Killer Crater

There’s a renewed debate these days about what killed the dinosaurs. Most scientists say it was an asteroid that slammed into the Gulf of Mexico. A few say it was giant volcanoes. And some say it was a combination of the two.
Regardless of whether it was the dinosaur killer, though, there’s no doubt the asteroid impact put on quite a show. It gouged a giant crater, blasted billions of tons of debris into the atmosphere, and created a tsunami that rolled all the way to central Texas.
The crater is known as Chicxulub. It’s centered just off the Yucatan Peninsula. It’s about a hundred miles wide and a dozen miles deep.
A few years ago, researchers drilled into a ring of mountain peaks inside the crater’s rim. The rocks revealed what happened when the miles-wide asteroid hit.
The high temperature and pressure excavated an initial crater about 20 miles deep. For about 10 minutes, the ground around the impact site acted like a fluid, with rocks flowing down the sides of the crater. But w