News > Dinosaur-killing asteroid radically changed Earth’s tropical forests

Dinosaur-killing asteroid radically changed Earth’s tropical forests

Some 66 million years ago, a very different type of rainforest thrived in what is now Colombia. Ferns unfurled. Towering conifers reached for the skies.

But when the asteroid crashed upon earth, eveything changed. Gone were the sun-dappled, semi-open woodlands. In their place came forests where large swaths of the ground now were covered by dark, dense, lush and moist trees — ones typical of today’s Amazon