By Walter Kish

There was an interesting article in the science section of the New York Times a few weeks ago describing recent research that has determined the age of a large geological formation in Ukraine know as the Boltysh crater. The 25 km wide crater, situated in the basin of the Tyasmin River, a tributary of the Dnieper south of Kyiv, is the end result of a large asteroid striking the earth during the Cretaceous geological period. The existence of this crater has been known for a long time, and scientists had until recently assumed its age to be in the range of 88 to 105 million years. Recent research however, by British scientist Simon Kelley and Eugene Gurov of the Institute of Geological Science in Ukraine, has been able to more precisely date the origins of this crater to around 65 million years ago.

One may well ask - so what? What difference does some 30 million years of age make to the significance of this geological oddity? It turns out that it makes a big difference indeed! 65 million years ago also happens to be the time that cataclysmic changes occurred in the earth’s climate, causing the dinosaurs to become extinct. Until recently, it has been believed that this climatic disaster was caused by the collision of a large asteroid with the earth in the vicinity of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The impact created a crater some 180 km in diameter and spewed huge amounts of debris into the atmosphere, causing significant obstruction of sunlight for several years and creating an ecological disaster that led to the extinction of a majority of the earth’s biological species, including the dinosaurs.

As well as the Boltysh crater, scientists have dated another smaller crater in the North Sea off the coast of England as also being of a contemporary age to the Yucatan crater. Scientists are now revising their theories to reflect that the great ecological cataclysm of 65 million years ago may have been caused by not one, but by the cumulative effect of a series of asteroid collisions with the earth. The Ukrainian Boltysh crater may well have played a significant role in the earth’s biological history.

This news was too good for me to keep to myself, so I called my cousin Hryts, the resident peasant philosopher of a village in Ukraine called Pidkamin, which, for those of you who are Cyrillically challenged, translates roughly into "Under the Rock". Why the founders chose this curious name for their village I do not know, but I can verify that it does indeed exist, just south of Brody.

"Hrytsiu!" I exclaimed into the phone, "You’ll never believe this, but scientists have found this big hole in Central Ukraine, that is the cause of a great historical calamity and mass extinction"

"Yes, yes. I know." he answered wearily. "It’s that black hole known as the Kuchma administration, and it will go down as one of the great disasters in Ukraine’s political history. It is causing the extinction of the Ukrainian economy, not to mention the free press and democratic rights!"

"No, no!" I replied impatiently. "I mean the extinction of the dinosaurs."

"You’re wrong there!" he jumped in. "The dinosaurs that were running this country in Soviet times are still there. They just traded in their Party cards for American Express cards, and are living high off the land."

"Hrytsiu!" I said exasperatedly, "You just don’t understand! I am talking about ecological disaster! I am talking about death on a massive scale!"

"And what do you think I’m talking about?" he replied. "Borscht and salo? I am talking about the cesspools that our rivers and lakes have become. I am talking about the population of Ukraine declining by millions in the past decade".

"Hrytsiu," I explained, "I am talking about recent research by Ukrainian scientists that proved that a large asteroid hit central Ukraine 65 million years ago and caused the extinction of all the dinosaurs!".

"Bah!" he exclaimed dismissively. "All our good scientists left long ago and are now working in either America, Japan or Iraq. Don’t believe anything put out by those still left here. They just want something good to put on their resume!"

I gave up! As usual, Hryts always has the last word in any conversation I have with him.