Southern Hemisphere bounced back twice as fast as North from dino killing asteroid

The major theory about how dinosaurs died was from a huge asteroid collision with the earth in the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago. It turned out to be the largest of the six great extinction events with as much as 90 percent of all the organisms on the earth dying off.

Scientists now know this asteroid wasn't the end of life on Earth. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University looked at leaves that were found fossilized in Patagonia, Argentina. They analyzed whether the leaves were being chewed by insects.

What they found was that the Southern Hemisphere was hit by extinctions just as hard as the Northern Hemisphere. However, the South was able to recover after 4 million years. It took the North twice as long to recover, nearly 9 million years.