These Were The Unlikely Survivors After Dinosaurs Went Extinct
CHICAGO (CNN) --When an asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago, it unleashed a violent force millions of times more massive than an atomic bomb. Known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene fifth mass extinction event, it wiped out three-quarters of all plant and animal life on Earth -- including the dinosaurs.
A new study suggests that the impact also decimated Earth's forests, leading to the extinction of all the birds that lived in trees. But in a twist, the plucky survivors in the fiery aftermath proved to be ferns and hardy, ground-dwelling birds.
The study was published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
Scientists also refer to the event as the K-Pg Chicxulub impact because it created the Chicxulub crater in what's now Mexico. During the initial impact, shock waves flattened trees in massive waves within a radius of nearly 1,000 miles. But what followed was probably even worse for the initial survivors of this apocalyptic event.
The intense heat generated by the impact would have sparked global wildfires, ravaging what was left of the forests. Vapor, rich in sulfates, triggered acid rain. Soot clogged the atmosphere, which put a damper on the photosynthetic activity that plants needed to survive or grow back. This lasted years, which kept the global climate from cooling.
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