Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Out with a Bang
Some Kind of Scam
How did the impact skeptics react to the discovery of the putative K-T crater? By
now, the reader is not apt to respond, “they instantly accepted it without reserva-
tion.” Correct. In 1992, Officer and Drake, together with Arthur Meyerhoff, one
of the few who still rejected plate tectonics, wrote a paper in Geology Today titled
“Cretaceous-Tertiary Events and the Caribbean Caper.” It described several po-
tential K-T craters, concluding that the Chicxulub structure was nothing special,
merely another alleged impact crater on a list of easily discredited candidates. 1
The Chicxulub site failed the test for two reasons, they said. First, it contained
a volcanic rock called andesite, suggesting that the crater was volcanic rather
than caused by impact. Second, Meyerhoff had earlier found that rocks containing
Cretaceous fossils lie above the Chicxulub structure, which meant that the crater
is older than end-Cretaceous. But Kring and colleagues had already identified the
“andesite” as a probable impact-melt rock. Moreover, two different laboratories
using radiometric methods dated the Chicxulub “andesite” at 65 million years, the
same age as the boundary clay in Montana, source of the most complete T. rex spe-
cimens, and the same as the accepted age for the K-T boundary. Chicxulub was not
older than end-Cretaceous—it was the same age. Scientists confirmed this conclu-
sion when they re-dated Meyerhoff's fossils and found them to be younger than
Cretaceous.
In the final sentence of the caper paper, in a passage that turned out to be un-
intentionally prophetic, the three authors quoted Charles Darwin: “False facts are
highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false
ideas, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary
pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error
is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.” 2
Up to this point, whether or not one agreed with their style and arguments, Of-
ficer and Drake had remained honorable skeptics, arguing their case in peer-re-
viewed journals. Then in 1996, Officer left science to coauthor a topic titled The
Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy . 3 Here area few quotations from the topic,
with page numbers:
[Shocked quartz] of the K-T era [has an] almost certain volcanic origin.
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