Confirmed... Asteroid caused the dinosaur mass extinction.
Discussion
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/147978-finally-...
Interesting stuff. At least we now k ow it wasn't aliens... Unless those aliens hurled said asteroid.
Interesting stuff. At least we now k ow it wasn't aliens... Unless those aliens hurled said asteroid.
It wasn't asteroids. Dinosaurs were epic farters.
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
eldar said:
It wasn't asteroids. Dinosaurs were epic farters.
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
So if we combine asteroids, and something that emerges from your anus, then we can only conclude that the dinosaurs were killed by haemorrhoids. http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
eldar said:
It wasn't asteroids. Dinosaurs were epic farters.
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCiwSDzRnyUhttp://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/6...
They haven't "confirmed" anything. What they've done is narrowed the time gap between the asteroid event and the disappearance of the dinosaurs. That is not the same thing at all.
OK, it makes the asteroid impact an even more likely candidate as the ultimate cause of their demise. But that's all it does.
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
OK, it makes the asteroid impact an even more likely candidate as the ultimate cause of their demise. But that's all it does.
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
The time scale does seem very, very narrow for such a mass extinction. I would imagine certain mammals, insects, and so on that survived did so for that very reason. They survived. They could manage on meagre rations, could eat the vegetation that remained, and were adaptable to the climatic changes that may have occurred. Why do you reckon they survived?
I thought this had been known for years; iridium layer etc.
Eric Mc said:
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
It's not an all or nothing situation. Just because some species can't survive doesn't mean that none of them can. And when some species die out, it leaves gaps for others to exploit - witness the rise of the mammals.Eric Mc said:
They haven't "confirmed" anything. What they've done is narrowed the time gap between the asteroid event and the disappearance of the dinosaurs. That is not the same thing at all.
OK, it makes the asteroid impact an even more likely candidate as the ultimate cause of their demise. But that's all it does.
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
It doesn't have to be just the one cause. In fact, it probably isn't. Perhaps they were struggling due to whatever and the asteroid was the final straw.OK, it makes the asteroid impact an even more likely candidate as the ultimate cause of their demise. But that's all it does.
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
My youngest when about 6 or 7 took to the history of dinosaurs and we bought books and magazines. But the extinction confused him. I told him about the asteroid but could see he was confused and asked him what the problem was. It seemed he could not work out how one asteroid managed to hit all the dinosaurs. He thought at least some of them would have ducked.
Eric Mc said:
What none of these discoveries can really do is explain why so many other species DIDN'T become extinct 65 million years ago.
This was on recently that addressed this issue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bgnmqAll quite plausible, gone from iplayer for now though I'm sure it'll be back again before long.
jmorgan said:
At the back of all this though, I have read, that they were already in decline. The impact just hurried it along a bit. Something to do with the atmosphere and amount of oxygen and also the temperature at that time.
This has indeed been stated but the problem is that the fossil record (on which all these theories are based) is never very complete and wrong conclusions are often drawn.At the moment, the best we can say is that an asteroid did indeed strike the earth 65 million years ago and that the asteroid did indeed have a global effect. Whether it actually caused a mass extinction at or around the same time is not - and perhaps never can be - proven.
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