Cretaceous Extinction
The thin line marking the day life's age of giants ended.
Visual Provenance
The image focuses on a simple geological outcrop where a thin dark line separates two eras. Below the line, dinosaur fossils are found; above it, they are gone. The visual simplicity of the rock layer contrasts with the global devastation it represents, grounding the abstract concept of mass extinction in a physical, touchable boundary.
A Global Layer of Fallout
At sites across the world, geologists find the same narrow band rich in shocked minerals, soot, and iridium. This layer represents material lofted into the atmosphere when a roughly 10 to 12 kilometer wide asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, throwing vaporised rock and dust around the planet before it settled out as a single line in the stratigraphic column. The boundary layer shows that a single event can have global consequences. The impact created a layer of debris that settled across the entire planet, marking the moment when the world changed forever.
Deccan Traps Eruptions
Cretaceous Extinction
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
Deccan Traps Eruptions
Cretaceous Extinction
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
K-Pg Boundary
This thin band of dark clay contains high levels of iridium, an element rare on Earth but common in asteroids. It is the fallout layer from the impact that ended the age of dinosaurs.
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The Day After the Sky Fell
The layer itself is quiet rock, but it points to a day when the sky filled with ejecta, shock waves travelled through oceans and crust, and a heat pulse and long winter followed. For dinosaurs living under that sky, there was no way to treat it as a distant cosmic event. In a geological instant, their world turned into ours. The boundary represents a moment of profound transformation. It shows that the world can change in an instant, and that even the most dominant forms of life can be wiped out by events beyond their control.
Artifact Profile
From Catastrophe to Continuity
The extinction created vacant ecological spaces that surviving lineages eventually filled. Small feathered dinosaurs became the birds that still fly today. Mammals diversified into niches once held by giants. For humans, the K-Pg boundary is both a gravestone for lost worlds and a prerequisite for our own eventual arrival. The boundary shows that death and creation are intertwined. The extinction of the dinosaurs created the conditions that allowed mammals, and eventually humans, to thrive. It demonstrates that endings can be beginnings in disguise.
Cretaceous Extinction Hoodie
Own a piece of history. Premium heavyweight cotton hoodie featuring the Cretaceous Extinction artifact.
View Design
Data Source: The Human Archives
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