Sydney School of Arts & Humanities
Impressions
No 2 - 2025
ISSN 22093265
I thought dinosaurs were extinct, but then ... look what I found!
We go to an awful lot of time and effort searching for months, even years sometimes, in hopes we will find their fossilised remains to be carefully examined and preserved in our museums. There is something inherently human in our need to never lose sight of these amazing beasts, as if their fate is forever tied up with ours, especially as we face the consequences of our own making.
The catastrophe that was about to unfold began one morning in early spring some 66 million years ago. Dinosaur babies staying close to their mothers' sides as they foraged for food, others heading for the river to drink and wash their huge bodies or tend to their wounds from the previous day’s encounters.
Huge Flying dinosaurs gliding overhead through the pristine air. 'Oh, isn’t this marvellous! What a beautiful place to roam and multiply our species!'
What they did not know was that a huge asteroid from a gravitational interaction with giant Jupiter was now on a collision course with earth and that within a matter of minutes the world they had lived happily upon for thousands of years was about to undergo a change so deadly it would completely wipe them out.
With lightning speed, as quiet as it was silent, the huge asteroid hit the Yucatan region in what we now call Mexico, setting off a 10-metre high seismic wave.
Within a few minutes this wave of extreme heat, not unlike the heat from molten rock, incinerated everything for miles around.
The eco system was completely destroyed along with the dinosaurs, their fossilised bones impacted by the blast in such a way that palaeontologists have no doubt as to the force of this deadly event.
The nuclear winter that followed lasted for thousands of years, with only those smaller animals who could burrow deep into the earth's surface escaping the fallout.
It's hard for us to imagine such an event happening today and yet when we watch images on our screens of the wild fires around the world - sudden devastating floods and cyclones - we have a small glimpse into the vast natural forces at work in the universe.
The warning: never get too comfortable!
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Story credits:
Text: Meg Mooney
Photos: C V Williams
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WRITING COACHES AND BOOK COACHES
Christine Williams has broad experience in writing for publication across a number of genres in the fields of fiction and non-fiction. Her publication experience includes books as well as journalism, the essay, life story & short story. She has a special interest in memoir, relationships and identity in life-writing, having researched the life of the Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, for her Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Technology, Sydney. She also holds a Master of Arts from the University of Sydney.
Sharon Dean is an author, editor and writing coach who has worked with SSOA for several years. The recipient of a Griffith University Chancellor’s Medal for a PhD in Creative Writing, she enjoys the diverse spectrum of Japanese literary genres. In 2009 she won the Haiku Dreaming Australia Award. Sharon appreciates working with people whose voices often go unheard. For four years she ran an award-winning digital storytelling program that empowered older Australians to share their stories. She frequently leads writing groups and coaches on a range of topics from story development to editing.
Lisa Creffield is a business writer and novelist. With a degree in English Literature & Language from the University of Oxford, her areas of expertise include both non-fiction and fiction. Lisa was shortlisted for the Celapene Press Charlotte Duncan Award 2013 and has won several prizes for Neo-Latin poetry translation. As well as leading writing groups at SSOA, Lisa is involved in coaching the technical side of writing, including social media marketing.
Syam Sudhakar, SSOA's Poetry Advisor, is a lecturer in English in Kerala, India. An award-winning bilingual poet who writes in English and Malayalam, he specialised in Beat poetry for his PhD in English Literature from the University of Madras. He has performed readings at home and abroad, with poems translated into English, French, Danish, Tamil, Bengali, Manipuri and Hindi. He has five collections to his credit, including 'Drenched by the Sun' and 'Slicing the Moon' (a bilingual video). Syam assists new poets tackle the nuances of writing poetry that inevitably arise in a genre that is one of the 'finer' arts. 'Anyone can write a poem, but is it any good - and why?' is a question that Syam is happy to explore with you in coaching towards publishing success.
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