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GSA Special Papers
Volcanism, Impacts, and Mass Extinctions: Causes and Effects
Author(s)
Gerta Keller;
Gerta Keller
Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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Andrew C. Kerr
Andrew C. Kerr
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, Wales, UK
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Geological Society of America

Volume
505
Copyright:
© 2014 Geological Society of America
Attribution:You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Noncommercial ‒ you may not use this work for commercial purpose. No Derivative works ‒ You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Sharing ‒ Individual scientists are hereby granted permission, without fees or further requests to GSA, to use a single figure, a single table, and/or a brief paragraph of text in other subsequent works and to make unlimited photocopies of items in this journal for noncommercial use in classrooms to further education and science.
ISBN print:
9780813725055
Publication date:
September 01, 2014
Book Chapter
The role of giant comets in mass extinctions
Author(s)
W.M. Napier
W.M. Napier
Astrobiology Centre, University of Buckingham, Buckingham MK18 1EG, UK
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Published:September 01, 2014
Dynamical studies of the asteroid belt reveal it to be an inadequate source of terrestrial impactors of more than a few kilometers in diameter. A more promising source for large impactors is an unstable reservoir of comets orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune. Comets 100–300 km across leak from this reservoir into potentially hazardous orbits on relatively short time scales. With a mass typically 103–104 times that of a Chicxulub-sized impactor, the fragmentation of a giant comet yields a highly enhanced impact hazard at all scales, with a prodigious dust influx into the stratosphere over the duration of...
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