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August 30, 2010 3:16 PM EDT
It was a double whammy - around two meteorite crashes swept the dinosaur population away 65 million years ago, a new study has suggested.
The new findings contradict the single meteorite strike theory whcih had gined currency earlier.
Scientists had earlier spotted the giant Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the spot where the meteor strike that annihilated prehistoric life on earth landed. However, current studies have revealed a similar giant Boltysh crater in Ukraine.
The new findings, made by a team lead by Professor David Jolley of Aberdeen University, have been published in Geology journal, says a BBC report.
The study shows that there might have been multiple, rather than just one, meteor strike.
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The study examined the growth of pollen and pores (fern spikes) of fossil plants in the layers of mud that filled the crater. Generally ferns have the quality to reemerge after a catastrophe, thus helping in dating events of such nature.
The study revealed that the Boltysh and Chicxulub impact happened as two distinct events probably thousands of years apart.
Some Scientists attribute the strike to the collision of Near Earth Objetcs.
Other findings to this effect will follow as recently NASA launched a program dubbed "Spaceguard" to monitor such Near Earth Objects as an early warning system for possible future collisions.
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