• Question: how did the dinosaurs die out??

    Asked by nemoanddory to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 20 Mar 2011:

      They all died out at almost exactly the same time, about 65 million years ago. Along with the dinosaurs, many other living organisms also died out – both on land, and in the sea. This event is called a Mass Extinction, and the point in time where is happened is the boundary between the end of the Cretaceous period, and the start of the Tertiary (now called Paleogene) period.

      Why did it happen? The most widely accepted theory at present is that the mass extinction was caused by an asteroid strike on Earth. A crater of about the right age and size has been found offshore from Mexico, in the Mexican gulf, at a place called Chicxulub. A competing idea is that the extinction was caused by a massive pulse of volcanism, which has left enormous sheets of lava flows across western India in a region called the Deccan Traps. It’s not clear what the correct answer is yet!

    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I’m not an expert, but the most likely explanation is a meteorite. A layer of particles that are not found on Earth have been discovered in much of the rock on the planet, which gives us a clue that much of the planet was covered in cloud after a collision and the timing is close to when the last fossils of dinosaurs have been discovered.

    • Photo: Melanie Stefan

      Melanie Stefan answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I think it was a meteoride impact, which resulted in a substantial change in climate. But it might well be that there are some new theories on this that I’m not aware of!

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