
happened then in the essentially

279
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:05,400
first First hour or two, after 
this impact. 

280
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:09,000
What we clearly see in the field
is that the first search is the 

281
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:11,700
most energetic. 
Because at the bottom of the 

282
00:17:11,700 --> 00:17:15,599
river Channel, we find Boulders 
about half a meter in size but 

283
00:17:15,599 --> 00:17:18,800
they quickly become thinner. 
And then we get a sense down 

284
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:23,200
body with all the indication of 
an enormous sediment load, which

285
00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:28,200
grades up words within half a 
meter in meter into the deposits

286
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:33,100
where the fishes are were burnt,
logs, are where The other 

287
00:17:33,100 --> 00:17:38,600
trophies are of riparian fauna 
and Flora which is existing at 

288
00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:40,600
the time in the topmost 
Cretaceous. 

289
00:17:41,300 --> 00:17:44,700
So, apparently the search 
running a braver was powerful 

290
00:17:44,700 --> 00:17:48,500
enough to rip branches to kill 
animals to kill the fishes for 

291
00:17:48,500 --> 00:17:51,300
instance and it's not only the 
big ones are smaller fishes. 

292
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:56,600
We see shark teeth. 
There are insects that are wasps

293
00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:01,000
surprised by the water there and
nests are memo Burroughs. 

294
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,800
They're all so they provide the 
sort of snapshot of living 

295
00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,700
things in the area, which 
besides are perfectly buried in 

296
00:18:08,700 --> 00:18:13,300
the Tomb Stone of tennis. 
So it offers us besides being an

297
00:18:13,300 --> 00:18:17,000
intriguing deposits related to 
the impact, a glimpse of what 

298
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,800
life was in the close of the 
Cretaceous. 

299
00:18:20,300 --> 00:18:24,100
Does, it also explain how the 
ammonites are the marine species

300
00:18:24,100 --> 00:18:26,100
got into this freshwater 
environment? 

301
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:29,400
Yeah, that's still a problem for
the model as though, but they're

302
00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:31,400
perfectly preserved, their nice 
shells. 

303
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:34,800
We have no Evidence that the 
fish were clearly alive. 

304
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,600
When they were buried, we have 
no life ammonites. 

305
00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:40,700
So it could have been lucky 
today. 

306
00:18:40,700 --> 00:18:42,600
You find on the beaches of 
Indonesia. 

307
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:45,800
You find those nice mother of 
pearl shells of nautiloids. 

308
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:48,800
So the shells could have been 
lying on the beach and then 

309
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:52,300
being swept up. 
But you still need a shoreline 

310
00:18:52,300 --> 00:18:56,700
on a marine Coast where the salt
water moves inward are thinking 

311
00:18:56,700 --> 00:19:00,200
is the fishes were not killed by
the tektites because you had to 

312
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,400
deal with certain search or 
saltwater. 

313
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:06,200
Which it didn't like at all. 
So you have this picture of 

314
00:19:06,208 --> 00:19:10,400
something like a giant tidal 
bore sweeping up the shallow 

315
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:16,500
River from the sea bringing with
it ammonites and then creating a

316
00:19:16,500 --> 00:19:21,300
huge run up on the bank and 
basically just washing all the 

317
00:19:21,300 --> 00:19:25,600
life out of the water. 
Now what exactly would have been

318
00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:28,400
the cause of death under this 
situation? 

319
00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:32,000
Yeah you can think in a variety 
of things but what we also find 

320
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,900
is evidence since there are 
three trunks about 5 meters in 

321
00:19:34,900 --> 00:19:38,500
length, is the largest ones and 
the surface of the tree trunks 

322
00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:42,100
are scorched that there is a 
thin layer of charcoal around 

323
00:19:42,100 --> 00:19:46,300
the tree trunks and on the tree 
trunks are pieces of Amber with 

324
00:19:46,300 --> 00:19:51,000
tektites inside the Amber. 
And the only way you can make 

325
00:19:51,100 --> 00:19:55,000
Amber sticky enough and liquid 
enough to be able to catch the 

326
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,900
tektites while they were flying 
in, is by making it very soft by

327
00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:03,100
a fire or something like that. 
And one of the initial kill 

328
00:20:03,100 --> 00:20:08,400
mechanisms, those zillions and 
billions of returning Ferrell's.

329
00:20:09,100 --> 00:20:12,800
They must have created as many 
shooting stars at the same time,

330
00:20:13,300 --> 00:20:16,800
which have called the sort of 
Broiler effects that you see the

331
00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:20,000
incoming tektites at the height 
of 20, 40 kilometers. 

332
00:20:20,900 --> 00:20:25,400
And they created a blanket of 
strongly radiating stuff, which 

333
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:28,100
must have Zapped. 
At least the surface of the 

334
00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:31,200
Earth just before the tsunami 
came up. 

335
00:20:31,300 --> 00:20:33,200
Up. 
So, it perfectly possible. 

336
00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:36,700
That a lot of the victims were 
created just before the tsunami.

337
00:20:37,300 --> 00:20:40,000
So they were sort of suffocated 
at that time. 

338
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:42,200
And then they were swept up by 
the tsunami. 

339
00:20:42,900 --> 00:20:48,400
So if they were cooked in the 
first hour or two, perhaps then 

340
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:53,700
you had climate change and then 
they could freeze, I guess what 

341
00:20:53,700 --> 00:20:54,800
happened then. 
Yeah. 

342
00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:59,400
Do to Dear thrown up dust and 
it's a global layer of dust in 

343
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,000
the stratosphere and edit with 
That is the very rare 

344
00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:06,600
circumstances that the meteorite
in Yucatan, hit the layer of 

345
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:09,900
gypsum. 
Which of course is highly rich 

346
00:21:09,900 --> 00:21:12,900
in Sulfur. 
The sulfur is also vaporized, so

347
00:21:12,900 --> 00:21:16,600
including the dust and the 
sulfur, which is a sort of 

348
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:20,700
whitish power and that's very 
capable of bouncing off and 

349
00:21:20,700 --> 00:21:22,900
reflecting sunlight back into 
space. 

350
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:27,600
So the second effect after the 
first half hour of zapping, the 

351
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:30,900
plants in charcoal in them is a 
freezing spell. 

352
00:21:31,700 --> 00:21:35,100
And there is still a scientific 
debate going on, is to freezing 

353
00:21:35,100 --> 00:21:37,000
spell lasting for a couple of 
months. 

354
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:40,800
The, we stretched it to a 
maximum of 10 years, that 

355
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:44,300
probably may be overdoing it. 
And there is other evidence for 

356
00:21:44,300 --> 00:21:48,000
it, migration patterns of 
dinoflagellates, which are 

357
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,200
planktonic species, that did not
expire. 

358
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:54,100
And there is evidence in the way
of the chemical composition of 

359
00:21:54,100 --> 00:21:57,400
the cell walls of certain 
bacteria, which are found in 

360
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,900
situ in the layers and Texas and
the quality of the membranes, 

361
00:22:00,900 --> 00:22:04,900
the Of cyclic components is a 
measurement of the ambient 

362
00:22:04,900 --> 00:22:08,300
temperature where they lived in,
so that's supporting evidence 

363
00:22:08,300 --> 00:22:12,700
for the cold spell. 
And then if that range out, we 

364
00:22:12,700 --> 00:22:17,300
get all the greenhouse gases 
like methane CO2 and Cetera, 

365
00:22:17,300 --> 00:22:21,800
staying back in the atmosphere. 
So the third phase is a phase of

366
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,800
warm climate. 
It's not that warm. 

367
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:27,500
I mean, it's not that warm as 
the first Bell, but it certainly

368
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,600
makes the atmosphere 10 degrees 
Centigrade warmer. 

369
00:22:31,300 --> 00:22:36,300
For a couple of thousand years. 
And that is how we explain the 

370
00:22:36,300 --> 00:22:40,100
survival of the species. 
That did survive, I guess the 

371
00:22:40,100 --> 00:22:43,300
birds, and maybe some detritus 
feeders in the water. 

372
00:22:43,500 --> 00:22:44,500
Exactly. 
Yeah. 

373
00:22:44,500 --> 00:22:47,100
They detritus feeders have a 
feast because they're not 

374
00:22:47,100 --> 00:22:50,800
dependent on the primary food 
source and one of the main kill 

375
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:54,900
mechanisms proposed and I still 
think it's very valid is the 

376
00:22:54,908 --> 00:22:58,200
cessation of photosynthesis for 
a couple of months at besides 

377
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,600
the cold spell. 
There is also that I mean, 

378
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:02,700
sunlight is being effectively 
blocked. 

379
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,600
So the whole food chain going 
from Tiny LJ dependent on 

380
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,700
photosynthesis goes through the 
food chain letter. 

381
00:23:11,100 --> 00:23:12,800
And that's exactly what we see 
that. 

382
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:16,600
The big species are dependent on
smaller species and they feed on

383
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,700
algae and that's exactly what 
the interruption of the food 

384
00:23:19,700 --> 00:23:22,500
chain is. 
I just can't help being struck 

385
00:23:22,500 --> 00:23:26,900
by how amazing it is. 
That after a period of about 66 

386
00:23:26,900 --> 00:23:32,200
million years ago, you have a 
very thick layer about two and a

387
00:23:32,208 --> 00:23:35,100
half meters. 
That was deposited all within 

388
00:23:35,100 --> 00:23:38,700
the space of about an hour. 
So you've got enormous temporal 

389
00:23:38,700 --> 00:23:43,400
resolution of of minutes 
literally 66 million years ago. 

390
00:23:43,900 --> 00:23:46,900
Yeah, that's amazing. 
But I thought unique we have now

391
00:23:46,900 --> 00:23:50,900
in the deep sea and in the past 
Avalanches from the front of 

392
00:23:50,900 --> 00:23:53,900
Delta X which come down as an 
avalanche on the deep sea floor 

393
00:23:54,300 --> 00:23:58,000
and those can be sensed own 
bodies of meters in thickness. 

394
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,400
Deposited in the same time 
frame, a couple of hours at most

395
00:24:02,100 --> 00:24:05,300
So, yes, we're lucky. 
But these sort of event deposits

396
00:24:05,300 --> 00:24:08,200
are created in a very short 
amount of time, while the 

397
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,700
remaining sediments above and 
below the word very, very 

398
00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:15,900
slowly. 
So, if this seismic wave induced

399
00:24:16,300 --> 00:24:22,000
River surge at Tanis happened in
that location, do we think this 

400
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,500
must have happened? 
Elsewhere along this River and 

401
00:24:25,900 --> 00:24:28,900
perhaps along other rivers. 
All over the continent. 

402
00:24:29,100 --> 00:24:31,700
In other words, can we expect to
find many more? 

403
00:24:31,900 --> 00:24:35,200
Such sites. 
I think so too, but it may 

404
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:39,700
require the geometry of the 
water body is just like the 

405
00:24:39,700 --> 00:24:42,500
Japan earthquake and some few 
words it did not. 

406
00:24:42,500 --> 00:24:45,000
And then other fjords it did 
create it tsunami. 

407
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,700
So the morphology and the 
orientation of the seawater boar

408
00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:53,000
is very important so it can be 
that a just happened in one 

409
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,600
place because there is a 
funneling effect of the Estuary.

410
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,300
There is just the fortuitous 
lucky circumstances that tennis 

411
00:25:00,300 --> 00:25:03,900
was lucky but Along the 
Tennessee River, we might expect

412
00:25:03,900 --> 00:25:07,300
to have more deposits like that 
definitely but so far we just 

413
00:25:07,300 --> 00:25:09,100
have this one. 
Soul Spot. 

414
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,600
There have been at least five 
major extinctions during the 

415
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,800
history of the Earth with 
perhaps the one at the end of 

416
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,400
the Permian about 252 million 
years ago. 

417
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:25,500
Being the largest one is that 
any evidence linking a possible 

418
00:25:25,700 --> 00:25:29,100
asteroid impact to any of these 
other extinctions? 

419
00:25:29,700 --> 00:25:32,800
Well of course people have 
looked in that respect the end 

420
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:37,000
devonian Extinction which is one
of the big five extinctions. 

421
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:44,900
What's due to a Major Impact, 
making the sea non-transparent, 

422
00:25:44,900 --> 00:25:48,400
all the late devonian reefs. 
Which we know from Australia to 

423
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,600
the Canadian Rockies, to Europe 
are killed at exactly the same 

424
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:54,900
time. 
The only way you can do it is 

425
00:25:54,900 --> 00:25:59,100
also by preventing sunlight by 
making the waters turbot so the 

426
00:25:59,100 --> 00:26:01,700
sunlight can reach all the 
corals and they get extinct. 

427
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:06,100
Okay, that was a nice idea. 
But of course many people have 

428
00:26:06,100 --> 00:26:07,500
looked in a good place in New 
York. 

429
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,900
Okay, Upstate New York, no 
already in there, we have looked

430
00:26:11,900 --> 00:26:15,200
at the permian-triassic, 
boundary in the Italian 

431
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,200
dolomites, there's a very nice 
clay layer, which separates 

432
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:23,900
shallow water, lime stones from 
the Permian to even shallower or

433
00:26:23,900 --> 00:26:26,300
slightly deeper limestone's from
the Triassic. 

434
00:26:26,300 --> 00:26:30,800
There is a nice clay layer there
a couple of decimeter thick but 

435
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,100
there's no, iridium. 
There night as ferals are 

436
00:26:33,100 --> 00:26:34,800
shocked quartz or something like
that. 

437
00:26:35,500 --> 00:26:38,500
So that kind of whatever way 
it's disappointing. 

438
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:43,300
We have not been able to find 
definitive evidence for any 

439
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,600
contribution of a meteorite 
impact. 

440
00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:48,900
Except at the 
cretaceous-tertiary boundary are

441
00:26:48,900 --> 00:26:51,900
you can say yeah if you want to 
find a common denominator for 

442
00:26:51,900 --> 00:26:54,400
all the extinctions had that 
people have looking for that and

443
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,600
that come back again, towards 
Falcon isms as the culprit. 

444
00:26:59,500 --> 00:27:02,000
So what are you working on at 
the moment? 

445
00:27:02,900 --> 00:27:06,700
I hope to write a book about KT,
boundary my personal view on 

446
00:27:06,700 --> 00:27:09,400
that and see how everything 
interrelates, whatever 

447
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,800
resistance was. 
Of course, there was lots of 

448
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,500
criticism that makes it a very 
Lively debate. 

449
00:27:14,500 --> 00:27:17,200
People think that was gradual, 
how do you say? 

450
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,100
It's gradual. 
And they made a mistake or I 

451
00:27:19,108 --> 00:27:21,800
made a mistake. 
So that's a lively debate and 

452
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,700
still is going on the Vulcan 
estar clearly convinced that the

453
00:27:24,700 --> 00:27:28,500
deck entrapped ended it all. 
And they see their evidence in 

454
00:27:28,500 --> 00:27:31,600
the light of the deck and she 
said, no, you have the wrong 

455
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,600
view. 
We see Sitting in the light of 

456
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:37,800
four major impact. 
Ian Smith, thank you very much. 

457
00:27:37,900 --> 00:27:42,700
It was a pleasure for more about
geology, b, as well as pictures 

458
00:27:42,700 --> 00:27:47,000
and illustrations, that support 
this podcast, you can go to 

459
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,600
geology B.com