Alan R. Hildebrand Explained

Alan Russell Hildebrand (born 1955) is a Canadian planetary scientist and Associate Professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary.^[1] He has specialized in the study of asteroid impact cratering, fireballs and meteorite recovery. His work has shed light on the extinction event caused by the Chicxulub asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous period. Hildebrand is one of the leaders of the Prairie Meteorite Network search project.^[2]

Education and career

Hildebrand got a B.S. in Geoscience at The University of New Brunswick in 1977.^[2] He got a Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences at The University of Arizona under William Boynton in 1992 with the dissertation "Geochemistry and stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary impact ejecta".^[3]

In 1978 the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico was discovered by Glen Penfield, but its significance was not recognized at the time. In 1990, as part of his doctoral program, Hildebrand, working with the father-and-son team of Luis and Walter Alvarez, published controversial articles suggesting that a large impact from an asteroid caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.^[4] The impact site was eventually determined to be at Chicxulub and the extinction it caused became known as the K-T event.^{[5] [6]}

Hildebrand is part of the Geological Survey of Canada, focusing mainly on the K-T event.

Selected papers

• 2000 The fall, recovery, orbit, and composition of the Tagish Lake meteorite: A new type of carbonaceous chondrite, PG Brown, AR Hildebrand, ME Zolensky, M Grady, RN Clayton, ... Science 290 (5490), 320-325
• 1992 Tektite-bearing, deep-water clastic unit at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in northeastern Mexico, J Smit, A Montanari, NHM Swinburne, W Alvarez, AR Hildebrand, ... Geology 20 (2), 99-103
• 1991 Chicxulub crater: a possible Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary impact crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, AR Hildebrand, GT Penfield, DA Kring, M Pilkington, A Camargo Z, ... Geology 19 (9), 867-871
• 1990 Proximal Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary impact deposits in the Caribbean, AR Hildebrand, WV Boynton, Science 248 (4957), 843-847

External links

• Official home page
• Alan Hildebrand at Google Scholar
• The Day the Mesozoic Died: The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs video

Notes and References

1. Web site: Alan Hildebrand home page at The University of Calgary . 2020-09-20 . 2020-03-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200313210527/https://www.ucalgary.ca/hildebrand/ . dead .
2. https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hildebrand-alan-russell-1955 Hildebrand, Alan Russell
3. https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/alumni/students PTYS/LPL Alumni Directory: Hildebrand, Alan
4. 10.1038/s41467-020-15269-x . A steeply-inclined trajectory for the Chicxulub impact . 2020 . Collins . G. S. . Patel . N. . Davison . T. M. . Rae . A. S. P. . Morgan . J. V. . Gulick . S. P. S. . Christeson . G. L. . Chenot . E. . Claeys . P. . Cockell . C. S. . Coolen . M. J. L. . Ferrière . L. . Gebhardt . C. . Goto . K. . Jones . H. . Kring . D. A. . Lofi . J. . Lowery . C. M. . Ocampo-Torres . R. . Perez-Cruz . L. . Pickersgill . A. E. . Poelchau . M. H. . Rasmussen . C. . Rebolledo-Vieyra . M. . Riller . U. . Sato . H. . Smit . J. . Tikoo . S. M. . Tomioka . N. . Urrutia-Fucugauchi . J. . Nature Communications . 11 . 1 . 1480 . 32457325 . 7251121 . 2020NatCo..11.1480C . 1 .
5. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/chicxulub-crater Chicxulub Crater where the fate of the dinosaurs was sealed
6. Size and morphology of the Chicxulub impact crater . 10.1038/37291 . 1997 . Morgan . Jo . Warner . Mike . The Chicxulub Working Group . Brittan . John . Buffler . Richard . Camargo . Antonio . Christeson . Gail . Denton . Paul . Hildebrand . Alan . Hobbs . Richard . MacIntyre . Hamish . MacKenzie . Graeme . Maguire . Peter . Marin . Luis . Nakamura . Yosio . Pilkington . Mark . Sharpton . Virgil . Snyder . Dave . Suarez . Gerardo . Trejo . Alberto . Nature . 390 . 6659 . 472–476 . 1997Natur.390..472M . 4398542 .