Dinosaurs’ Extinction Was Caused By A Massive Asteroid Or Comet Smashing Into Earth
Surely ever since the first fossils of obviously extinct animals were found, humankind has wondered: “Why did they die?” A poignant question, for it has relevance to us — if extinct animals were wiped out by some catastrophe, couldn’t that just as easily happen to us? Could we be found as fossils someday, and would no one know why we died.
It has also been suggested that desease killed off the dinosaurs. A very deadly and contagious desease may have circulated among the dinosaurs forcing them to become extinct.
Still yet another theory is that the Earth just gradually changed in climate over a long time period and the dinosaurs were not able to adapt to the cooler, dryer climate.
The extinction event did not kill all animal and plant life. Many kinds of animals survived, including fishes, frogs, turtles, crocodilians, birds, and mammals. Scientists must take the fossil record and find reasons for all extinctions.
Most experts think the dinosaurs’ extinction was closely connected with the impact of a meteor near what’s now the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula — the so-called “Chicxulub impact” (pronounced CHEEK-shoe-lube).
An international panel of experts has strongly endorsed evidence that a space impact was behind the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs. Their review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid or comet smashing into Earth at Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
The Information About The Famous Theories About Dinosaur Extinction
Dinosaurs appeared in the 140 million years ago, and are prosperous in the end of the Mesozoic reptiles 65 million years ago. Or dinosaurs and fuzzy with the same era, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and other general term. Dinosaurs suddenly disappeared in a given period, become a mystery in the history of the Earth’s biological evolution, the fans so far no such solution. Earth’s biological, are recorded in the fossil record. Mesozoic strata, many dinosaur fossils have been found. Which can be seen showing the bones of a wide range of shapes. Followed by Cenozoic strata, however, can not see less than a dinosaur fossil. Thus infer that with the extinction of the dinosaurs in the Mesozoic.
Dinosaur species differ in the shape and habits. Which sub can have dozens of elephants together then; small, but with a chicken. Diet is gentle vegetarians and violent carnivore, meat and vegetables eat omnivorous dinosaur, dinosaurs.
About the real cause of dinosaur extinction, there are a lot of lively debate clouds since the ancient times, but they do not have a certain argument, and thus far still study is an unsolved puzzle, in which only some of the better known argument described as follows :
Meteorite collision theory:
Dating back 65 million years ago, a huge meteorite hit the Earth, the monarchs of the earth up to one hundred million of thousands of years of dinosaur extinction. This theory is Louis from the University of California, Berkeley. Al Ballesteros, PhD, four scientists. This is a huge meteorite with a diameter of about 10 kilometers. Impact crater topography, up to 200 km in diameter. Due to the impact on energy, if converted into the yellow explosives, equivalent to one hundred trillion tons (megaton). The spread of dust through the atmosphere to the layered ring. The Earth lasted for a few months of the dark state. During this period, dinosaurs led by many biological consequent extinction.
Comet collision theory:
Comet collision is paleontologist – David? Laupp and John? Sepp Kesi Ji paleontological extinction occur once every 2,600 years “argument for the beginning produced. Louis? Alba Razvan this argument and theory gave astrophysics – Charlie? Absurd pull, then the absurd pull revenge due to the sun’s semi-star goddess star’s gravity, the comet to Earth periodically sake.
Orogeny theory:
Occurred in the late Cretaceous orogeny makes the marsh dried up, many dinosaur swamp home is unable to regenerate to live. Changes in the gas after the plant has also changed, herbivorous dinosaur can not adapt to the new food, while the successively extinction. Extinction of herbivorous dinosaurs, carnivorous dinosaurs have lost according to hold, the results are extinct. This extinction process, which lasted between 1,000 and 2,000 years. To the end of the Cretaceous, and finally to extinction on Earth.
Climate change theory:
As a result of plate movements, currents have changed, but also cause huge climate of change. Cold climates the plants die, dinosaurs lack of food led to the demise.
Volcanic flame theory:
Eruption of carbon dioxide a lot of spray, resulting in anxious and excited Earth’s greenhouse effect, making the food of death. Volcanic flame makes the salt prime the unleashing of the breakdown of the ozone layer, harmful ultraviolet radiation of the Earth’s surface, resulting in biological extinction.
Ocean at low tide theory:
According to Buck, the ocean at low tide, the land borders, the biological one another in contact, resulting in a certain class of biological extinction. Such as kangaroos, kangaroos survive in Europe, this island continent, but on the declaration of the demise of other species of animals met in the South American continent.
Warm-blooded animals theory:
Some people think that dinosaurs were warm bloody animal, so it may not withstand the cold weather which led to the Late Cretaceous can not survive. Even if the dinosaurs were warm bloody, body temperature is still high, may be similar to the extant sloth’s body temperature to maintain body temperature, and can only survive in the tropical climate zone. The respiratory organs of the dinosaurs is not perfect, can not fully supply oxygen, they do not have thick hair to avoid hypothermia, but it is easy to lose a lot of heat from its long tail and long feet. Warm-blooded animals and cold-blooded animals is not the same place, is that if the temperature drops under a certain range, it is necessary to consume physical strength in order to improve the temperature, the body will quickly become weak. They are too large body drive, can not enter the cave of refuge from the cold, cold day last several days, may be because of exhaustion and the fate of being frozen to death.
Kill each other theory:
Some people think that the real reason dinosaurs extinct because the result – they kill each other carnivorous dinosaurs, herbivorous dinosaur food, carnivorous dinosaur increase, herbivorous dinosaurs naturally less and less and finally disappear, carnivorous dinosaur meat edible killing each other, and finally die.
A Robotics Breakthrough Inspired By Dinosaurs
That’s what the findings of an interdisciplinary group of UC Berkeley researchers appears to indicate. After studying the ways in which lizards — and probably dinosaurs before them — use their tails to maintain balance when leaping, the team of biologists and engineers has applied that prehistoric technology to a robotic car dubbed Tailbot. Researchers point to a famous scene from the film Jurassic Park, in which a velociraptor leaps from a balcony to a tyrannosaurus skeleton, as an example of their idea.
The cutting-edge work could lead to practical advances in the field of robotics that enable more durable, nimble machines to function in hectic and uncertain situations, including disaster relief missions. In radioactive environments, for example, robots could one day successfully carry out operations too dangerous for human operatives.
“Engineers quickly understood the value of a tail,” Thomas Libby, a team member and Berkeley graduate student in mechanical engineering, told the campus news center. “Robots are not nearly as agile as animals, so anything that can make a robot more stable is an advancement, which is why this work is so exciting.”
Tailbot is equipped with a small gyroscope that detects its angle and sends feedback to the robot’s tail. The tail then adjusts accordingly to rebalance the machine. When dropped nose-down, Tailbot can right itself before dropping a foot, researchers say.
UC Berkeley integrative biology professor Robert Full leads the team of researchers and has studied geckos for the past two decades, analyzing how the lizards’ toe hairs help them climb smooth surfaces such as glass and how their tails help them avoid dangerous falls and slips.
More recently, Full and six students used motion capture technologies to record how the red-headed African Agama lizard uses its tail. When the lizard ran down a low-traction ramp to leap to a nearby surface, the lack of friction before take-off caused it to slip and spin haphazardly. But the lizard used its tail to counteract the imbalance. Full and his team took note, creating a mathematical model to help understand the lizard’s adjustments and apply similar functionality to Tailbot.
Abercrombie France
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- Fossil Brain Teaser: New Study Reveals Patterns of Dinosaur Brain Development - Science Daily (press release) May 20, 2013
- DINOSAUR ZOO TO OPEN IN SOUTH AFRICA - Weekly World News (satire) May 20, 2013