Q 01/05

Roughly how many years ago did the extinction that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs occur?

A) 6 million

B) 66 million

C) 250 million

D) 1 billion

Answer · why

B) 66 million

66 million years replaced the long-quoted 65 million after sharper argon dating, which in 2013 also showed that the impact and the extinction fell wit...

Q 02/05

Which famous dinosaur was still alive when the asteroid struck at the end of the Cretaceous?

A) Stegosaurus

B) Diplodocus

C) Triceratops

D) Allosaurus

Answer · why

C) Triceratops

Triceratops was one of the very last non-avian dinosaurs, whereas Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and Allosaurus were already ancient fossils, having died out...

Q 03/05

By what earlier name was the K-Pg mass extinction commonly known?

A) The K-N (Cretaceous-Neogene)

B) The K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary)

C) The K-Q (Cretaceous-Quaternary)

D) The K-E (Cretaceous-Eocene)

Answer · why

B) The K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary)

The K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) label gave way after geologists retired 'Tertiary' as a formal period and split its span between the Paleogene and the N...

Q 04/05

Which metal, more common in asteroids than in Earth's crust, is unusually abundant in the K-Pg clay?

A) Titanium

B) Iridium

C) Uranium

D) Zirconium

Answer · why

B) Iridium

Iridium is scarce in Earth's crust because most of it sank into the core with iron, so a worldwide spike of it in one thin clay layer pointed to somet...

Q 05/05

Which father-and-son team proposed in 1980 that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs?

A) Luis and Walter Alvarez

B) William and Lawrence Bragg

C) Charles and Francis Darwin

D) Louis and Richard Leakey

Answer · why

A) Luis and Walter Alvarez

Luis and Walter Alvarez had no crater to point to, and the idea met years of scepticism; Luis, a Nobel-winning physicist, died in 1988, shortly before...