RE: K-T impact in early June?

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

Well, Wolfe has at least a 1 out of 12 chance of being correct!! :-)

But, as you note, given the greater number of days per year, it is better to 
think of "time of year" rather than "month". And even
there, keep in mind that growth cycles of plants will be different on a warmer 
world.

This is one data point, and a highly speculative one at that.

In Science, accepting ambiguity and uncertainty are highly important. This is 
one of those occasions. Until more data can be
gathered to test this, we just don't know.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] On Behalf Of 
> dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 2:48 AM
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: K-T impact in early June?
> 
> Good day to all list members,
> 
> Denver Fowler was kind enough to notify me of this interesting study from
> 1991: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v352/n6334/abs/352420a0.html. Its 
> author, Jack A. Wolfe, comes with a possible "date"
> of K-T impact based on the fossilized flowers "frozen" by a nuclear winter 
> immediately after the impact. I'm aware that it is
highly
> speculative and hypothetical, so I would like to ask what is the general 
> opinion of this research today? Has anyone ever continued
it
> this research or came up with something new? Are there alternate explanations 
> about these fossils (geological time, state of
> preservation etc.)? And also - can we talk about "modern" months like June in 
> the geologic past, when a single year had  about 20
days
> more than our holocene year? Thank you, Tom =