In the last few years, there have been many interesting and challenging high-quality research projects related to the identification and interpretation of impact products in the sedimentary record and to the aftermaths of impact events on Earth. A great deal of this research was fueled by the KT boundary controversy. The study of impact products and consequences is interdisciplinary by nature, combining stratigraphy, geochemistry, petrography, sedimentology, paleontology, geophysics, astrophysics and several other branches of earth and planetary sciences. This interdisciplinary approach, highly beneficial to the science, has greatly increased comprehension and communication between various types of earth scientists. As a result, more and more scientists now realize the key role played by large impacts on the Earth system and its biotic evolution.
Acknowledgments. Comments and suggestions by the editor and two anonymous reviewers drastically improved this manuscript.