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When the (Chicxulub) asteroid hit Yucatan, what was it like in the minutes, days and weeks afterward on distant locations on Earth?

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B--rian
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stretch
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  • I guess you are refering to all possible effects like Earthquakes, loudness / shockwave, (dust) cloud cover, tsunamis, long-lasting winter just to name a few? – B--rian Mar 18 '21 at 09:11
  • The Deccan Traps formed at roughly the same time and are (very) roughly antipodal to Chicxulub. AFAIK there is no evidence that there is a causal relationship between them. It is certainly possible, though, that the impactor directly caused the Traps to form. – Alex Hajnal Mar 18 '21 at 12:44
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    @AlexHajnal is there any big scale geology - physics reason to expect something like that being triggered right at the antipodes of an impact? In Wikipedia, emphasis is given to the antipodean position but not reason is mentioned. It is just that the apparent coincidence is taken as suggestive, or one can think of wave patterns etc... – Alchimista Mar 18 '21 at 14:05
  • @Alchimista There have been a few studies done but they haven't been conclusive. That the two events took place very closely together in space (nearly antipodal) and time (within ~500ky) certainly raises ones eyebrows. Here's one article that goes into a bit more detail. – Alex Hajnal Mar 18 '21 at 14:12
  • @AlexHajnal The Deccan Traps had multiple eruptions, the first of which occurred well before the Chicxulub asteroid impact. That said, it certainly is possible that those initial eruptions made the Deccan Traps be susceptible to being triggered by the asteroid impact. There are several features of the KT extinction that are not compatible with an asteroid impact alone but are compatible with a 1-2-3 punch by the first Deccan Trap eruptions, followed by the impact, followed in turn by additional Deccan Trap eruptions. – David Hammen Mar 18 '21 at 14:56
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    @Alchimista The surface wave from an earthquake spread out along the surface, roughly forming a ring that grows in size as time goes on -- until the wave forms a great circle. The propagating ring then shrinks until it meets itself at the antipode. While there's been a lot of attenuation, there is still quite a bit of energy that concentrates at the antipode. – David Hammen Mar 18 '21 at 16:44
  • @DavidHammen that was I was looking for – Alchimista Mar 18 '21 at 16:51
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    All of the descriptions I've seen talk about years, decades, centuries after the event. I am curious about the day of the event and several days afterwards. – stretch Mar 20 '21 at 21:54

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