There were many different theories that arose in regards to how dinosaurs became extinct. Some of the theories are floods, ice ages, poisoned food supply, etc. However, what most likely happened was a meteor crashing into the planet. The meteor caused an immediate impact on the life that it hit directly, causing them to vanish. The after effects were a drastic climate change and the fact that the meteor most likely caused a sonic boom that also ended the lives of many other animals. After the meteor hit, it probably caused volcanoes and made much of the land uninhabitable due to wild fires. Additionally, after this period of heat there was chance of a period of cold and dark. Together, this all combined was the reasoning behind why the dinosaurs, and most life went extinct, despite being in their prime and the most diverse they had ever…
weather, and the theory says it simply can't be predicted beyond the space of a…
Dinosaurs roamed the Earth 230 million years ago. They were on this planet for over 160 million years. During this time, there were three different time sections for the dinosaurs. There was the Triassic period, Jurassic period, and the Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous was the last period and they became extinct in this time period. Not all dinosaurs became extinct; they have ancestors in today 's the world. The ones that did not survive, no one has a clue how they died out. There is speculation on how they died out, from ice bergs moving and flooding the planet or tar pits. Guess this is something that no one will know for a while.…
World-famous paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, says that the dinosaurs were killed by a large asteroid that collided with the earth. Furthermore, many scientists agree with Gould. Therefore we conclude that the dinosaurs were probably killed by an asteroid. – appeal to unqualified authority…
“The Cretaceous Tertiary or K-T extinction, which was a mass extinction of the animals and plant species that were on Earth that occurred over million years ago. This served as conclusion of the Cretaceous period” (Alvarez, Alvarez, Asaro, and Michel).…
What do researchers believe killed off the dinosaurs? (hint, it’s NOT the same thing that caused the largest extinction!). What evidence is there to support this hypothesis?…
While one tends to have the general idea as to what’s happening around the world, it isn’t until someone comes around and tells you exactly what’s going on that you become truly aware. This thought was the first to cross my mind while I was reading The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. Before getting into the details of this book review, I would like to preface it by saying that before beginning this class I had an idea of what was happening around the globe. I was not so uninformed as to say that I didn’t know the climate was changing and species were gradually disappearing, but rather I was unaware as to just how quickly this was taking place. I can say that in the back of my mind there has…
Assess the different hypotheses put forward for the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous (KT) Periods.…
The exact reason for the Pleistocene extinction is still not known, this data implies that top-down forces and humans are the reason the extinction happened. This data is important because during the Anthropocene humans continue to put animals at risk for another extinction. The authors used data from the Pleistocene and recent data to show that high rates of predation and humans could have lead to the extinction. Both carnivores and humans caused the extinction, because both were competing for prey which lead to a lower percentage of megafauna.…
The quaternary extinction event happened about 10,000–40,000 years ago. This even is when megafaunal animals went extinct. This event saw the extinction of more than 178 species. Megafaunals are defined as “A term generally used to refer to the largest animals present within an ecosystem, most often used with respect to the array of large-bodied species which suffered extinction during the Quaternary. A strict definition refers to animal species weighing more than 44kg(Surovell,3)”. Megafaunals lived around the time of the ice age. Megafaunal animals include woolly mammoths, sabertooth cats and giant ground sloths. There are two theories as to why they went extinct. The first theory is that they went…
The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction occurred about 66 million years ago. During this extinction, pterosaurs, ammonites, marine species, and rudist bivalves went extinct. Many mammals and modern birds radiated afterwards.…
The mass extinction of dinosaurs is still a mystery today but their are many theories supporting how and why approximately 70% of all living species on earth suddenly became extinct including dinosaurs, 66 million years ago. The most common and realistic theory is the astroid impact theory when a astroid 6-15 km in diameter hit earth with the force of five billion atomic bombs.…
There are many theories on how dinosaurs became extinct but scientists have not yet found a proven reason why. About sixty-five million years ago Dinosauriformes, or as we call them Dinosaurs, walked and roamed planet Earth. These massive carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores lived many years on earth before humans appeared. There were several variations of dinosaurs such as land, sea, and air dinosaurs. For a millions of years the dinosaurs thrived in their environment. They had an abundant food supply to eat and they had ample space to roam and reproduce offspring. Unfortunately the dinosaurs did not last forever since they all mysteriously became extinct. Three of the main theories on how dinosaurs became extinct are climate changes, an asteroid impact, and massive volcanos erupting.…
The earth has witnessed five other mass extinctions. The first extinction was the Ordovician, 440 million years ago, which is speculated to have been caused by glaciations. This caused the destruction of 25 percent of the animal species and plants. The second extinction was the Devonian, 370 million years ago. This caused the demise of about 70 percent of the plant and animal species. This was probably caused by a climate change. The third extinction was the Permian, 250 million years ago. “The most catastrophic of all mass extinctions may have wiped out 96 percent of all marine species and more than three-fourths of the vertebrate families on land. Scientists speculate that the cause may have been volcanic activity, a change in ocean salinity or climate shifts.” (Cooper) The forth extinction was the Triassic, 210 million years ago, the cause of which is unknown. It caused the extinction of “sponges, insects, and vertebrate groups.” (Cooper) The final extinction was the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. This caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and 85 percent of all the species. A large asteroid hitting the…
A number of different theories have been assessed throughout the course of this research to attempt to reach a conclusion as to the reason behind the extinction of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Although all arguments are credible, and supportive with educated information and data, the most conclusive theory of all is The Alvarez Asteroid Impact theory.…