Posts tagged CU
CU study: 66 million years ago, an asteroid turned Earth into a crispy critter
Mar 27th
A new look at conditions after a Manhattan-sized asteroid slammed into a region of Mexico in the dinosaur days indicates the event could have triggered a global firestorm that would have burned every twig, bush and tree on Earth and led to the extinction of 80 percent of all Earth’s species, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
Led by Douglas Robertson of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, the team used models that show the collision would have vaporized huge amounts of rock that were then blown high above Earth’s atmosphere. The re-entering ejected material would have heated the upper atmosphere enough to glow red for several hours at roughly 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit — about the temperature of an oven broiler element — killing every living thing not sheltered underground or underwater.
An artist’s rendition of the asteroid air strike 66 million years ago
The CU-led team developed an alternate explanation for the fact that there is little charcoal found at the Cretaceous-Paleogene, or K-Pg, boundary some 66 million years ago when the asteroid struck Earth and the cataclysmic fires are believed to have occurred. The CU researchers found that similar studies had corrected their data for changing sedimentation rates. When the charcoal data were corrected for the same changing sedimentation rates they show an excess of charcoal, not a deficiency, Robertson said.
“Our data show the conditions back then are consistent with widespread fires across the planet,” said Robertson, a research scientist at CIRES, which is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Those conditions resulted in 100 percent extinction rates for about 80 percent of all life on Earth.”
A paper on the subject was published online this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Co-authors on the study include CIRES Interim Director William Lewis, CU Professor Brian Toon of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and Peter Sheehan of the Milwaukee Public Museum in Wisconsin.
Geological evidence indicates the asteroid collided with Earth about 66 million years ago and carved the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that is more than 110 miles in diameter. In 2010, experts from 33 institutions worldwide issued a report that concluded the impact at Chicxulub triggered mass extinctions, including dinosaurs, at the K-Pg boundary.
The conditions leading to the global firestorm were set up by the vaporization of rock following the impact, which condensed into sand-grain-sized spheres as they rose above the atmosphere. As the ejected material re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, it dumped enough heat in the upper atmosphere to trigger an infrared “heat pulse” so hot it caused the sky to glow red for several hours, even though part of the radiation was blocked from Earth by the falling material, he said.
But there was enough infrared radiation from the upper atmosphere that reached Earth’s surface to create searing conditions that likely ignited tinder, including dead leaves and pine needles. If a person was on Earth back then, it would have been like sitting in a broiler oven for two or three hours, said Robertson.
The amount of energy created by the infrared radiation the day of the asteroid-Earth collision is mind-boggling, said Robertson. “It’s likely that the total amount of infrared heat was equal to a 1 megaton bomb exploding every four miles over the entire Earth.”
A 1-megaton hydrogen bomb has about the same explosive power as 80 Hiroshima-type nuclear bombs, he said. The asteroid-Earth collision is thought to have generated about 100 million megatons of energy, said Robertson.
Some researchers have suggested that a layer of soot found at the K-Pg boundary layer roughly 66 million years ago was created by the impact itself. But Robertson and his colleagues calculated that the amount of soot was too high to have been created during the massive impact event and was consistent with the amount that would be expected from global fires.
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Buff golfers rally at UCI invitational for 4th place
Mar 26th
Juel-Berg Ties For 10th, Buffs Rally From Eighth
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — The University of Colorado men’s golf team rallied for a fourth place finish here Tuesday as the UC-Irvine Anteater Invitational came to a close.
The Buffaloes started the day in eighth place after two uncharacteristically bad rounds on Monday, but rallied to shoot the best team score on Tuesday (by some six shots) and the second best round overall in the tournament.
Long Beach State (ranked No. 85) won the event with an 891 team score (27-over par), edging Cal State-Fullerton (No. 90) by three shots; the two entered the final round tied for the lead. Host and No. 77 UC-Irvine finished third (895), with Colorado overtaking four schools to finish fourth with a 42-over 906 total.
The Buffaloes were the highest ranked team competing here (No. 71 in the latest Golfweek rankings), and played like it Tuesday. Assistant coach Jon Levy coached the team here, as head coach Roy Edwards was in Kansas City attending his grandmother’s funeral. Levy had said after Monday’s play that, “This is the kind of golf course that if you have a good round, you can leapfrog a lot of teams, and that’s our goal (Tuesday) to go out and do just that.” He turned out be absolutely correct.
“We absolutely held to our game plan today, and that was the difference,” Levy said. “This was a tough course, probably one of the toughest we’ve played all year. Our game plan was to play conservatively and let the other teams make the mistakes. We knew we would have to take some bogeys, but let the other teams make the big numbers and we’d be satisfied with pars on the tougher holes. The pin locations were challenging and the greens were firm, but we did a great job of not short siding the ball today. We literally improved 100 percent on that.”
The five Buffs competing here totaled 17 birdies compared to just 16 for two rounds on Monday, and recorded just 19 bogeys, both bests in the 11-team field Tuesday.
Starting on No. 10, a deceivingly hard hole, CU scored four bogeys and a quadruple, but the players were in the right frame of mind out of the gate: no one in the 69-man field birdied the hole and only 25 were able to score par. From that point on, the four players who scored for CU collectively played even par golf the remaining 18 holes.
Freshman Philip Juel-Berg paced the Buffaloes here, as he tied for 10th after finishing up with a 1-over 73 for a 7-over 223 total for 54 holes on the 7,060-yard, par-72 El Niguel Country Club course. He had a team-best six birdies Tuesday, with six pars, five bogeys and a double. His 11 birdies for the tournament led the Buffs and also tied for the third-most in the field, as did his playing the par-5 holes at 5-under overall. His 15 holes over par were also a team low as he finished in the top 10 for a second straight tournament.
Senior Jason Burstyn turned in CU’s best score in the final round, a 1-under 71 that propelled him into a tie for 21st (up from 40th); he finished with an 11-over 227 score and he closed with an eagle, three birdies and 10 pars against four bogeys. He was 2-under at one point before scoring a pair of quick bogeys, but he came back with his eagle on the par-5 sixth hole to get back under for the round. He was the lone Buff not score worse than a bogey the entire tournament.
Senior Derek Fribbs and redshirt freshman Drew Trujillo tied for 24th individually (after both entered the day tied for 35th); they each scored 2-over par 74s to wrap things up, closing with 13-over 229 totals. Fribbs had three birdies and 11 pars in his round (against three bogeys and a double), closing on a wild ride his last four holes (birdie, double, bogey, birdie), while Trujillo had two birdies, 12 pars and four bogeys; he was 3-over after 10 but had his two birdies on the way in.
Sophomore David Oraee finished with a second consecutive 78, giving him a 23-over par 239 total, which tied him for 52nd. He opened with a quadruple bogey 8 on No. 10, when his drive kicked to the left and went out of bounds by all of three inches, and then followed that up with a double on No. 11, but then was able to gather himself and finish the remaining 16 holes even, scoring three birdies, 10 pars and three bogeys along the way.
Loyola-Marymount’s Connor Campbell claimed medalist honors, closing with a 1-under 71 that gave him a 216 total – the only player in the field to shoot par or better for the tournament. He defeated second round leader, Long Beach State’s Daniel Chin, by one stroke.
“We wanted to build some momentum today going into a really big event coming up,” Levy added. “That was the message we talked about last night. Play loose, don’t play so tight; out there and have some fun.”
The Buffaloes will now head up the coast to Palo Alto, where they will compete in the Stanford U.S. Intercollegiate this Thursday through Saturday.
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Buffs Lose Tight 4-2 Battle At San Francisco
Mar 26th
SAN FRANCISCO – The University of Colorado tennis team concluded a five-match road trip on Monday with a hard fought 4-2 loss to San Francisco.
“Today we came out and battled,” CU head coach Nicole Kenneally said. “Congrats to San Francisco, they were great. We battled, but we just weren’t quite as sharp as we’d liked to have been. We look forward to our home matches to end the season.”
Colorado and San Francisco split their all-time series 1-1, competing for the first time since the Buffs’ 7-0 blanking in 2007. 
CU concludes its non-conference play with a 5-6 record, falling to 6-11 overall and holding a 1-5 record in the Pac-12 Conference. USF extends its winning streak to four to complete its 11-match home stand. With Monday’s win, the Dons become the first team in West Coast Conference with wins in the double digits.
The Buffs came out strong, claiming a doubles win for the first time since their 4-2 victory over Arizona on March 10. Juylette Steur and Erin Sanders breezed past Ka/Holmberg 8-2 for their seventh win of the season. In their first time competing as a pair, Winde Janssens and Dhany Quevedo battled, but fell 9-7 to Hashiguchi/Hadzi-Tanovic in the No. 2 doubles position.
CU continued to face stiff competition in singles play. All eight of CU’s most recent opponents have either been ranked, had at least one ranked player or both (as is the case for five of the teams). The Dons continued this streak, with Julyette Steur looking for her first win against a ranked player this season, after taking on her seventh straight ranked player in No. 76 Andrea Ka.
Junior Winde Janssens claimed her team-best 15th win of the season, moving to an impressive 12-5 record in dual play. Janssens defeated Sofia Holmberg 6-0, 6-0 for her second perfect match of the season (her first was over Northern Colorado’sStephanie Catlin on February 1).
Freshman Mazy Watrous also had a great showing, earning the third win of her career with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Brooke Irish. This was Watrous’ second win in straight sets.
The Buffs return to Boulder to round out the remainder of the regular season. CU begins the four-match home stand against Oregon. First serve is at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 29. Location is determinant on weather; stay tuned to CUBuffs.com for updates.
San Francisco 4, Colorado 2
USF (10-5, 1-2 WCC), CU (6-11, 1-5 Pac-12)
Monday, March 25
San Francisco, Calif.
1d) Steur/Sanders (CU) def. Ka/Holmberg, 8-2
2d) Hashiguchi/Hadzi-Tanovic (USF) def. Janssens/Quevedo, 9-7
3d) Irish/Nikolic (USF) def. Tiefel/Watrous, 8-3
Order of finish: 1, 3, 2
1s) No. 76 Andrea Ka (USF) def. Julyette Steur, 6-2, 6-2
2s) Winde Janssens (CU) def. Sofia Holmberg, 6-0, 6-0
3s) Milica Hadzi-Tanovic (USF) def. Erin Sanders, 6-2, 6-3
4s) Marina Nikolic (USF) def. Dhany Quevedo, 6-4, 6-4
5s) Mazy Watrous (CU) def. Brooke Irish, 7-5, 6-3
6s) Ashley Tiefel (CU) vs. Yurie Hashiguchi (USF), 6-0, 3-6, 1-3 (DNF)
Order of finish: 1, 2, 3, 5, 4
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