Local and Global Environmental

Effects of Impacts on Earth

Dinosaurs became
extinct after the impact
of a giant asteroid.
Elisabetta Pierazzo1†, and Natalia Artemieva1,2

1811-5209/12/0008-0055$2.50    DOI: 10.2113/gselements.8.1.55

T
he environmental effects of impact events differ with respect to time THE IMPACT HAZARD
(seconds to decades) and spatial (local to global) scales. Short-term Chapman and Morrison (1994)
localized damage is produced by thermal radiation, blast-wave propa- defined a globally catastrophic
impact as one that would disrupt
gation in the atmosphere, crater excavation, earthquakes, and tsunami. Global
global agricultural production and
and long-term effects are related to the ejection of dust and climate-active lead, directly or indirectly, to the
gases (carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, water vapor, methane) into the atmo- death of more than one-fourth of
the world’s population and the
sphere. At the end of the Cretaceous, the impact of a >10 km diameter asteroid
destabilization of modern civiliza-
led to a major mass extinction. Modern civilization is vulnerable to even tion. They loosely estimated that
relatively small impacts, which may occur in the near future, that is, tens to the threshold for such a global
hundreds of years. catastrophe is an impact with an
object between about 600 m and
Keywords : impact, shock waves, mass extinction, climate change, 5 km in diameter. Such events
comets, asteroids happen rarely in Earth’s history
(every 0.1 to 1 million years;
F ig . 1). Much smaller objects
INTRODUCTION (down to 50–100 m) collide with the Earth every 100–1000
Impact events punctuate the terrestrial geologic record years and have the potential to cause local devastation.
(~180 impact craters have been identified so far; Reimold
and Jourdan 2012 this issue), but they are not normally The magnitude of an impact event (defined mainly by the
associated with environmental catastrophes. Large impacts projectile size) is the most important parameter for esti-
are rare compared to floods, earthquakes, and other more mating potential impact effects. Together with the prob-
mundane hazards; indeed, they are so infrequent that they ability that such an impact occurs, magnitude defines the
are normally disregarded on the timescale of human evolu- impact risk. The number of bodies of a given size that have
tion. The devastating consequences of a high-velocity impacted Earth over the last 3.9 billion years has been
impact on the terrestrial ecosystem became apparent in estimated, on the one hand, by combining the observed
the 1980s, when the revolutionary work of Alvarez et al. record of lunar impact craters with the absolute ages of a
(1980) linked the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass few impact structures deduced from absolute ages of lunar
extinction event 66 million years ago (66  Ma) with the samples. On the other hand, telescopic observational
impact of an asteroid larger than 10 km in diameter (see surveys of small bodies orbiting the Sun, and associated
review by Schulte et al. 2010). To date, the K–Pg boundary dynamical models, have constrained the current number
event is the only recognized mass extinction that coincides of possible impactors (with the exclusion of long-period
precisely with a large impact event. Many more impacts comets) in hazardous, near-Earth orbits as a function of
of similar size have occurred during Earth’s history without size. Such objects are known as near-Earth objects (NEOs)
substantial influence on life. The principal impact-related and make up most of the impactors hitting the surface of
cause of environmental catastrophe is still debated, in part inner Solar System bodies. According to one such study, as
because of our incomplete knowledge of the impact process of the beginning of 2011, approximately 85% of NEOs
and in part because Earth’s ecosystem is extremely complex larger than 1 km in diameter have now been discovered
and its response to the effects of a large impact event is (see NASA’s NEO website, http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/).
still not well understood. Figure 1 shows an estimate of the cumulative population
of NEOs versus size compared to observed NEOs (Harris
In this review we focus on recent investigations of the 2008). Given the high confidence that all asteroids larger
environmental effects of impact events. Interested readers than 10 km in diameter have been discovered among the
will find detailed background material about the environ- current NEO population, the risk of a giant asteroid impact
mental effects of impacts in Toon et al. (1997). may be excluded for at least the next century. However,
well over a hundred objects 1 to 2 km in diameter, and
possibly thousands between about 600 m and 1 km in
diameter, are probably orbiting in the Earth’s neighbor-
1 Planetary Science Institute hood yet undiscovered.
1700 E. Fort Lowell Rd, Suite 106, Tucson, AZ, USA
2 Institute for Dynamics of Geospheres, Comets represent only a small fraction (less than 10%) of
Russian Academy of Science all potential impactors. Unfortunately, early detection of
Leninsky pr. 38, bldg.1, Moscow 119334, Russia comets is difficult to achieve. They are generally much
E-mail: artemeva@psi.edu fainter than asteroids of comparable size, and they are
† Author deceased

E lements , V ol . 8, pp. 55–60 55 F ebruary 2012


Figure 1
Estimated cumulative population of near-Earth objects
(left axis) or impact frequency (right axis) versus
projectile size (bottom axis) or impact energy (top axis), compared to
the discovered NEOs as of January 2009. The graded color scheme
shows the corresponding type of damage expected if NEOs of a
given size were to impact the Earth’s surface. Figure provided in fond
memory of E. P ierazzo by A. W. H arris, S pace S cience I nstitute /L arge
Synoptic Survey Telescope
much more difficult to discover before they “turn on”
(i.e. their reflectance increases due to sublimation of vola-
tiles, thus forming the comet’s coma and tail) while
approaching the inner Solar System.
SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
Short-term effects, produced over tens of seconds, accom-
pany the atmospheric entry of a cosmic body, its collision
with the surface (if any), and crater formation. They are
mainly associated with the propagation of shock waves
and are extremely intense, but limited to the region around
the impact site. A detailed description of the cratering
process may be found in Collins et al. (2012 this issue).
Airblast
The airblast is a shock wave in the atmosphere induced
either by the entry process of a cosmic body or by the
expansion of an impact plume. The resulting damage from
an airblast depends on the peak overpressure (the maximum
pressure in excess of the ambient atmospheric pressure,
1.013 bar) and the gas velocity behind the shock, commonly
known as the wind speed. Determination of the damage
associated with airblasts is routinely based on data from
US nuclear explosion tests (Glasstone and Dolan 1977).
Any hypervelocity cosmic body hitting Earth produces
atmospheric shock waves, but the amount of damage on
the surface depends on the size of the impactor. Small
stony bodies (diameter <50 m) are efficiently decelerated
in the upper atmosphere, where they lose most of their
energy through an airburst; the resulting shock waves
decay quickly in the atmosphere and reach the surface as
a package of harmless acoustic waves. These waves may be
used to estimate the meteoroid’s parameters. Iron projec-
tiles of similar size could survive the atmospheric passage
and create a crater on the surface (e.g. Meteor Crater,
E lements
NO DAMAGE
D < 30 m (0.030 km)
Airburst in upper atmosphere, no significant ground damage.
AIRBURST
30 m < D < 100 m
Airburst in lower atmosphere, causes damage similar to
nuclear bomb blast above ground. Over ocean, no damage.
REGIONAL / TSUNAMI
100 m – 1 km
Surface impact, on land, makes crater 2–20 km across. In the
sea, raises a tsunami that can cause shoreline damage one to
a few thousand km distant from the impact point.
GLOBAL
1 km – 10 km
An impact into land or sea may raise enough dust into the
stratosphere to cause a global catastrophe, leading to mass
starvation, disease, and general disruption of social order.
EXTINCTION
10 km and larger – possibility of mass extinction,
certainly of some species and possibly humans.
Arizona, USA, 1.2 km in diameter). Larger stony bodies
(50–300 m) are fully decelerated at lower altitudes, and
strong shock waves may reach the surface. A classic example
of such an airburst is the Tunguska explosion, which
occurred in 1908 over a remote region of Siberia, Russia.
The ground damage of this event is represented by a
butterfly-shaped region of devastated forest extending over
2000 km2 . Numerical models (e.g. Boslough and Crawford
2008; Artemieva and Shuvalov 2010) indicate that the
Tunguska airblast was caused by a 50–100 m diameter
object releasing most of its energy at altitudes of 5–15 km.
No crater or projectile material has been found at the
surface within the damaged zone; the impactor material
was carried by the impact plume, dispersed in the upper
atmosphere, and then deposited in a large area of the
northern hemisphere over a couple of days. The well-
known “white nights” that occurred all over Europe for
two weeks after the event can be explained by a large
amount of atmospheric water vapor being lifted by the
plume from the troposphere to the mesosphere.
Impact location plays an important role in these small-
energy events: if an explosion similar to Tunguska were to
occur above a large city (such as Moscow), the blast would
completely destroy the city (Fig. 2) and would also devas-
tate today’s global communications system.
Earthquakes
As the impactor hits the surface, a shock wave propagates
through the target, quickly changing the thermodynamic
state of material near the impact point in an irreversible
process. At the surface, total destruction occurs within the
final crater and extends at least one more crater radius
farther as a result of the large volume of rock debris ejected
from the crater and deposited in a continuous ejecta
blanket (Fig. 3). The shock waves propagate along the
surface, eventually attenuating into seismic waves, and may
cause violent ground shaking up to several crater radii
away. The intensity of the resulting seismic wave, which
decreases with distance from the impact, depends on the
impact energy. Impact experiments suggest that beween
10 -3 and 10 -5 of the impact energy is transferred to seismic
energy (Schultz and Gault 1975). According to the classic
Gutenberg-Richter magnitude–energy relation, the K–Pg
impact, which created the Chicxulub crater, ~200 km in
56 F ebruary 2012
diameter, produced a destructive earthquake with a magni-
tude around 10. Seismic shaking from this giant impact
initiated massive submarine landslides that devastated the
continental slope many thousands of kilometers from the
impact site (Norris et al. 2000). Wünnemann et al. (2010)
proposed that these landslides may have caused tsunami
(see also next section) and massive releases of methane
from excavated methane clathrates, which over time
affected the Earth’s climate (Day and Maslin 2005).

Tsunami
Deep oceans cover about two-thirds of the Earth’s surface.
The exact hazard from impact-related tsunami for coastal
communities is still controversial. The main debate centers
on whether impact-induced waves can propagate on global
scales—like a typical tsunami caused by a submarine earth-
quake—or whether such waves decay rapidly due to their
different characteristics. Numerical modeling prompted
Wünnemann et al. (2010) to conclude that the wave signal
is primarily controlled by the ratio between projectile
diameter, D, and water depth, W, and that such signals can
be roughly classified according to whether impact is in
deep or shallow water. In shallow-water impacts (D/W >
0.6, for impactors ≥1.2 km in diameter and oceans >2 km
deep), the collapse of the crater rim produces a wave similar
to the solitary waves generated in typical tsunami, which
propagate and decay slowly according to shallow-water
wave theory. Oceanic impacts are much more likely to be
in deep water, where a relatively small body strikes the
ocean with D/W < 0.4. In this case, the collapse of the
transient crater in the water results in a significantly Butterfly-shaped area of fallen trees caused by the
Figure 2
different and much more complex wave signal character- Tunguska airburst, superimposed onto a map of
ized by strong nonlinear behavior and rapid decay; thus modern Moscow (population >10 million)
such an impact would not likely constitute a major hazard
for distant coastal communities. partially shield the surface from the infrared (IR) radiation
The consequences of a tsunami reaching coastal regions emitted by new particles entering the upper atmosphere
cannot be addressed easily in a general context, as they (Goldin and Melosh 2009); (2) almost all the K–Pg distal
depend on local conditions, such as distance of the coast- ejecta might not have been distributed worldwide ballisti-
line from impact, ocean bathymetry, and shore and coastal cally, but might have followed impact-induced atmospheric
configuration (Korycansky and Lynett 2007; Wünnemann winds (Artemieva and Morgan 2009).
et al. 2010 and references therein). Although a tsunami
constitutes a short-term, mostly localized effect of an LONG-TERM EFFECTS
oceanic impact, it could have potentially devastating Long-term effects of impact events are associated with
effects in highly populated coastal regions. substantial and long-lasting (months to years) changes in
Earth’s climate system. This occurs whenever large amounts
Thermal Effects and Distal Ejecta Reentry of dust, soot, and climatically active gases are injected into
During an impact, a significant fraction of the impactor’s the atmosphere by an impact event, causing a significant
kinetic energy is converted into thermal energy that melts perturbation of the atmosphere’s chemistry and thermo-
and vaporizes both impactor and target. Vaporized/melted dynamics. The possibility of a release of climatically active
material, combined with some fragmented solid material, gases in an impact event depends on the characteristics of
is then ejected into a very hot (average temperature of the target. CO2 and SOx species are released from sedimen-
2000–3000 K), rapidly expanding impact plume (Fig. 3). tary targets (as in the case of the K–Pg impact), whereas
The resulting thermal effect ensuing from the expanding oceanic impacts inject large amounts of water vapor into
plume depends on the magnitude of the impact event and the upper atmosphere.
is limited to areas within sight of the impact plume.
Modeling studies indicate that radiation from the Chicxulub Dust and Soot
plume could have caused wildfires up to 2000–3000 km Alvarez et al. (1980) were the first to propose that years of
from the crater (Shuvalov and Artemieva 2002). darkness and the resulting elimination of photosynthesis,
brought about by the ejection of impact-generated dust
For very large impacts (projectile diameter >1 km), the
into the atmosphere, caused a mass extinction at the K–Pg
expanding impact plume carries material well beyond the
boundary. Toon et al. (1997) distinguished two sources for
Earth’s atmosphere. Deposits of these materials are known
dust that rises into the upper atmosphere (or beyond) after
as “plume deposits” and have been found around the world
a large land impact at 25 km s-1: (1) molten and vaporized
at the K–Pg boundary (Smit 1999). The reentry of a large
rocks, with the total mass equal to ~15 projectile masses;
amount of ejecta into the upper atmosphere could ignite
(2) 100–300 projectile masses of solid (pulverized) target
the surface (Melosh et al. 1990). The fires, in turn, would
materials. In the case of the K–Pg impact, dust production
fill the lower atmosphere with smoke, dust, and pyrotoxins.
has been estimated to correspond to about 5·1012 tons of
However, recent, more detailed investigations of this
initially molten or vaporized droplets, hundreds of microm-
process suggest a smaller effect, for two reasons: (1) as
eters in diameter. The size distribution of pulverized rock
particles settle through the atmosphere and cool, they
is not well constrained; using data from nuclear tests and

E lements 57 F ebruary 2012

A B
Figure 3
Early stage (8 seconds after impact) of the Chicxulub
impact event, modeled as the impact of an asteroid
14 km in diameter hitting the surface at an angle of 45º (from the
left) at a velocity of 18 km s-1. (A) Material-density distribution:
atmosphere is in blue, sediments in yellow, crystalline basement in
reddish brown, projectile in gray. Material density is given by the
color shading (more intense color = higher density). The figure
shows the growing transient cavity (TC), ejecta curtain (EC),
expanding impact plume (IP), and shock waves (SW) in the
atmosphere and in the target. (B) Temperature distribution
(in kelvins): the plume has a temperature of 1000–3000 K, a range
that includes the phase-transition temperatures for many materials;
the atmosphere is heated well above 6000 K.
laboratory impact studies, O’Keefe and Ahrens (1982) deter-
mined that only ~0.1% of the total impact ejecta (~0.3
impactor masses) is <1 μm in size. The submicrometer
component of the dust would remain in the upper atmo-
sphere for extended periods of time (several months) and
ultimately affect the climate.
The climatic effect of dust injected into the atmosphere
during the first year after the K–Pg impact was modeled
with an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM)
simulation that included the optical effects of a thick dust
layer in the lower stratosphere (Covey et al. 1994). The
results indicate a strong and “patchy” cooling on land,
with temperature declining by up to ~12 ºC, and a mild
cooling (a few degrees) over the oceans, accompanied by
a 90% decrease in precipitation for several months. More
recently, Luder et al. (2003) integrated a two-dimensional,
zoned, average dynamic ocean circulation model with
surface radiative fluxes obtained from a 1-D radiation
balance model modulated by a thick atmospheric dust
layer. They found that the upper 200 m of the oceans could
cool by several degrees Celsius in the first year after the
impact, while overall deep-sea temperatures might decrease
by no more than a few tenths of a degree. According to
this model, the dust-related climatic change did not affect
the general ocean circulation, which is the main moderator
of Earth’s climate. These results are confirmed by the
marine isotopic record, which shows little evidence for
either warming or cooling across the K–Pg boundary,
suggesting a prompt recovery of the climate within a few
decades after the impact.
Recently, Harvey et al. (2008) concluded that soot found
at several marine K–Pg boundary sites is consistent with
combustion of fossil organic matter within a 200 km diam-
eter crater. As the authors overestimated the total input
from fossil fuel (combustion requires high temperature
and, hence, strong shock compression), traditional sources
(e.g. ignition of a large fraction of the Cretaceous biomass:
Wolbach et al. 1990) have to be added to reproduce the
E lements
total amount of soot at the K–Pg boundary. Soot is a strong
absorber of short-wave radiation; even minor amounts of
soot injected into the upper atmosphere during impact
could prevent solar radiation from reaching Earth’s surface
and significantly enhance the climatic effects associated
with dust injection.
Climate-Active Gases
Carbon Dioxide
CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas; in the atmosphere it is
transparent to visible solar radiation while absorbing IR
radiation. An increase of CO2 in the atmosphere increases
the trapping of IR radiation emitted by the Earth, causing
a net increase of temperature at the Earth’s surface. The
K–Pg impactor hit a target containing significant sedimen-
tary carbonate, which would have been dissociated to
produce CO2 during the impact. Estimates of the amount
of CO2 released during the K–Pg impact vary by an order
of magnitude due to (1) uncertainties in the value of shock
pressure needed for decarbonation (this value depends on
target porosity); (2) the relative proportions of dolomite
and limestone, the main carbonate rocks at the impact site;
(3) the rate of recombination of CO2 with highly reactive
residual oxides; and (4) the impact scenario. Even assuming
the largest estimate of CO2 released into the atmosphere,
around 6000 Gt (1 Gt = 1012 kg), the K–Pg impact would
have increased the end-Cretaceous atmospheric inventory
by at most ~50%, causing a perturbation of the solar energy
flux of between 1.2 and 3.4 W m-2, which is comparable
to the estimated perturbation by greenhouse gases due to
industrialization (Pierazzo et al. 2003). A potentially much
larger contribution to atmospheric CO2, hypothesized to
originate from global wildfires, now appears unlikely in
view of new assessments of the lower intensity of the IR
heat pulse from reentering ejecta (Goldin and Melosh
2009).
Sulfur Oxides
The production of sulfate aerosols from the release of SO2
and water vapor into the stratosphere is well documented
for volcanic eruptions. Micrometer-sized sulfate aerosols
scatter visible solar radiation and can be strong absorbers
of IR radiation, causing a net cooling of the Earth’s surface.
During the K–Pg impact, dissociation of evaporitic layers
in the sediments produced orders of magnitude more sulfur
oxides than giant volcanic eruptions, although the exact
proportion of the various oxides (SO2 and SO3 ) is still
unclear. Sulfur dioxide must be oxidized to SO3 prior to
forming sulfate aerosols. The potential effects of impact-
related sulfate production in the stratosphere have been
58 F ebruary 2012
investigated using 1-D atmospheric models combined with
simple coagulation models. Assuming 200 Gt of SO2 and
the availability of water vapor, Pope et al. (1997) found a
>50% reduction in the amount of solar radiation trans-
mitted to the atmosphere for up to 10 years after the
impact, which would have caused continental surface
temperatures to approach the freezing point for several
years. Using a similar approach but incorporating a mixture
of SO2 and SO3 and a different estimate of oxidation time
for SO2, Pierazzo et al. (2003) obtained a slightly shorter
duration for the sulfate effect, with a 50% reduction in
solar radiation transmission for 4 to 5 years after the
impact. The sulfate aerosol effect has a much longer dura-
tion than the effect of dust injection, mainly because of
the long residence time of SOx and water vapor in the upper
atmosphere, which results in the continuous formation of
new sulfate aerosols over a period of years. Figure 4 Zonally averaged, monthly mean fractional changes of
the atmospheric ozone column following the impact
Water Vapor of a 1 km diameter asteroid in the central Pacific Ocean. Values are
calculated with respect to the unperturbed case, assuming a
The consequence of injecting a large amount of water into January 1, 1995 impact. Ozone depletion below -0.5 (green and
the upper atmosphere is an important, yet poorly cyan colors) exceeds the recorded historic minima of the ozone
constrained, global effect from oceanic impacts. Pierazzo hole above the South Pole in the mid-1990s. R eprinted from Pierazzo
et al .(2010), with permission from E lsevier
(2005) estimated that a K–Pg-sized impact into a deep
ocean would inject into the upper atmosphere an amount
of water equivalent to more than three times the amount therefore, cause a large perturbation of the atmosphere’s
of water vapor that an unperturbed middle atmosphere chemistry and its radiative balance (because water is a
can hold at saturation (0.2 g cm-2, or ~1000 Gt). In the strong absorber of infrared radiation).
atmosphere, water molecules supply the free radicals OH
and HO2 to the HOx catalytic cycle that destroys ozone. Recently, Pierazzo et al. (2010) concluded that even smaller
Furthermore, dissolved salts from seawater (whose average impacts would cause a major perturbation of the normally
salinity is 35‰) would deposit about 65 Gt of Cl and 3 Gt dry upper atmosphere. Combining numerical impact simu-
of S in the upper atmosphere, contributing to ozone lations with a whole atmosphere GCM, including interac-
destruction and the formation of sulfate aerosols. The tive chemistry, they found that impact in the ocean of a
atmospheric injection of a large amount of seawater would, 1  km diameter asteroid could produce a multiyear ozone
depletion comparable to the mid-1990s ozone hole (Fig. 4).
The upper atmosphere’s ozone protects the biosphere
against harmful ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B, 280–315 nm),
and Pierazzo et al. (2010) found that such an ozone deple-
GLOSSARY
tion would result in an increase in UV-B to a level far in
excess of that currently experienced anywhere on the
Acoustic wave – a weak elastic wave propagating through
Earth’s surface. Important biologic repercussions associated
a medium with constant speed (speed of sound)
with increased surface UV-B irradiance include increased
Catalytic cycle – a multistep chemical reaction that is accel- incidence of erythema (skin-reddening) and cortical cata-
erated by the involvement of a catalyst (a reagent that racts; decreased plant height, shoot mass, and foliage area;
is not consumed by the reaction, but changes the rate and damage to molecular DNA.
of the reaction)
Ejecta curtain – debris thrown from an impact crater. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Although each ejected fragment follows a ballistic
Impact events have punctuated Earth’s geologic past. They
(parabolic) trajectory, the times and velocities of ejec-
tion are organized so that most of the debris lies on
brought local if not global devastation, affecting the equi-
the surface of an expanding inverted cone. librium of the terrestrial ecosystem by perturbing the
climate and affecting the evolution of life. Although only
Impact plume – the fastest and hottest material ejected the largest (and rarest) impact events can result in mass
from an impact crater; a mixture of partially vaporized
extinction of life, the more frequent impacts of midsize
projectile and target materials that expands
nonballistically
objects may still have dramatic consequences. Little is yet
known about the potential consequences for the environ-
Meteoroid – a solid object moving in interplanetary space, ment and biosphere of impacts below the threshold for
considerably smaller in size than an asteroid and causing mass extinction, but nevertheless large enough to
considerably larger than an atom or molecule
cause (near-)global catastrophe. Human civilization is
(International Meteor Organization). This term is
often used to designate any cosmic body impacting
fragile and might be affected by a much smaller impact
the Earth without specification of its size or type. than the one that ended the dinosaurs’ reign. Our natural
resources can barely support the growing world population,
Pyrotoxin – a toxic agent produced by combustion (e.g. and we must rely on the development of new technologies
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide,
and alternative/advanced energy sources. Impacts of
nitrogen dioxide)
midsize asteroids could perturb the environment and
Shock wave – a compression wave propagating through a climate enough to cause partial crop failure worldwide for
medium (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) faster than a short period of time. Significant damage to sensitive
sound. Shock waves are characterized by an abrupt, infrastructure, such as dams, nuclear power plants, and
nearly discontinuous change in pressure, density,
high-risk chemical facilities, would reduce energy produc-
and energy.
tion and further affect the environmental pollution.

E lements 59 F ebruary 2012

Overall, a calamity resulting from an impact is a low-prob-
ability event, which raises difficult questions about how
humanity should best prepare for, or mitigate against, such
a disaster. What is clear is that future research should focus
on quantifying the potential threat of small-to-medium-
size impacts, including their risk to civilization as we know
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