The objective of our visit to this limestone quarry near Maastricht was to inspect the Iridium-rich layer which marks the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. In a relatively short period of time, ca. 66 million years ago, all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, together with the mosasaurs and a lot of plants and other animals.
It is commonly accepted that the impact of a giant meteorite (or asteroid – Gulf of Mexico), and a contemporaneous massive volcanic activity (Deccan-plateau, India) – played a key role in this, changing atmospheric conditions in quite a drastic way.
But research is ongoing, there are a lot of unanswered questions, and we here in Maastricht are lucky (and proud) to have limestone quarries in the vicinity where this event can be studied.
There is no doubt that these new investigations will provide more detailed – and maybe totally new – facts leading to a better interpretation.
