Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs Opens at AMNH

Learn more at TheCityLife.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Opening November 17th at the American Museum of Natural
History, Impact The End of the Age of Dinosaurs explores the
major asteroid impact 66,000,000years ago that reshaped life on
Earth. The collision triggered
earthquakes, tsunamis and globalwildfires, plunging the planet

(00:20):
Into Darkness and wiping out most species, including the non
bird dinosaurs. From this destruction came
renewal. New ecosystems evolved, mammals
diversified and ultimately humans emerged.
Featuring life-size models including an 18 foot long
Triceratops pulling down a smalltree, a 27 foot long mosasaur

(00:44):
attacking a plesiosaur, and a 15foot tall plant eating ancient
mammal, as well as fossils and fossil casts, dramatic dioramas,
an immersive panoramic video experience that visualizes the
moment the asteroid struck and engaging interactives.
IMPACT reveals the latest scientific understanding of this

(01:05):
transformative moment as visitors explore a dramatic
story of extinction, survival, recovery, and adaptation
spanning millions of years. IMPACT also presents the
evidence for these extraordinaryevents from the fossil record
and Earth S geology. Impact does T just tell the
dramatic story about the asteroid strike that wiped out

(01:28):
the non avian dinosaurs. It shows how science enables us
to peer into that long gone time, what the world was like,
what animals roamed and of course the planet wide
environmental cataclysm that theasteroid triggered, said museum
President Jean M Decatur. It's also a story about the

(01:49):
resilience of life and of our planet.
Some species survived, new ecosystems flourished, and
eventually these developments led to the evolution of humans
and the world we know today. It's a fascinating,
extraordinary story like no other.
The Cretaceous Period ended catastrophically when an

(02:09):
asteroid estimated to be 6 to 10miles wide crashed into Earth on
what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, plunging the planet
into a global winter. In addition to its most famous
victims, the non avian dinosaurs, the Cretaceous
paleogeny KPG extinction event eliminated about 75% of all

(02:30):
living species, all flying reptiles, the pterosaurs, as
well as massive marine reptiles including mosasaurs and
plesiosaurs, marine invertebrates including
ammonites, and many species of mammals, amphibians, birds,
insects and plants. Impact highlights the species

(02:51):
that became extinct as well as the plants and animals that
survived this major turning point in Earth's history and
faced A drastically changed world.
The extinction of non bird dinosaurs paved the way for the
evolution of new flora and fauna, including the emergence
of lush Rhine forests and the explosion of mammal diversity,

(03:11):
which ultimately led to our human lineage.
What makes this exhibition so exciting is how much of the
story we can now tell through science, said Roger Benson, lead
curator of the exhibition and the Macaulay Curator of Dinosaur
Paleobiology in the Museum S Division of Paleontology.
Advances in paleontology and geochemistry have given us an

(03:34):
unprecedented look at what happened before, during and
after the asteroid hit, including how ecosystems
collapsed, adapted, and ultimately flourished again.
The KPG event is the most recentof five major mass extinction
events. Some researchers think we're
about to enter another Extinction 1, caused not by

(03:56):
volcanism or an asteroid impact,but by human activities,
including those that contribute to climate change.
Visitors will learn about other extinction events, as well as
about the vital ongoing work to sustain Earth as incredible
biodiversity today. Life Before the impact on land

(04:17):
and in the oceans, Earth was teeming with life during the
Cretaceous period. In ancient oceans, the huge
marine reptiles ruled for millions of years, existing as
part of a complex ecosystem thatincluded tiny organisms such as
phytoplankton and zooplankton, along with fishes, sharks, sea

(04:38):
turtles, clams, squid, ammonites, nautiluses and other
invertebrates. In impact, visitors will
encounter life-size models of a 27 foot long mosasaur, among the
most fearsome and widespread marine reptiles of the time,
attacking a long necked plesiosaur measuring 30 feet.

(04:59):
The exhibition also features a touchable cast of a mosasaur
tooth, as well as a real fossil of an ammonite, an extinct
cephalopod related to squids, octopuses and nautiluses that
came in many shapes and sizes and was common around the world.
On land, visitors will see that the area that now makes up the

(05:19):
western United States was a rich, interconnected ecosystem
of plants and animals that thrived in forests, meadows,
lakes and floodplains. Impact features a stunning
diorama that depicts a scene based on fossils from the Hell
Creek Formation, an ancient rocklayer that dates to the end of
the age of dinosaurs, including intricate life-size models of a

(05:43):
Triceratops and a recently discovered hook handed dinosaur
called Triarchuncus prairiensis,as well as other members of
their ecosystem including turtles, birds, frogs, and even
a predatory mammal died Elphedonthat might have eaten small
dinosaurs and other animals. Nearly all of the many different

(06:03):
groups of mammals that were alive 66,000,000 years ago were
smaller than the smallest dinosaur.
Most were about the size of a shrew or a rat.
Visitors will be able to press abutton in this Cretaceous scene
to peek inside the Burrow of onesuch tiny mammal, Messidma,
which may have dug underground for protection from predators or

(06:25):
other dangers nearby. 2 Shaable exhibits include a real fossil
of a Triceratops toe bone and a cast of Triceratops skin.
An interactive sound Bower demonstrates how three ancient
animals, a species of large crested dinosaur, an ancient
bird with a voice box similar tothose of modern geese and ducks,

(06:46):
and a big predatory frog may have vocalized during the age of
dinosaurs. Visitors can also play a digital
game that invites you to take a personality quiz to find out
which Cretaceous era animal lineage matches your general
food preferences, sleeping habits, and other traits.
Later in the exhibition, participants discover which

(07:08):
lineages persisted after the Impact.
The Impact, a 6 minute immersivepanoramic video experience,
visualizes the moment that the asteroid traveling about 45,000
mph, struck Earth with the forceof billions of nuclear weapons,
triggering tsunamis, earthquakesand acid rain, setting off

(07:29):
wildfires and darkening the sky with a blanket of dust, gas and
sewage. An estimated 25 trillion tons of
rock was launched into the sky by the Impact and in the days
following fell back to the Earthas hot melted rock sphericals,
heating the upper atmosphere to 1300 degrees Fahrenheit, 700°C.

(07:54):
For a year and a half, almost nosunlight reached Earth as
surface plants died, and over time the planet cooled by an
estimated 45° Fahrenheit, 25°C. With no plants to eat,
herbivores starved, as did theirpredators, mosasaurs and

(08:17):
plesiosaurs. The large predators living in
the oceans died out, as did all dinosaur species except for a
few species of the ancestors of today S birds.
About 99.999% of all individual animals and plants on Earth
died, and about 3/4 of all species became extinct.

(08:39):
Today. Most scientists agree that a
huge asteroid impact caused the mass extinction 66,000,000 years
ago, but it took decades to findthe crater and assemble a full
picture of the impact from physical evidence.
The exhibition highlights what researchers have discovered,
including the boundary layer, a dark band formed during the mass

(09:02):
extinction above which no non bird dinosaurs are found, and
which contains high amounts of Iridium, an element that is rare
on Earth as surface but found inmuch higher concentrations in
asteroids. The presence of spherils, molten
rock that was launched into the sky by the explosion and
hardened in the air up to thousands of miles away from the

(09:24):
impact site. Shocked chords, which is known
to form only at blast sites, including meteorite impact sites
and nuclear detonation zones observed in sediments dating to
66,000,000 years. Drill cores from the crater that
tell the story of how the craterformed and was immediately
filled back in by debris and fossils of animals killed by the

(09:49):
fires and floods that followed the asteroid impact.
Visitors can see the hundreds oflocations where Iridium from the
asteroid has been found around the Earth on an interactive
globe. Life after the impact The
effects of the impact were chaotic and unprecedented, but
certain traits may have given some animals an advantage.

(10:11):
Survivors found ways to escape the heat and could eat something
other than living plants and animals.
Some animals hid underwater or underground during the fires,
including turtles, frogs, and small mammals.
Fungi do not need sunlight and can get nutrients from soil and
dead plants. Bacteria, insects and other

(10:33):
organisms that breakdown dead plants and animals found plenty
to eat. Some ferns are adapted to
survive fires, and because theirspores can grow on burned areas,
they were the first plants to grow back in large numbers after
the impact. A Fern finite mirror box in the
exhibition helps visitors imagine how Earth looked when

(10:55):
almost all of the plants were ferns.
New plants, new animals, and entire new ecosystems quickly
evolved to take the place of what was lost.
Impact visitors can follow a timeline spanning from days
after the impact to today and touch a real fossil of an
ammonite, one of the marine animals that went extinct after

(11:16):
the impact, whose close relative, the Nautilus, survived
to the present. As plant diversity increased, so
did the variety of mammals, insects, birds and reptiles that
ate them. The mass extinction also created
an opportunity for a brand new habitat to emerge.
Closed canopy Rhine forests composed of tall, spreading

(11:40):
trees whose branches merge into an unbroken layer.
An interactive exhibit in Impact, The End of the Age of
Dinosaurs invites visitors to follow a recipe for a
rainforest, activating four ingredients by pushing buttons,
empty land, fertilizer from newly formed legumes, the
absence of big dinosaurs that could knock down trees, and a

(12:03):
warm, wet climate. This new ecosystem became home
to a rich diversity of animals, including one of the largest
snakes to ever live, Titanoboa, a top predator in early South
American Rhine forests 58 to 60 million years ago.
A partial life-size model of this monster snake, which could

(12:25):
grow more than 40 feet long and way up to one ton, gives
visitors the opportunity to appreciate the scale of its
thick tail and large head, whichflank an exhibit wall as though
the reptile is encircling it. Mammal diversity also exploded
dramatically. In less than 20 million years,
new species evolved to live in the air, the ocean and the

(12:48):
treetops. And while most mammals remain
small, eventually some became giants.
Impact features life-size modelsof the largest and smallest land
mammals that ever lived and are now extinct.
The plant eating Paraceratherium, sometimes
referred to as Intracotherium, which weighed more than three

(13:09):
times as much as an African elephant, and the shrew like
batted onoides, which weighed less than 1 gram 0.04 ounces.
Other models include a stunning replica of a walking whale,
Ambulosetus natens A4 legged mammal related to hippos that
could both swim and walk. Over time, the descendants of

(13:31):
the group to which Ambulosetus belonged became fully adapted to
life in the sea, protecting Earth.
Many meteorites land on Earth each year, but most land
unnoticed and are small enough to hold in your hand.
Giant impacts are extremely rare, and there is little chance
that our planet will be hit by an asteroid big enough to cause

(13:54):
a mass extinction in the next several million years.
Still, scientists are studying potential impactors and
developing ways to deflect them.A digital interactive in the
exhibition introduces visitors to the sophisticated tools used
to track near Earth objects today and allows testing of
deflection technologies that mayhelp prevent another asteroid

(14:16):
impact. Striking and redirecting the
asteroid with a spacecraft recently demonstrated with NASA
S Double Asteroid Redirection Test DART mission Using lasers
to heat a small spot on the asteroid S surface until it
vaporizes, causing the path of the asteroid to change.

(14:36):
Stationing a large spacecraft near an asteroid to pull it off
course through gravitational attraction, and as a last
resort, blowing up the asteroid with a nuclear bomb.
The end of the age of dinosaurs was not the only, or even the
worst, extinction event in Earth's history.
There were at least four other mass extinctions that happened

(14:58):
earlier. Each time a new, transformed
world evolved in place of what was lost.
Today, more species are alive than at any other time in
Earth's history, but we burn fossil fuels that release the
same greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
That led to both the Permian andTriassic mass extinctions,

(15:20):
events that killed off 95% and 80% of all species,
respectively. Lowering these emissions is an
essential step in reducing the future impacts of rapid climate
change, including possible future mass extinctions.
Climate change, along with over exploitation, pollution,

(15:41):
invasive species and habitat loss threaten species and
ecosystems around the world. 6 video stories at the conclusion
of Impact the End of the Age of Dinosaurs explore the many ways
that conservation action can protect against ongoing
biodiversity loss, including controlling introduced species,

(16:02):
protecting habitats, and regulating industry.
At the end of the exhibit, visitors encounter a striking,
layered collage by artist ClaireCeleste Borsch called Web of
Life that celebrates the beauty and diversity of life on Earth
while acknowledging the urgent reality of species loss.
Exhibition organization Impact The End of the Age of Dinosaurs

(16:28):
was curated by 5 museum scientists whose combined
expertise creates a robust and interdisciplinary narrative of
this momentous event. Leading this effort is the
Museum S Macaulay Curator of Dinosaur Paleobiology, Roger
Benson, the curator in charge offossil amphibians, reptiles, and
birds and fossil plants. Other curators include the late

(16:51):
Mark Norrell, former Curator Emeritus in the Division of
Paleontology, whose work generated new ideas about bird
origins, Michael Novacek, Curator in the Division of
Paleontology, whose research focuses on mammals, Neil
Landman, curator emeritus in theDivision of Paleontology, who
specializes in invertebrate fossils, and Denton Ebel,

(17:14):
curator and meteorite specialistin the Division of Physical
Sciences. Anna Luce Porzecinski, Director
of the Museum South Center for Biodiversity and Conservation,
is a consultant for the exhibition.
The exhibition is designed and produced by the American Museum
of Natural History S award-winning exhibition

(17:35):
department under the direction of Lori Hald Ehrman, Senior Vice
President for Exhibition Impact.The End of the Age of Dinosaurs
will open to the public on Monday, November 17th, 2025.
Museum members will be able to preview the exhibition starting
on Friday, November 14th throughSunday, November 16th.

(17:59):
The Museum dedicates Impact the End of the Age of Dinosaurs to
the memory of our dear colleagueMark Norrell, a world renowned
paleontologist, educator, inaugural Macaulay Curator in
the Museum S Division of Paleontology, and curator of
many Museum exhibitions, including this one.

(18:20):
The Museum gratefully acknowledges the Richard and
Karen Lefrak Exhibition and Education Fund, generously
sponsored by J&G Jacobson and family.