George Gaylord Simpson, the most famous paleontologist of this period, published an article arguing that the end-Cretaceous extinction (of the dinosaurs, for example) should be considered a long and continuous process. That same year, geologist Walter Alvarez and renowned quantum physicist Luis Alvarez published the article “Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction,” which discovered the cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction, attributing it to a meteorite impact, evidence derived from samples found in Gubbio. But this evidence would take a long time to gain traction (at least another 11 years), even after the discovery of the Chixulub crater in Yucatan, thanks in part to gravitational measurements by the Space Shuttle.
