The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest

Out of curiosity, when did the asteroid extinction theory cement as the scientific consensus?<p>I seem to recall that in my childhood (1980s, Canadian elementary schools) it was still treated as only one of several competing explanations, but now it’s pretty much an accepted fact.<p>Which makes sense given all the evidence, but I still have this odd sensation making me feel like I missed the memo! Am I the only one who feels this way?

&gt; It took six million years for the forests to return to the level of diversity they had before the meteorite, and the species that slowly grew back were completely different than what came before.<p>It&#x27;s just very difficult to think in terms of these timescales, when all of human history is only a few thousand years.

Also cool: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;goddard&#x2F;nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;goddard&#x2F;nasa-satellite-reveals-...</a>

It&#x27;s terrifying to me that we still don&#x27;t have a solution to prevent an asteroid of that size from wiping us out. I suppose they only come around every few million years, but still.

When you consider that extinction events are cyclical and correlate with our solar system&#x27;s oscillation through the galactic middle plane, you can bet life on this planet will get wiped out again and there&#x27;s little we can do about it. The question is: how much time do we have left? (My guess is 20-30M years.)

Creative destruction at its finest.

Could someone post a link to a PDF of the original article please?