Latino Scientists and the Dinosaur Extinction Mystery
Without scientists from Latin America, we would still be in the dark about why and how the dinosaurs were pushed to extinction. A physicist named Luis Alvarez and his son Walter discovered a 65 million-year-old band of sedimentary rock that had a high amount of Iridium. With this observation, they hypothesized that the increased amount of this element was caused by an asteroid impacting the Earth. This was later noted as the Alvarez hypothesis.
But what other geological features could prove this hypothesis? Enter Adriana Ocampo, a Colombian planetary geologist and a Science Program Manager at NASA headquarters. Ocampo used satellite imagery to note the ring of sinkholes or "cenotes" in the Yucatan Peninsula—and with multiple critical papers and six research expeditions to the site, it was connected as evidence to the buried Chicxulub Impact Crater.
“It’s not that I’m a scientist and I’m Latinx, it is that I’m a Latinx scientist and it is important and actually a benefit to use my identity and my perspective in STEM fields.”
Although this crater was evidence of the loss of over 50% of species on Earth 65 million years ago, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event was just one of the many mass extinctions in our planet's history. While some scientists look for the geological impact craters and anomalies that mark these extinctions—others focus on when and where fossils are found on our Earth's surface.
Scientists like Michelle Barboza-Ramirez want to create accessibility in STEM through digital media, telling the earth's stories in a meaningful and approachable way. One of the many hosts of PBS' "Eons", Barboza-Ramirez touts themselves as a Latinx "Miss Frizzle", donning earrings that match up to the subjects they talk about. In an episode from 2023, they note the fluctuating appearance of aquatic plants called Graptolites as evidence of the constant changes in water circulation during the Silurian Period.
Alvarez, Ocampo, and Barboza-Ramirez are all critical voices in this mission to uncover Earth's mysterious past. As a child of Mexican immigrants, Michelle Barboza-Ramirez also notes that they want to break the mold of what a scientist can look like--“It’s not that I’m a scientist and I’m Latinx, it is that I’m a Latinx scientist and it is important and actually a benefit to use my identity and my perspective in STEM fields.”
Find more resources on Hispanic Heritage Month from the Smithsonian here!
