Dinosaur Age on Earth Ended during Springtime, New Study

Dinosaur Age on Earth Ended during Springtime, New Study
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Dinosaur Age on Earth Ended during Springtime, New Study

Dinosaur Age on Earth Ended during Springtime, New Study

About 66 million years ago, a giant asteroid slammed into Earth, leading to one of the biggest extinction events on the planet, and ending the age of dinosaurs during springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, Agence France Press (AFP) reported.

Melanie During, lead author of a recent study, said pinning down the season of the impact may help us understand “how the remaining species survived and how they prospered later.”

However, determining the precise date of the impact, which occurred in Chicxulub, currently Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, is scientifically impossible.

According to a recent study, the asteroid’s impact, or a part of it, caused a series of disasters that were followed by climate turbulences.

These incidents ended the Cretaceous age and killed all the non-avian dinosaurs, and then the pterosaurs. The research team led by paleontologist Melanie During and vertebrate paleontologist Dennis Voeten, both from the Uppsala University in Sweden, sought to shed light on the impact and its consequence by examining fish fossils.

The Tanis site in North Dakota preserved traces of this massive extinction. According to the study, it features a collection of fossils found under the sediment of a flooding riverbed. The researchers suggest that during this phenomenon (the impact), the seiche waves crossed over 3,000 kilometers in around 10 minutes, raised the water of an inland sea in the region that has become America, and uprooted almost all types of living species.

In Tanis, the team studied fossils of three paddlefish and three sturgeons used high-resolution synchrotron X-ray scans at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France.

According to the researchers, the fish died from seiche waves accompanied by a flow of glass-like balls known as spherules that were created under the impact’s heat and rained over large distances on Earth.

The fish died within 15 to 30 minutes after the impact, said Melanie During.



Firefighters Battle a Wildfire Burning Out of Control on the Greek Island of Chios

A firefighting helicopter during firefighting operations on Chios Island, Greece, 24 June 2025. EPA/KOSTAS KOURGIAS
A firefighting helicopter during firefighting operations on Chios Island, Greece, 24 June 2025. EPA/KOSTAS KOURGIAS
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Firefighters Battle a Wildfire Burning Out of Control on the Greek Island of Chios

A firefighting helicopter during firefighting operations on Chios Island, Greece, 24 June 2025. EPA/KOSTAS KOURGIAS
A firefighting helicopter during firefighting operations on Chios Island, Greece, 24 June 2025. EPA/KOSTAS KOURGIAS

Hundreds of firefighters backed up by aircraft were battling a wildfire burning out of control for the third day on the eastern Aegean island of Chios Tuesday, with authorities issuing multiple evacuation orders.

Towering walls of flames tore through forest and agricultural land on the island, where authorities have declared a state of emergency and have sent firefighting reinforcements from Athens, the northern city of Thessaloniki and the nearby island of Lesbos, said the Associated Press.

By Tuesday morning, the fire department said 444 firefighters with 85 vehicles were tackling the blaze on scattered fronts. Eleven helicopters and two water-dropping planes were providing air support.

Emergency services have issued evacuation orders for villages and settlements in the area since Sunday, when fires broke out near the island’s main town. The fire department has sent an arson investigation team to Chios to examine the cause of the blaze.

“We are faced with simultaneous fires in multiple, geographically unconnected parts of the island — a pattern that cannot be considered coincidental,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Giannis Kefalogiannis said Monday from Chios. Authorities, he said, were “very seriously examining the possibility of an organized criminal act, in other words arson.”

The minister said police forces on the island had been reinforced, while military patrols had been doubled.

“Whoever thinks that they can play with the lives of citizens and cause chaos with premeditated actions will be led to court,” Kefalogiannis said. “Arson is a serious crime and will be dealt with as such.”

Wildfires are frequent in Greece during its hot, dry summers. In 2018, a massive fire swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping people in their homes and on roads as they tried to flee. More than 100 died, including some who drowned trying to swim away from the flames.