The asteroid that struck off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago not only destroyed the dinosaurs, it also killed-off most of the terrestrial and marine life in Antarctica 13,000 km away and in the Arctic 6,200 km away.

Before this new study by researchers at the University of Leeds and the British Antarctic Survey, the conventional scientific wisdom was the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event triggered by the Yucatan impact left much of the life in both Polar Regions relatively intact.

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Researchers recently completed testing to determine the age of more than 6,000 marine fossils found at Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. The fossils dated from 65 to 69 million years ago, which meant the creatures died around the time of the K-Pg extinction event.

The study is the first to argue that the K-Pg extinction event was as rapid and devastating around the world and also at the Polar Regions. New data reveals there was about a 70 percent reduction of the animal population in Antarctica 66 million years ago. This could only mean the deaths of these creatures was sudden and widespread, an event that could be explained by a massive asteroid impact.

"Our research essentially shows that one day everything was fine -- the Antarctic had a thriving and diverse marine community -- and the next, it wasn't," said James Witts, lead author of the study.

"Clearly, a very sudden and catastrophic event had occurred on Earth," he said.

The new fossil evidence in the Antarctic also confirms the case that the dinosaurs became extinct because of the Yucatan asteroid that left a 180 km wide crater now known as the Chicxulub crater.

"This is the strongest evidence from fossils that the main driver of this extinction event was the after-effects of a huge asteroid impact, rather than a slower decline caused by natural changes to the climate or by severe volcanism stressing global environments," said Witts.

The marine fossil collection in Antarctica is the largest discovered anywhere in the world, said the University of Leeds. It took researchers six years to date the collection.

Tagsasteroid, yucatan peninsula, University of Leeds, British Antarctic Survey, Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event