El final de los dinosaurios - Documental
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Transcript
00:00The death of dinosaurs is a mystery lost in the mist of time.
00:12This extraordinary murder scene is the only place in the world where we can see remains
00:17of creatures that died in that great extinction.
00:20And in the heart of it is hidden one of the greatest mysteries of science.
00:29We know that dinosaurs died from the impact of a great asteroid against the Earth.
00:35But how could it kill not only the dinosaurs of the place, but all those who inhabited
00:41the world?
00:47We have accessed exclusively an extraordinary expedition to delve into the crater of the
00:52asteroid.
00:53And what they are discovering is much more incredible than Hollywood could ever imagine.
01:05The asteroid triggered an unstoppable and lethal chain of events.
01:13And now, thanks to the discoveries of this expedition, we can reveal exactly what happened
01:19the day the dinosaurs died.
01:29To understand what happened, we start here, in the Visti Valdez lands, New Mexico.
01:35To know what the world was like the day before the asteroid hit the Earth.
01:41The paleontologists Steve Brussate and Tom Williamson are looking for dinosaur fossils.
01:45A stream.
01:52That looks like a bone.
01:54Is it a turtle?
01:55This is one of the richest areas in fossils in the world.
01:59Yes, it's a bone.
02:00Okay.
02:01Come on, look at that.
02:03It has a layer of bone.
02:05Many times we travel through these wasteland lands looking for things that protrude between
02:09the rocks.
02:10And that's always the first clue.
02:12This one's really sticking out.
02:15We can tell from the shape that it's part of the backbone of a dinosaur.
02:20It's the backbone of a dinosaur with horns.
02:24It's probably a Pentaceratops, which means five-horned face.
02:29Two horns on the eyes, one on the nose, and two on the cheeks.
02:34The Triceratops has three horns on its face.
02:37This one had two more, five in total.
02:39So it was an extravagant body of a dinosaur.
02:46Before they extract the fossil, Steve and Tom have to wrap it in plaster, hoping that
02:5266 million years later, it won't break when they take it out.
02:55Yeah.
02:56Ready?
02:57Yeah.
02:58Okay.
02:59There it is.
03:00There it is.
03:01Good.
03:02Look at that.
03:03Not bad.
03:09It's awesome.
03:11So here it is, that's the inside.
03:15This is part of the backbone of a Pentaceratops.
03:18And it would have gone somewhere like this.
03:27With fossils like this one, we can get an idea of what the appearance of these powerful
03:33beasts was like, and even how they lived.
03:39They were the main herbivores of the place.
03:43This whole area is absolutely littered with these kinds of bones.
03:46They were the cows of the Cretaceous.
03:49They were everywhere in this landscape.
03:52The Pentaceratops was a creature that wandered through North America in the Late Cretaceous
03:58during the last 10 million years of life of the dinosaurs.
04:03At that time, the landscape was very different from the current one.
04:09During those 10 million years, this was a kind of jungle, to get an idea.
04:14There was dense vegetation, big trees, lush forests and rivers flowing through the jungles.
04:21Food was abundant for the herbivores, who in turn were prey to the most terrifying carnivores
04:27of all.
04:32The things that were feeding on the herbivores were some of the most famous dinosaurs of
04:36all, the Tyrannosaurus.
04:38So there was Tyrannosaurus Rex here, in New Mexico.
04:43But there is also the grandfather of this one, the Vistageversor, which had about 60
04:49of these very sharp teeth, and that's what he used to run down the bones of these herbivorous
04:56dinosaurs.
04:57The dinosaurs dominated the land for 160 million years, but not only here, in what we now call
05:19New Mexico, but all over the planet.
05:30That's what the world was like 66 billion years ago.
05:34That's what the city was, when things really changed.
05:39This was the landscape that the Earth offered the day before the death of the dinosaurs,
05:44when the asteroid was advancing through space.
05:5066 million years ago, our world was very different.
05:55The sea level was higher and the continents were closer.
06:00But the main difference was that the dinosaurs dominated the planet.
06:06Until one day, everything changed.
06:11An asteroid hit the Earth in the Gulf of Mexico.
06:15The pressure was about the same as in the center of the Earth.
06:19The temperatures rose tens of thousands of degrees.
06:23Bad news for the dinosaurs of the place.
06:26They were incinerated, they were vaporized.
06:28But the most amazing thing of all is that not only the dinosaurs of the area died, but
06:34all those who inhabited the planet.
06:37We're looking at an Armageddon.
06:40And that has always been the great mystery.
06:44How could a bad day in Mexico become a massive extinction worldwide?
06:57The geologist Som Ghaliq hopes to solve the mystery once and for all.
07:04Som is part of an international group of scientists who long to discover what happened
07:09when that huge space rock perforated the Earth 66 million years ago.
07:16And how it annihilated the dinosaurs.
07:20A mission that begins in an asteroid crater, much more recent and small here, in Arizona.
07:27This simple crater here was created by an asteroid about 50 meters above the Earth
07:32about 50,000 years ago.
07:34And it's about a mile across.
07:38It's a fairly small crater.
07:40It's basically simply a bowl-shaped crater.
07:45By studying the shape of the crater and the layers of rock,
07:49geologists can find forensic data on the moment of impact and the magnitude of the explosion.
07:56Everything above the red line that we see there is material that used to be buried.
08:02It was elevated and is now upside down.
08:05Now we're seeing a pile of broken material.
08:08The effects of the impact of this asteroid would be relatively local.
08:15So it comes in at about 26,000 miles per hour.
08:19And 10 kilometers away from here, a fireball came.
08:23It's a 20-kilometer-high wave.
08:25It's a 40-kilometer-high hurricane.
08:28But that was a horrible day for Arizona.
08:35It was a horrible day for the mammoths in the area.
08:38But not a global extinction.
08:42The asteroid that annihilated the dinosaurs, 15 kilometers wide,
08:46left a crater 200 kilometers in diameter.
08:50However, despite its dimensions, it's very hard to tell.
08:55It's so well hidden that it wasn't discovered until 1990 here in the Gulf of Mexico.
09:01It's called Chicxulub.
09:03This is the Gulf of Mexico.
09:06And the impact crater is here.
09:09But the reason it wasn't discovered is because it's buried.
09:12So it's not obvious anywhere on the surface that you're on a crater.
09:17Because it was buried with 66 million years of limestone.
09:23Hidden under 600 meters of limestone,
09:26the Chicxulub crater is not only huge,
09:29but it has characteristics that elevate it to a new category of supercraters.
09:34Chicxulub is one of the largest impact craters there is.
09:38It's not like the one we have behind us,
09:41which has a cone shape and is overcome by two types of craters.
09:46If this one were a little bit bigger,
09:49we would see a certain rebound, a central elevation.
09:52And if it were even bigger,
09:54we would see that this elevation seems to collapse outward
09:58into a rocky ring called the peak ring.
10:01This peak ring can only be found in the craters
10:04caused by the major impacts.
10:07And it's its rocks that give us the best clues about the moment of impact.
10:12Sohn and his colleagues will enter the heart of the asteroid crater
10:16under the sea in the Gulf of Mexico.
10:21The goal of our next project is to drill that peak ring
10:25just here offshore, where it's the shallowest area.
10:29And we're just going to drill it and we're just going to get a drill sample.
10:34And when they do, those rocks will reveal what happened in the minutes,
10:38hours and days after the impact,
10:41and they will solve the riddle of how the dinosaurs died.
10:55After 20 million plans,
10:57and with an international team of scientists from 11 countries,
11:01the drilling of this ambitious project to investigate the Chuxulub crater
11:05is about to begin.
11:08Right now, beneath the drilling platform
11:11and beneath our sailboat,
11:13is the Chuxulub peak ring,
11:15buried by 66 million years of limestone.
11:20We've picked this area because it's the place
11:23where the ring is closest to the current seabed.
11:27The pillars are taller than I imagined.
11:29Yeah.
11:30Yeah.
11:31Woo-hoo!
11:32There we go!
11:35All right.
11:37Even so, the team must cross 600 metres of limestone
11:41before they reach the crater.
11:45For eight weeks, the drills will run 24 hours a day.
11:51We run two shifts,
11:52from midnight to midday, and from midday to midnight.
11:55We run two shifts,
11:56from midnight to midday, and from midday to midnight.
12:01Here we go.
12:14This is the drill.
12:15Each one of these little nodules is an industrial diamond.
12:18We'll try and get 100 metres out of it.
12:25It's a great effort on a human scale.
12:27People are very excited about science.
12:31And that's what scientific dreams are made of.
12:40It's a unique expedition.
12:42No one has ever drilled the peak ring of an asteroid crater.
12:50Chuxulub is the only one on Earth whose ring is still intact.
12:56The next closest one is in the moon's hidden face.
13:02The co-coordinator and initiator of the expedition is Jo Morgan.
13:06I've been excited for years,
13:08so to see that it's actually happening is very scary.
13:12We've worked so hard to get to this point
13:15that we want some pretty good results.
13:21As they go deeper into the marine bed,
13:24the team extracts 3-metre-long rock samples.
13:31This is the first core or complete witness of the expedition.
13:35We're literally extracting 3-metre-long rock cylindrical samples,
13:39and as we go deeper down in the hole,
13:42we go further to the moment of impact,
13:45about 66 million years ago.
13:51As soon as the core comes up on deck,
13:53we give a small sample of the material.
13:55We take it back to the lab,
13:57and we determine its age in less than 5 minutes
14:00after it has appeared on deck.
14:03In a set of portable cabins,
14:05which they affectionately call their main street,
14:08the scientists study each core with INCO as they extract it.
14:13I just got some sweet images.
14:15Look at this crystal.
14:17It's the material of the core catcher,
14:19seen with a microscope.
14:22We've been using the so-called acoustic imagery,
14:26which offers us an image of the inside of the hole,
14:29and some of them,
14:31especially the layers after the impact,
14:33are a real gem.
14:38When the team begins to extract cores from the crater itself,
14:41they will give them clues about the asteroid,
14:44its size, speed,
14:46the force of the explosion,
14:48and the chain of events that led to the end of the dinosaur reign.
14:59But first, they will extract core after core
15:02from the layers of limestone,
15:05and they will inspect each sample
15:07looking for any sign of change
15:09indicating that they are approaching the crater.
15:19One of the key mysteries for the team
15:22is how an asteroid that fell in the Gulf of Mexico
15:25killed all the dinosaurs in the world.
15:30Here, in New Jersey,
15:32paleontologist Ken Lacobara
15:34believes he has found some victims of that fateful day.
15:39Animals killed by the asteroid,
15:41despite being 2,700 kilometres away from the crater,
15:46As we go down this road,
15:48we go back millions of years in time,
15:50and at the bottom of the crater
15:52we will be right at the top,
15:54like 66 million years ago.
15:59But at that time,
16:01everything was very different.
16:05So this is all underwater.
16:07If you look at the top of the tallest trees
16:09about 70 metres high,
16:11we can imagine the level of the ocean
16:1366 million years ago.
16:19And at the bottom of the quarry,
16:21Ken has dived into the bed of that ancient sea.
16:25Oh, that's beautiful.
16:28It's beautiful, isn't it?
16:30I can hear it getting a little crunchy here.
16:33And he has unearthed an amazing and fatal scenario
16:36in a thin layer of ancient sand.
16:39We are in the boundary,
16:41right here, at the end of the dinosaur era.
16:44We have a fatal scenario here.
16:47Look at that beautiful clam in that layer.
16:50It lived 66 million years ago.
16:52It's a beautiful clam.
16:54It's a beautiful clam.
16:56It's a beautiful clam.
16:58It lived 66 million years ago.
17:01It died during that time
17:03when the dinosaurs did it
17:05and 75% of the species of the earth died.
17:10In this layer of bones in his quarry,
17:12Ken has found an amazing amount
17:14and variety of animals
17:16that died together.
17:19We find the remains of a mosasaur.
17:21Mosasaurs were giant sea lizards
17:23the size of a bus.
17:25They had fins on the ends
17:27and a six-foot-long jaw
17:29full of sharp teeth like this one,
17:31and it would fit down here
17:33along the score of other teeth.
17:41Now, the top part of the throat
17:43had another pair of jaws
17:45and these teeth went back out
17:47keeping the prey from escaping out.
17:50This thing was a sea monster.
17:57There was an incredible variety of creatures,
18:00both big and small,
18:02but the most amazing thing
18:04is that many of its skeletons
18:06are still together.
18:09This beautiful fossil
18:11is from an ancient marine crocodile.
18:13They have a very long snout
18:15that goes out like this
18:17full of teeth,
18:19and these animals sit at the bottom
18:21of the sea with their mouths open
18:23waiting for something to come in
18:25and bam!
18:27They were ambush predators.
18:29As you can see, the skeleton is articulated
18:31which means that their bones
18:33are still connected as they were in life.
18:37This is a clue to what happened that day.
18:39They died here
18:41and shortly after they would be buried.
18:46As clues are revealed,
18:48it becomes evident
18:50the mass massacre that took place here.
18:53In a small corner of the quarry,
18:55Ken and his team
18:57discovered a killing scene
18:59where the fossils rest
19:01as they were found.
19:05In five years of excavation,
19:0725,000 fossils.
19:10There are a lot of dead bodies.
19:13We're looking at an armageddon.
19:16These animals lived and died together
19:18suddenly,
19:20they were quickly buried
19:22and now
19:24we have in front of us
19:26the fatal scene that took place
19:2866 million years ago.
19:30From the sands of saber teeth
19:32to the crocodiles, snails
19:34and turtles,
19:36nothing escaped the slaughter.
19:38We can see by the different species
19:40that we find here
19:42that it was a widespread catastrophe.
19:44Ken believes
19:46that these are the first victims
19:48of the collision
19:50to be discovered
19:52and he thinks he has found
19:54the evidence to prove it.
19:58What you see here,
20:00these things quite tiny,
20:02are crystal spherules.
20:04When an asteroid hits the earth,
20:06the rocks melt
20:08and they fly up to the atmosphere
20:10and when they cool down so fast
20:12they don't turn into rocks
20:14but they turn into glass
20:16and from the sky
20:18small drops of melted glass
20:20begin to rain
20:22which we find in this layer of bones,
20:24in the mass death layer
20:26that we see here.
20:28But we have more.
20:30In addition to spherules,
20:32we also find crushed quartz,
20:34tiny grains of sand
20:36with peculiar fracture lines.
20:38It's a very distinctive pattern.
20:40It's either nuclear detonation
20:42or the impact of an asteroid
20:44and I'm pretty sure
20:46the dinosaurs had nuclear weapons.
20:50More and more evidence
20:52indicates that these animals
20:54were victims of the meteorite impact,
20:56the first to be found
20:58all over the world.
21:00Well, at the fossil quarry,
21:02in the mass death layer,
21:04we have quartz,
21:06we have spherules
21:08I think that all points
21:10to the fact that we find ourselves
21:12in front of beings
21:14that perished in the crucial
21:16and calamitous day
21:18that killed the dinosaurs
21:20and shaped out the modern world
21:22as we know it.
21:24If the asteroid could be judged,
21:26these tests would suffice to condemn it.
21:28This is the only place in the world
21:30where you can see remains of creatures
21:32that died because of the asteroid impact.
21:38But the question remains the same.
21:40How could the impact of an asteroid
21:42in the Gulf of Mexico,
21:44more than 3,000 kilometers away,
21:46cause such carnage in New Jersey?
21:50How did a local event
21:52turn into a global devastation?
22:00And the mystery grows even more
22:02considering that in relation to our planet
22:04the asteroid was tiny.
22:08So if the Earth was the size
22:10of this ball of balls,
22:12the asteroid that hit us
22:14would have been the size
22:16of just one of these grains of sand.
22:18So it didn't move the Earth
22:20on its axis,
22:22just like a grain of sand
22:24couldn't move this ball
22:26or destroy it.
22:28But it did cause 75% of life
22:30on Earth to go extinct,
22:32including dinosaurs
22:34or at least non-flyers.
22:36That's a really bad point.
22:40We return to the Gulf of Mexico
22:42where the perforation continues.
22:44The expedition waits
22:46to reach the crater at any time
22:48and reach the rocks
22:50that will unravel the mystery
22:52of what made that global annihilation
22:54possible.
22:56Let me look at this in the microscope.
22:58I would say it's
23:00about 64 million and a half
23:02or 64 million and a half
23:04or 63 million and a half
23:06years.
23:08Wow.
23:10So this was E4, which is
23:1253 million and a half,
23:14and now we are at 63 million
23:16and a half.
23:18Yes, that's a good estimate,
23:2010 million years in three meters.
23:22We've been stuck in the same area,
23:24we've been moving very slowly
23:26and then, bam, a big jump in time.
23:28This huge jump in time
23:30indicates that they could
23:32reach the crater at any time
23:34and at three weeks from the
23:36start of the perforation.
23:38But as you go down,
23:40there's more and more of that.
23:42It's got a greenish tone.
23:44The evidence of a success
23:46on a scale that no one expected.
23:48Now we've now had four more
23:50coarser grains of sand
23:52and I think the only process
23:54that could generate something
23:56similar is a tsunami.
23:58And the fact that we're already
24:00not only in the largest
24:02but also the largest tsunami
24:04deposit discovered.
24:06Evidence of a much greater
24:08violence than expected.
24:10A great tsunami deposit.
24:12Or a great tsunami cake.
24:14With pieces of glass.
24:18And just under the proof
24:20of a huge tsunami,
24:22something changes again.
24:24Look at the color of the matrix.
24:26It goes from green to red.
24:28It looks like a melt.
24:30Yes, it looks like a melt.
24:32It looks like a giant melt sample.
24:34This rock is not easy to melt,
24:36but the enormous pressure
24:38from the impact did it.
24:40It's a sign that the team
24:42has reached the crater.
24:44We are now completely
24:46into the impact rocks.
24:48It's really easy to see
24:50because it's granite
24:52and we can see these big spots
24:54like a leopard.
24:56This granite was dragged
24:58here from the depths
25:00of the earth's crust.
25:02So this was formed
25:04at the time that the dinosaurs
25:06died.
25:08This stone tumble
25:10is a proof of the
25:12inconceivable force of the impact.
25:14That's this guy.
25:16During the remaining
25:18five weeks, the team
25:20crosses another 700 meters
25:22from the crater's peak ring.
25:24I don't think this could have been better.
25:26As for the peak ring,
25:28we have about 700 meters of material,
25:30so we're happy.
25:32I'll not forget about this place.
25:40Son, Joe and the team
25:42leave with their precious
25:44cargo.
25:48In it, the clues are hidden
25:50about how the dinosaurs died.
25:54After four months
25:56of finishing the drilling,
25:58the expedition's team
26:00meets in Bremen, Germany
26:02to analyze their
26:04precious rock columns.
26:06Inside these cores
26:08are the evidence
26:10that will reveal minute by minute
26:12what happened after the asteroid
26:14hit and what it meant
26:16for the dinosaurs.
26:18Unraveling the secret
26:20is a more complicated task.
26:22More than 800 meters of rock
26:24must be carefully
26:26divided, examined
26:28and photographed.
26:30And what they tell
26:32is an impressive story
26:34of violence.
26:38This core,
26:40higher than the crater,
26:42presents the usual geology
26:44of a marine bed.
26:46Layer upon layer of rocks
26:48of a similar appearance
26:50accumulate.
26:52These 3 meters of limestone
26:54took 10 million years
26:56to accumulate.
26:58But the impact of the asteroid
27:00affected the geology much faster.
27:04The next 600 meters of rock
27:06were deposited in a single day
27:08as the impact force
27:10crossed the crust
27:12of the Earth as a mass.
27:14Leaving layers of granite,
27:16sand and melted rock
27:18in a massive chaos.
27:22What we have here
27:24is granite, like the one
27:26we have in the kitchen.
27:28Only this one comes from
27:30the crater of Chicxulub
27:32and has been subjected
27:34to a lot of pressure,
27:36a stressed granite.
27:38The transformation of this stressed granite
27:40is the proof that explains
27:42what happened in the first seconds
27:44of the impact.
27:46This is what normal granite
27:48would look like.
27:50We can see how hard it is
27:52and that if we cut it
27:54we could make a funnel with it.
27:56It's a very solid material.
27:58But this, on the other hand,
28:00has completely changed
28:02due to the shockwaves
28:04that went through it
28:06after the impact.
28:08It's super light
28:10and fairly fragile
28:12because it's been very stressed,
28:14and all this was about
28:1610 kilometers deep in the crust.
28:18But that process
28:20elevated it and it crumbled
28:22into an entire ring of mountains
28:24of this granite.
28:26And the amazing thing is
28:28that it all happened in a matter of minutes.
28:32Based on the core tracks,
28:34the team can reconstruct in detail
28:36the impact of Chicxulub.
28:38A rocky body
28:40of about 15 kilometers in diameter
28:42was approaching the Earth
28:44at about 60,000 kilometers per hour.
28:48Seen from the planet,
28:50it would have gone from being
28:52a point in the sky
28:54to impact it in just seconds.
29:00Too fast to see it approach.
29:02It fell into the coastal waters
29:04of northern Mexico.
29:08The asteroid evaporated instantly
29:10and the rocks
29:12of the Earth's crust
29:14disintegrated by the impact,
29:16which created a hole
29:18about 30 kilometers deep
29:20and 100 in diameter
29:22and expelled the buried granite
29:24upwards.
29:32The pulverized rock
29:34flowed like a liquid,
29:36erupting in mountains
29:38higher than the Himalayas
29:40before collapsing in a matter of minutes,
29:42forming that ring of peaks
29:44so characteristic
29:46of the greatest impacts.
29:52The Earth was shaken
29:56and finally, 66 million years later,
29:58the story of those violent
30:00ten minutes has been revealed.
30:04In this core is the proof
30:06of what happened next.
30:10This one is so unique.
30:12It contains a mixture of things
30:14that you would never normally
30:16find near each other,
30:18which is pretty amazing.
30:20If we look at the pieces of rock,
30:22we see some with angles,
30:24with corners,
30:26and ones that are pretty round.
30:30Something so round
30:32had to be in the water.
30:38It was so hot
30:40that the sea evaporated,
30:42leaving a big hole
30:44about 200 kilometers in diameter.
30:50We have a big hole.
30:52The ocean has been pushed away
30:54and the ocean's got to come back.
30:56And it's so big
30:58and it's so hot
31:00that we turned it right into steam
31:02and we have this mixture
31:04so round and stuff
31:06that it all comes together
31:08to make this crazy pile of fake
31:10amalgam or topsoil.
31:14But the big question is
31:16what effect did this have
31:18on the dinosaurs?
31:22To answer that,
31:24the team needs to estimate
31:26the size of the explosion
31:28and the only way to do that
31:30is to look at the largest
31:32explosions ever made
31:34by humans.
31:44This is the Nevada Test Site,
31:46the most bombarded place
31:48on Earth.
31:50928 of the largest nuclear
31:52explosions ever made
31:54were seen here,
31:56explosions that can help
31:58physicists Mark Moslow
32:00and David Dearborn
32:02to calculate the size
32:04of the asteroid's explosion.
32:06Nice fireplace.
32:08Oh yeah, with the double window
32:10to hit the front door
32:12where the hit was.
32:14Yeah, I can see the direction
32:16from which the explosion came.
32:18This house belonged
32:20to the town of Doomtown,
32:22which survived a detonation
32:24known as Apple II
32:26in May 1955.
32:36The blast must have fallen
32:38right up to here
32:40after it blew up the windows.
32:42Those pieces of glass
32:44would be compressed by a wind
32:46of about 150 kilometers per hour.
32:48The windows would disappear, yes.
32:50And I see that this chimney
32:52has a crack.
32:54The upper part of the chimney
32:56has rotated out.
32:58And it hasn't just rotated,
33:00it has moved.
33:02Most of the damage
33:04was done by the fireball
33:06and the heat it generated
33:08or the blast wave.
33:10And the houses that were
33:12even closer didn't survive.
33:14Tests like this are very important.
33:16Those of us who work
33:18on asteroid impacts
33:20naturally started to compare
33:22them to nuclear explosions
33:24because they are similar phenomena.
33:26The investigators
33:28had high-speed cameras,
33:30meters to determine
33:32the intensity of the shock wave,
33:34the expansive wave in the air.
33:42A particular phenomenon
33:44found in nuclear explosions
33:46and asteroid impacts
33:48is the shock quartz.
33:50The pressure of the shock wave
33:52from a nuclear explosion
33:54is so high that it actually
33:56surpasses the force of a crystal.
34:02So it squeezes the crystal
34:04when it's pressed,
34:06it has to distort
34:08and that's what shock quartz is.
34:10We saw the chimney
34:12and the way it was fractured
34:16part of it was rotated
34:18and that's what happens
34:20to the internal structure
34:22of the crystals.
34:24You need the force
34:26of a nuclear explosion
34:28to break the internal structure
34:30of the quartz.
34:32The fracture lines
34:34reveal the intense pressure
34:36of the explosion.
34:40But this is nothing
34:42compared to the pressure
34:44unleashed on Chicxulub.
34:54Hidden in the layers
34:56of the core,
34:58the team finds
35:00their own shock quartz.
35:04So this is a
35:06piece of shock quartz
35:08that we extracted
35:10from Chicxulub
35:12through the microscope
35:14and it has a lot of lines.
35:16The more lines we see
35:18in different directions,
35:20the higher the pressure
35:22that was subjected to
35:24and we find pieces like this
35:26in all the impact rocks.
35:28Based on the study
35:30of nuclear explosions,
35:32Joe has been able to calibrate
35:34the magnitude of the explosion.
35:36So we use exactly
35:38the same hydrocodes
35:40and we have applied them
35:42to our simulations
35:44of formation of impact craters.
35:46This event was equivalent
35:48to 10 billion Hiroshima.
35:50It was huge,
35:52the biggest in the last 100 million years,
35:54the most catastrophic
35:56that has happened to the Earth.
36:02It was as if 10 billion
36:04atomic bombs exploded.
36:06It generated a fireball
36:08that reached
36:1010,000 degrees centigrade.
36:16In addition to a pressure wave
36:18that reduced everything to pieces.
36:26Every living being
36:28a thousand kilometers away
36:30would die instantly.
36:32And that only
36:34in the first couple of minutes.
36:40So what would be
36:42the effect of the explosion
36:44on dinosaurs like those
36:46that inhabited the Baltic lands
36:48of New Mexico?
36:50Being here,
36:52it's really hard for me to imagine
36:54what it would have been like
36:5666 million years ago
36:58when everything changed.
37:02At the beginning of that day
37:04this whole area
37:06would have been full of dinosaurs.
37:08And then,
37:10about 2,000 kilometers
37:12in this direction
37:14to the southeast,
37:16the asteroid hit the Earth.
37:18And very quickly
37:20the dinosaurs would realize
37:22that something was wrong
37:24because there would have been
37:26an enormous mushroom-shaped
37:28red cloud
37:31But that wouldn't have
37:33really affected the dinosaurs.
37:35They would have seen it,
37:37but it wouldn't have hurt them.
37:39Now, their cousins down in Texas,
37:41a thousand kilometers closer
37:43to the impact,
37:45they were toast,
37:47incinerated, disintegrated.
37:50But all over the world
37:52most of the dinosaurs
37:54were still alive.
37:56The sea monsters
37:58of Ken LaCovara in New Jersey
38:00were still swimming happily.
38:04But not for long.
38:08A deadly and unstoppable chain reaction
38:10had unleashed.
38:21A nucleus in particular
38:23of the impact crater
38:25reveals how a bad day
38:27in Mexico ended up
38:29becoming a global disaster
38:31for the dinosaurs.
38:34Okay, so you're now
38:36at the top of the boundary layer.
38:39And this is our famous
38:41nucleus 40, which is so exciting.
38:43If we look at it,
38:45we see some dark layers
38:47and we think they might be traces
38:49of the asteroid or something
38:51in the depths of the Earth
38:53that was elevated.
38:55But the important thing
38:57is not just what's on the layers,
38:59but the journey
39:01that the material undertook.
39:03We think that they probably
39:05took a couple of laps
39:07around the planet
39:09before reaching the crater.
39:11It's proof of a huge ejection
39:13of pulverized rocks
39:15and asteroid remains.
39:19And it's this ejection
39:21that turned a local disaster
39:23into a global massacre.
39:26When the asteroid hit the ground,
39:28vaporized,
39:30there was a huge column
39:32of rock vapor
39:34that expanded upward
39:36at a very high rate
39:38and outward to the rest of the planet.
39:40A blanket of dust and vapor
39:42spread rapidly
39:44from the impact area.
39:46This was hot gas rock
39:48and as it went up,
39:50it cooled and formed
39:52spheres the size
39:54of a grain of sand.
39:57When these things re-entered
39:59the atmosphere,
40:01they heated up again
40:03by the friction of the air
40:05like shooting stars.
40:07But if you were standing
40:09as we have,
40:11there was an incredible number
40:13of shooting stars,
40:15to the point of not
40:17distinguishing them up,
40:19far above you,
40:21in all directions.
40:23It wouldn't fall on you
40:25because it would be
40:27approximately 60 kilometers
40:29from the ground.
40:31But that hot lava
40:33would emit an energy
40:35several times greater
40:37than that of the sun.
40:39As the ejection expanded,
40:41the temperatures on the ground
40:43rose several hundred degrees,
40:45causing terrible fires
40:47in its wake.
40:49This was not a normal fire.
40:51It started everywhere,
40:53so it was a massive fire,
40:55and these can be much more
40:57blazing than a normal fire.
40:59All the leaves on the ground
41:01were on fire,
41:03and also the trees
41:05and the weeds.
41:10Hurricane winds were blowing
41:12towards the fire,
41:14raising the flames
41:16and consuming everything.
41:20And as a result,
41:22this steam quickly spread
41:24across the entire planet.
41:26In just a few hours,
41:28it would have reached
41:30the confines of the Earth.
41:38In the Valdia lands of New Mexico,
41:40the dinosaurs had escaped
41:42the initial explosion,
41:44but that mantle of fatality
41:46was advancing rapidly
41:48towards them.
41:51In just 11 minutes,
41:53the sky began to darken.
42:02It wasn't really a case of
42:04fire and blizzard
42:06raining down from the heavens.
42:08It was more a case of all of that stuff
42:10heating up the atmosphere
42:12and turning it into a giant radiator.
42:15For several minutes,
42:17the lava in the sky
42:19emitted a strong heat.
42:25On the ground,
42:27it would have been as hot
42:29as a pizza oven,
42:31so that, you know,
42:33destroyed a lot of the dinosaurs,
42:35but it also started to cause fires.
42:37Within an hour or two,
42:39this whole landscape
42:41was completely changed.
42:43And a new world
42:45began to emerge.
42:49The disaster spread
42:51all over the globe.
42:55But there were areas
42:57where the dinosaurs
42:59could have escaped the fires,
43:01and it didn't explain
43:03the slaughter of Ken's quarry.
43:05The sea didn't catch fire.
43:09However,
43:11a devastating final blow
43:13would be expected,
43:15and the proof is not present
43:17in the cores,
43:19but absent in them.
43:21A particular mineral of sulphate.
43:25This is gypsum.
43:27At the time of the impact
43:29in Yucatan,
43:31there was gypsum,
43:33a material that contains sulphates.
43:35Considering that the asteroid
43:37landed in shallow waters,
43:39there were large amounts
43:41of gypsum in the crater.
43:43If we look at the recovered core
43:45of the Chicxulub crater,
43:47we don't find any gypsum.
43:49There's nothing.
43:51It's supposed to be full of gypsum,
43:53but it's not.
43:55Which means that
43:57at the time of the impact,
43:59almost the entire sequence
44:01of gypsum present in the object
44:03went into the atmosphere.
44:05This is perhaps
44:07The team has discovered
44:09that the amount of this harmful sulphate
44:11in the atmosphere must have been huge.
44:13Much larger than imagined.
44:15This material,
44:17evaporated by the impact
44:19and released into the atmosphere,
44:21was the killer.
44:23Gypsum like this
44:25was what killed the dinosaurs.
44:27This vast cloud of dust
44:29would be the last straw
44:31for the surviving dinosaurs.
44:33The spread of remains
44:35blocked the sun's rays
44:37and the light went out.
44:45After the fires
44:47consumed themselves,
44:49the darkness suddenly darkened.
44:51There would probably be
44:53less light than on a moonless night.
44:55We can imagine
44:57the last tyrannosaurs
44:59trying to hunt something,
45:01but that would be very difficult.
45:03So if they survived the fire,
45:05they probably would have starved to death.
45:07Because there was no light,
45:09it was around to be very cold,
45:11and after a few days,
45:13the temperature had dropped
45:15below freezing point.
45:17Global temperatures
45:19plummeted 10 degrees centigrade
45:21in a matter of days,
45:23and photosynthesis stopped
45:25both on land and at sea.
45:28All that debris,
45:30all the sulfates in the atmosphere
45:32blocked out the sun.
45:36And then the food chain broke.
45:38And the food chain in the ocean
45:40was very short.
45:42In less than a month,
45:44from plankton to super predators.
45:46So even if they had survived that day,
45:48they would have nothing to eat.
45:50They would starve to death,
45:52and if you were as big as a Mosasaur,
45:54you would be one of the first to disappear.
45:58It was this nuclear winter
46:00that caused the massive killing
46:02of Ken's quarry.
46:06The green landscapes
46:08turned gray.
46:12With nothing to eat on the entire planet,
46:14dinosaurs had little chance
46:16of surviving.
46:28After many months of darkness,
46:30the sun's light
46:32gradually returned to the surface,
46:34and with it,
46:36a new development.
46:38The surviving creatures
46:40had inherited the earth.
46:44What I have on the tip of my finger
46:46is a lower tooth
46:48of something called Mesodma.
46:51It was a little guy who was probably
46:53about the size of a mouse.
46:58This is a tiny,
47:00but very few species
47:02that we know
47:04that survived global devastation.
47:06It's a blade-like tooth,
47:08and it was able to feed on insects
47:10and seeds,
47:12so it didn't depend on photosynthesis.
47:16The death of the dinosaurs
47:18allowed these small survivors to grow,
47:20and the mammals would evolve
47:22quickly to take over the planet.
47:24These canyons
47:26are the sediments
47:28that have accumulated
47:30for hundreds of thousands of years
47:32since the extinction of the dinosaurs,
47:34and here we find the first mammals.
47:36In fact, the mammals
47:38originated almost at the same time
47:40as the dinosaurs,
47:42and they lived throughout
47:44the entire era of the dinosaurs,
47:46but they remained relatively small.
47:48It wasn't until the dinosaurs were extinct
47:50that mammals really began to grow,
47:52to diversify,
47:54and to become large animals.
47:56This is the jaw of a mammal
47:58that had a head like that of a wolf.
48:04It just was a paradise
48:06for these new animals.
48:10Without the mammals
48:12that survived that extinction,
48:14we wouldn't be here,
48:16because among those groups of survivors
48:18were some of our ancestors.
48:20It was a stroke of luck
48:22that paved the way
48:24for our own evolution.
48:28If the asteroid
48:30had hit just a few seconds
48:32before or after,
48:34history would have been very different.
48:38Where it hit
48:40was particularly disastrous
48:42for life.
48:44Lots of this volatile material
48:46was released into the atmosphere
48:48and if it had just
48:50been a slightly different
48:52rotation of the Earth,
48:54it could have collided
48:56with the Atlantic Ocean
48:58or the Pacific Ocean.
49:02And if it hit one of those places
49:04instead of Mexico,
49:06that event might not have been
49:08significant enough
49:10to actually be the end
49:12of the era of the dinosaurs.
49:14In fact, possibly
49:16the end of the world.
49:46.
49:48.