Timeline of Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event research Hildebrand and William Boynton reported the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico as a probable impact site. While the controversy continued, the accumulating evidence gradually began to sway the scientific community toward the Alvarez hypothesis. In 2010, an international panel of researchers concluded that impact best explained the extinction event and that Chicxulub was indeed the resulting crater. Because the estimated date of the object's impact and the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary) coincide, there is now a scientific consensus that this impact was the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event which caused the death of most of the planet's non-avian dinosaurs
Impact crater this type. Non-explosive volcanic craters can usually be distinguished from impact craters by their irregular shape and the association of volcanic flows and other volcanic materials. Impact craters produce melted rocks as well, but usually in smaller volumes with different characteristics. The distinctive mark of an impact crater is the presence of rock that has undergone shock-metamorphic effects, such as shatter cones, melted rocks, and crystal deformations. The problem is that these materials tend to be deeply buried, at least for simple craters. They tend to be revealed in the uplifted center of a complex crater, however. Impacts produce distinctive