Thread: 'The Road': How likely this ash sun-block could happen?

Hi.

In Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, the sun has been blotted out by ash from a meteor/volcano/nuclear impact, and pretty much all life dies out.

How possible is this? Would there always be some parts of the globe that could get sunlight, or could ash really blot out all direct sunlight across the entire planet for several years?

Monga

Several of the great extinction events of the past may have involved such an event. For example : the 'dinosaur killer' asteroid of 60 million years ago, that ended the Cretaceous, may have led to the world being essentially blacked out for a long time. While a lot of life forms went extinct, including dinosaurs, the recovery also led to a diversification of mammals and birds, that led to the world today.

So what would be the likelihood of this happening again, do you think?

Originally Posted by Monga

So what would be the likelihood of this happening again, do you think?

It's pretty much inevitable that the earth will be hit by a big asteroid again sooner or later (unless humans are able to detect and divert them). Whether it will happen in ten years or ten million, no one really knows.

Just ot be slightly pedantic, the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction was at 65 million years ago not 60