SAN FRANCISCO — The first post-apocalypse tenants of ground zero of the dinosaur extinction didn’t waste much time moving in.
Drilling into the crater left by the dino-devastating Chicxulub impact in Mexico, researchers uncovered the fossilized remains of pioneering microbes. These “disaster species” colonized the harsh waters above the crater within hundreds of years of the impact, the researchers reported December 12 at a news conference at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. The finding helps illuminate how life bounces back following cataclysmic events.