The K–Pg boundary is dated to 66.043 ± 0.043 Ma
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Renne and colleagues published high-precision argon-40/argon-39 ages for tektites from the impact ejecta and for volcanic ash beds bracketing the boundary in terrestrial sections, placing the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary at 66.043 ± 0.043 million years and showing that the impact and the boundary are indistinguishable in time to within about thirty thousand years. The result also moved the boundary about half a million years younger than the previously accepted 65.5 Ma figure — an example of a date changing not because new rock was found but because the argon system was recalibrated against uranium–lead. The precision matters for the argument: an impact separated from the extinction by even a few hundred thousand years would be a coincidence rather than a cause.
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- Radiometric datingconcerns
- Chicxulub impact crater, Yucatánconcerns
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