The bizarre contradiction of extinction-level asteroids, like the infamous Chicxulub impact that ended the dinosaurs , is that life simply goes on. The punishing Chicxulub space rock that smashed into the Yucatán with a staggering 100 million megatons of force, for example, also simultaneously created a rich marine ecosystem built off life-giving hydrothermal vents .

And now two researchers who study fungal pathogens have uncovered geological evidence of what they call a sprawling “global fungal bloom,” which literally mushroomed across the dusty, acrid wastes that followed the Chicxulub strike . The debris kicked up by this impact, alongside other Sun-blotting sooty eruptions from the volcanoes that formed Western India’s Deccan Traps, eventually transformed Earth’s climate into something not unlike a dank basement.…