What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?

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Recommended: Impact of ocean acidification on the environment

Dinosaur stress:

Stress on the dinosaurs is a possible solution for their extinction. This theory was first thought up by Heinrch K. Erben when he found that the shell thickness of a certain type of dinosaur species decreased as time went on. It was thought that the warm climate and good habitats in the Cretaceous period could have caused over population of dinosaurs, thus an increase of stress on the dinosaurs would develop. Stress is known to cause hormonal imbalances in modern day birds and lizards, so this could have happened to female dinosaurs. An increase of estrogen in the dinosaurs would have caused the females to lay eggs with shells too thin. If this happened it would greatly reduce the chances of the young to be hatched and live to adult hood.

Caterpillars:

Caterpillars which were believed to have evolved late in the Cretaceous period could have stripped plants of their leaves, a valuable food to the plant eating dinosaurs. If the caterpillars were able to strip all of the leaves from trees, then the plant eaters would not have anything to eat and would die. If the plant eaters died then the meat eaters would die from lack of food. However this theory is thought to be extremely unlikely for caterpillars would have to strip all of the trees around the world of their leaves at virtually the same time.

Supernova:

A supernova is an exploding star. It can blast material huge distances into space. Some scientists think cosmic radiation caused by the explosion would cause extremely high rates of deadly cancer among the dinosaurs. Others believe the radiation reacted with the Earth's atmosphere and destroyed the ozone layer. Without the ozone layer to filter out dangerous radiation, once again high rates of cancer co...

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...s was supposedly because the earth tilted 23.5 degrees due to either an asteroid impact or debris from passing comets. This theory also links into the one of volcanic activity, due to the high number of eruptions of the volcanoes, more harmful gases would have been released into the atmosphere, causing high temperature changes which may have been harmful to many species of dinosaurs, for instance cold water creatures could have been affected by a temperature change in the water, which would of suited tropical fish more than their own species of cold water animals.

Works Cited

http://uktv.co.uk/eden/stepbystep/aid/586428

http://www.unmuseum.org/deaddino.htm

http://www.unmuseum.org/deaddino.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005824/extinction2.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005824/extinction2.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005824/extinction.html

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