From January 16 to 28, 2001, The Planetary Society invites armchair
explorers worldwide to join an expedition to Belize — via the Internet —
in search of what killed the dinosaurs. The Belize Diary will link Internet
users with scientists in the field who are searching for evidence of the
asteroid impact that many believe ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago.
Scientists and volunteer field workers will post daily expedition reports
and images in the Belize Diary on the Society web site at
http://planetary.org. They will also select daily questions to answer from
those that are submitted by e-mail to tps@planetary.org.
This fourth Society expedition to Belize will continue the quest to build a
more complete picture of what really happened when a comet or asteroid
collided with Earth off the coast of the Yucatan. The resultant Chicxulub
crater is regarded by many researchers as the smoking gun for what caused
dinosaurs to disappear from our planet. When that asteroid collided with
Earth, it ejected millions of tons of debris into the atmosphere, ignited
wildfires, generated tsunamis, and probably altered our planet’s
environment so that the dinosaurs, and most other living things, could not
survive.
Team leaders Adriana Ocampo of NASA and Kevin Pope of Geo Eco Research will
lead a group of geological adventurers into the jungles of Belize to look
for further evidence of the impact. Past Society expeditions to the region
have collected samples of ejecta blanket material — debris blasted from
the Chicxulub crater when the asteroid crashed just off the coast of the
Yucatan. The crater, now buried under the accumulated sediment of millions
of years, is 200 to 300 kilometers across (about 125 to 190 miles across).
This year’s expedition has numerous scientific objectives:
Roo, Mexico and Northern and Central Belize.
explosion (i.e. Pook’s pebbles).
falling from impact) deposits in Quintana Roo, Mexico and Northern and
Central Belize.
blanket and look for hydrothermal deposits.
effect of atmospheric sorting during ballistic transport.
ejecta blanket.
Discoveries from previous Belize expeditions include:
of the Cretaceous period, named Carcineretes planetarius in honor of the
Planetary Society;
concentration of iridium at the boundary layer between the Cretateous and
Tertiary periods;
plume, including Pook’s pebbles.
known samples to the point of impact.
While this is the Planetary Society’s fourth expedition to Belize, it is
the fifth sent by the Society to study evidence of the Chicxulub impact.
Another expedition went to Italy in 1996 to study core samples from that
same time period.
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CONTACT INFORMATION:
For more information, or to establish a web link with the Belize Diary,
please contact Susan Lendroth at (626)793-5100 ext 214 or by e-mail at
susan.lendroth@planetary.org.
THE PLANETARY SOCIETY:
Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded The Planetary Society
in 1980 to advance the exploration of the solar system and to continue the
search for extraterrestrial life. With 100,000 members in over 140
countries, the Society is the largest space interest group in the world.
The Planetary Society
65 N. Catalina Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91106-2301
Tel: (626) 793-5100
Fax: (626) 793-5528
E-Mail: tps@planetary.org