Catherine Corrigan Catherine Corrigan Catherine Margaret Corrigan (born 1972), often known as Cari Corrigan, is an American scientist best known as a curator of the meteorite collection at the Smithsonian Institution. She is a scientist in the Department of Mineral Science at the National Museum of Natural History. Corrigan obtained a Bachelor of Science in 1995 and a Master of Science in 1998, both in Geology at Michigan State University. Her master's thesis was titled "The Composition of Impact Breccias from the Chicxulub Impact Crater, Yucatan Peninsula, Yucatan, Mexico". She later earned a Ph.D in Planetary Science at Case Western Reserve University
Yucatán Peninsula telling, the first Spanish explorers asked what the area was called and the response they received, "Yucatan", was a Yucatec Maya word meaning "I don't understand what you're saying." Others claim that the source of the name is the Nahuatl (Aztec) word Yocatlān, "place of richness." The Yucatán Peninsula is the site of the Chicxulub crater impact, which was created 66 million years ago by an asteroid of about 10 to 15 kilometres (6 to 9 miles) in diameter at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The Yucatán Peninsula comprises a significant proportion of the ancient Maya lowlands (although the