“...99.9 per cent of all [species] that have ever existed are now extinct.” (Benton 1) After one hundred and sixty million years of domination, the reign of the dinosaurs ended in fire and ice. Sixty five million years ago, the largest volcanoes in the history of the Earth erupted across what is now India, effectively annihilating the dinosaurs by spewing out noxious gas and ash, that effectively blocked out the sun killing off most vegetation and breaking the food chain, leaving the dinosaurs to starve. Compared to other groups of animals the dinosaurs were the most vulnerable to such a climatic event and the result was the end of the dinosaurs’ glorious evolutionary history.
What is a Dinosaur?
The main group of animals that went extinct during this time, leaving smaller reptiles, birds, and mammals, were the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs dominated the land and ranged from being smaller than a rooster, to being greater than the size of fifteen adult elephants. There were herbivores, carnivores, insectivores, omnivores, and detritivores. Herbivores would often live in herds, like deer or cows. Large carnivores, like the tyrannosaurs were usually solitary hunters and smaller carnivores, like the raptors --Creatures around the size of a person, with razor sharp teeth, slashing claws, and large brains, Would hunt in sophisticated packs. One of the dinosaurs defining characteristics was that they took time to take care of their young, protecting them from predators and making sure they got enough food to eat; this differs from most reptiles (Digging into Dinosaurs 4-5). For example today’s largest lizard, the komodo dragon, will eat its own young if the young do not get away, so they have to hide up in the trees. Dinosaurs were not even buil...
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Martin is confident that the extinctions must have been caused by “something outside the normal experience of mammals.”
1) Carroll, R. L. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York.
Sex, drugs, and disasters are both popular topics that grab public attention and scientific theories of the extinction of dinosaurs. While sex and drug hypotheses represent silly speculations, the disaster claim is good science: it provides testable evidence, has an impact on other scientific fields, and generates continuous research.
The question of what caused the extinction of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene period is one that archaeologists have struggled to answer for decades, but why should it matter? Discovering with certainty the cause of megafaunal extinction would simultaneously prove or disprove any of the proposed implications of each existing theory regarding this massive extinction.
We use dinosaurs to represent the changes in nature that have occurred throughout time. Studies found that although the “oldest rock did not show evidence of life, the progression of plant and animal life that changed in recognizable intervals, from ancient life, age of reptiles to the age of mammals” (Dino Nature Metaphor, slide 6), measured the age of the earth. When we think of dinosaurs in relation to nature, we think of that very powerful force that controls the cycle of life. Nature was able to yield such magnificent ferocious creatures that walked the earth and then take them back when they served nature’s purpose. Dinosaurs fit perfectly in nature’s constant
...actly when the impact of the asteroid occurred, how much damage it truly did, and how long the period of atmospheric darkness lasted, I believe that there is enough positive data to persuade even the most skeptical audience. This recent discovery of the flourishing fungi during a period when larger plants died is just another stepping stone in solving the mystery of what truly happened to the dinosaurs for good. I believe this research is, overall, very credible and establishes a reliable theory of what exactly happened to the dinosaurs and what life was like during the period following their demise.
What killed the dinosaurs? Several theories have been brought up over time to answer this question. It has been of vast interest to many scientists how creatures the size of the dinosaurs could have been wiped out of existence.
seems like it happened so sudden, as geologic time goes, that almost all the dinosaurs
Several mass extinctions have occurred during the Earth’s history. The Cretaceous – Tertiary Boundary (K-T) Extinction caused the loss of at least three-quarters of all species known at that time including the dinosaurs. The cause of this mass extinction is a controversial subject among scientists but the fossil evidence of it’s occurrence is abundant.
... sin, or a weather change isn't always worth it. Why cant we just except that they were wiped out, we are finding their remains, and that's that. So until scientists really figure out what happened to the dinosaurs, we just have to continue arguing and discovering more things about them. So how do you feel about what really happened to dinosaurs? Is the bible making it up that their were so called Dino’s back in the day or is it true and they were? Or is science trying to turn our heads with the known cataclysmic asteroid impact? All we can do is sit back and wait for the science or religion to come up with something more exciting.
...sms alike. Conversely, paleontologists backing the asteroid hypothesis guess the massive blast killed nearby animals instantaneously. Creatures on the opposite side of the world, however, were not so lucky. They were forced to dwell in freezing temperatures until vegetation withered. Herbivores quickly starved to death; consequently, carnivores lacked prey. Instead of gradually dying off, dinosaurs perished within one generation. Although the two hypotheses of the great extinction come from opposite occurrences, in the end the event proved fatal.
The Jurassic Period of our earth’s history was one of great change. It began with a major extinction even, bounced back, and was yet again the victim of an extinction event. The Jurassic was a flourishing time of new species adapting, changing, and modernizing to suit the ever-changing world they
On a finer scale, the extinctions define the boundary between the Cretaceous (geological symbol, "K"), and Tertiary ("T") periods. This mass extinction is usually referred to as the K-T extinctions. The dinosaurs became extinct during the K-T mass extinction. To examine how the K-T extinctions fit into a broader perspective, please see the
What were dinosaurs like? How did they survive? How did they become extinct? These are some of the many questions to which answers are being sought. Dinosaurs were one of the largest creatures to ever walk the earth and one of the mysterious creatures too, how they survived and how they became extinct in a flash has been a mystery. One of the many theories associated with dinosaur extinction is an asteroid collision with earth.
Finding dinosaurs’ fossils is not as easy as people may think. The only well-proven information from the fossil record is that dinosaurs clearly did not live in water environments. Paleontologist may spend years to find a single skeleton or bone. They ...