Did a burning oil spill wipe out the dinosaurs?

New research suggests the Chicxulub asteroid impact threw up billions of tons of oil soot that blocked out the sun for a decade.

The research paper is reviewed and put in context by Nick Longrich, University of Bath. I don't think he was responsible for choosing the imaginative illustration shown above - neither was I! You can find his article HERE.

You will be aware that Elizabeth Devon has moved on - she deserves our thanks for starting and maintaining this blog. It provides a platform for the amateur and professional geological communities to talk among themselves and to each other. I hope to continue her good work.

I am Graeme Churchard, a member of WEGA and now administrator of this blog. My email address is graeme@churchard.com and I would be very pleased for any and all feedback from you. And if you have news of current geological events in the West Country, let me know and it will appear here. And items of general geological interest are always welcome.

I have just finished transferring Elizabeth's list of email addresses to my system. I hope I did it without mistakes, but let me know if I got your name wrong. My system doesn't like an email address with two names attached, so if you get an email with a strange mixture of names, let me know what is your preferred name for emails from this blog.