HR: 16:00h
AN: NG12D-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Visualization of a 3-D Simulation of the K-T Boundary Impact
AU: * Gisler, G
EM: grg@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, X-2/MS-T087, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Greene, R
EM: greene@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, CCN-8/MS-T080, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Weaver, R
EM: rpw@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, X-2/MS-T087, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Gittings, M
EM: gittings@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, X-2/MS-T087, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AB: Sixty-five million years ago, late Cretaceous life came to an abrupt end with the impact of a large bolide in the shallow water off the coast of modern Mexico. Effects of this catastrophic event were felt worldwide, and dramatically changed the course of biological evolution on this planet. Understanding the dynamics of this event, and guiding further exploration of the crater and proximal and distal deposits, are goals of a simulation project we have recently undertaken at Los Alamos. We performed the simulations with the Adaptive Mesh Refinement code SAGE and followed the development of the crater out to two minutes past impact. Visualization and analysis of the results were performed mainly using the CEI Ensight package. We will present our results and discuss how the visualization informs the scientific interpretation.
DE: 1630 Impact phenomena
DE: 1744 Tectonophysics
DE: 3220 Nonlinear dynamics
DE: 3230 Numerical solutions
DE: 5420 Impact phenomena (includes cratering)
SC: Nonlinear Geophysics [NG]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting