Re: "Report Questions Role of Mexican Crater"

[Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>]

Mary Kirkaldy  wrote:
> Someone asked me what the official scientific reply is to the paper 
> by Gerta Keller, which is again in the news:
> http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/8079821.htm
>
> The above article gives Richard D. Norris' comments that "...the 
> group has incorrectly located the K-T boundary and noted it suggests 
> the sediments were deposited mainly in deep, quiet water."
>
> The Wall Street Journal even picked up the story: "Extra: Asteroid 
> Cleared in Dinosaur's Death." Has anyone had someone come up and 
> say, hesitantly, "So looks like it wasn't really
> the Mexican thing?" or, "I heard The Scientists don't believe that anymore?"
>
> Comments?

This is a story that I suspect will not be covered extensively by the 
savvy science press because it's not real news. One reason is that 
the PNAS paper by Keller on which the story is based doesn't seem to 
add much to what Keller has said already elsewhere. A second is the 
old line to the effect of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary 
evidence". It's hard to explain why the biggest impact known in the 
past half-billion years would just happen to fall at the time of one 
of the biggest extinctions of that same interval if the one didn't 
have something to do with the other.

If anyone wants to see the paper, it should be on-line at the PNAS 
web site, or contact me off-list.

--
Jeff Hecht, science & technology writer
jeff@jeffhecht.com; http://www.jeffhecht.com
Boston Correspondent: New Scientist magazine
Contributing Editor: Laser Focus World
525 Auburn St., Auburndale, MA 02466 USA
v. 617-965-3834; fax 617-332-4760