2. Read the article below, and answer the following questions: Does the argument provide evidence that is relevant and sufficient to back the claim? Why or why not? The Alvarez hypothesis claims that the mass extinction of non-flying dinosaurs was caused by a large asteroid which hit the Yucatan Peninsula around 66 million years ago. In 2016, a drilling project into the peak ring of the crater confirmed several ideas that had been unclear until that point. These included the fact that the peak ring was comprised of granite (a rock found deep within the earth) rather than typical sea floor rock, which had been shocked, melted, and ejected to the surface in minutes. There was also evidence of colossal seawater movement directly afterwards from sand deposits. The cores also showed a near complete absence of gypsum, a sulfate-containing rock, which would have been vaporized and dispersed as an aerosol into the atmosphere, confirming a probable link between the impact and global effects on the climate and food chain.
Previously, in 1980, a team of researchers led by Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, discovered that sedimentary layers found all over the world at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary contain a concentration of iridium hundreds of times greater than normal. These strongly support the hypothesis that a crater collided with Earth, and that the impact was large enough to create a 120-mile peak ring. The findings also showed that the impact was large enough to melt, shock and eject basement granite from the middle crust deep within the earth, to create colossal water movements, and to eject large quantities of vaporized rock and sulfates into the atmosphere. This global dispersal of dust and sulfates would have had a catastrophic effect on the global climate and devastated the food chain.

[Source: Hand, E. (2017, December 9). Updated: Drilling of dinosaur-killing impact crater explains buried circular hills. Science | AAAS. https://www. sciencemag. org/news/2016/11/updated-drilling-d inosaur-killing-impact-crater-expla ins-buried-circular-hills]