http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/...saurs_asteroid
Good read and all, but i think the best part was the last comment.
Good read and all, but i think the best part was the last comment.
Here we go again. This is science at its worst. Because the dinosaurs were big (well, most of them), everyone has this fixation that it took something big to wipe them out. But if that was the case, where are the fossils? The record should be littered with fossils immediately above the K-T boundary if an asteroid caused their demise. But it's not. It's like seeing a body laying in the road, then 10 miles up you see a car crashed into a tree and say, "Oh, that must have been what killed that poor chap back there."
For the asteroid impact theory to be correct, one would have to assume that every dinosaur on the planet was incinerated instantly. But we know that wouldn't have been the case. Those in the immediate vicinity would have definitely had a bad day, but dinosaurs on the other side of the planet would have died a slow death from starvation, just like we would if it happened today. Everyone says the lucky ones would be at ground zero. But obviously no dinosaurs died a slow death after the impact, or their fossils would be everywhere.
The fossil record does show a steady decline in the number and variety of dinosaurs in the years preceding the K-T impact. Climate change and a collapse of the food chain are much more likely, although less dramatic, culprits for extinction than a rock, no matter how big, from outer space.
Besides, the dinosaurs closest relatives, birds, managed to come through the cataclysm with their feathers on. And crocodiles and frogs and a host of other creatures who would have been most vulnerable after the asteroid impact must have packed their own lunch, because they managed to survive long enough to see the movie 2012 with the rest of us. And why wouldn't the smallest dinosaurs, who required much less in terms of habitable land and vegetation, have survived even if the biggest dinosurs were unable to cope? The only reasonable answer is that even the smallest of dinosaurs were already extinct or going extinct well prior to the impact.
No, sorry. The dinosaurs had already gotten out of the car before it hit the tree. I think the Far Side cartoon that shows the dinosaurs smoking is a much more likely cause of their extinction than an asteroid. Either that, or it was Wilma's cooking. How many brontoburgers did Fred really eat
For the asteroid impact theory to be correct, one would have to assume that every dinosaur on the planet was incinerated instantly. But we know that wouldn't have been the case. Those in the immediate vicinity would have definitely had a bad day, but dinosaurs on the other side of the planet would have died a slow death from starvation, just like we would if it happened today. Everyone says the lucky ones would be at ground zero. But obviously no dinosaurs died a slow death after the impact, or their fossils would be everywhere.
The fossil record does show a steady decline in the number and variety of dinosaurs in the years preceding the K-T impact. Climate change and a collapse of the food chain are much more likely, although less dramatic, culprits for extinction than a rock, no matter how big, from outer space.
Besides, the dinosaurs closest relatives, birds, managed to come through the cataclysm with their feathers on. And crocodiles and frogs and a host of other creatures who would have been most vulnerable after the asteroid impact must have packed their own lunch, because they managed to survive long enough to see the movie 2012 with the rest of us. And why wouldn't the smallest dinosaurs, who required much less in terms of habitable land and vegetation, have survived even if the biggest dinosurs were unable to cope? The only reasonable answer is that even the smallest of dinosaurs were already extinct or going extinct well prior to the impact.
No, sorry. The dinosaurs had already gotten out of the car before it hit the tree. I think the Far Side cartoon that shows the dinosaurs smoking is a much more likely cause of their extinction than an asteroid. Either that, or it was Wilma's cooking. How many brontoburgers did Fred really eat
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