K-T Boundary contains extraterrestrial helium

[Phillip Bigelow <bh162@scn.org>]

It isn't 4/1 yet, so I still believe I'm safe.....


For all of you extinction gurus on the list:

The following was publically posted to the geology Usenet group by Ron
Baalke (press man of  JPL-NASA):


"The fullerene molecule is a hollow, cage-like structure typically made
of
60 or more carbon atoms; it is also referred to as a "buckyball," in
honor
of Buckminster Fuller, designer of the geodesic dome that resembles the
molecule.

"We discovered extraterrestrial noble gases trapped inside buckyballs in
a
one-inch thick sedimentary layer of clay that is exposed at several
locations on Earth," said Ted Bunch, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research

Center in California's Silicon Valley. "The buckyballs containing the
gases
arrived on Earth about 65 million years ago during an asteroid impact
that
scientists theorize ended the age of the dinosaurs. The clay layer that
formed from fallout of the impact debris was globally distributed,"
Bunch
explained."


"Luann Becker, of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI; Robert Poreda,
of
the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; and Ted Bunch of NASA Ames,
discovered the extraterrestrial gases in the fullerenes.  An advance
copy
of the article will be posted on the Internet on March 21 at:

http://www.pnas.org


"The scientists examined the one-inch clay layer because it is a
well-studied sediment that contains extraterrestrial iridium and highly
shocked minerals resulting from an asteroid impact 65 million years ago.
A
highly shocked mineral is one that has experienced temperatures of more
than 2,000 C and pressures of about 400,000 atmospheres from impact
shock.
The clay layer documents a period of abrupt change in biological
evolution,
including mass extinction of the dinosaurs, now generally attributed to
the
impact of a carbonaceous asteroid with the Earth."


                            <pb>