K-T Extinction Event?

[GroG]

The link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_extinction_event

I was reading a while on wikipedia today, you know, where you start reading something and lead into something else, and the next thing you know you are reading something completely unrelated than what you started with.

Anyways, I was reading about the K-T extinction event, or the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. There are several different theories as to what actually caused the extinction:
1) Massive asteriod impact
2) Increased volcanic activity
3) Changes in climate / Increased sea levels
4) Other.

So, I was wondering - what do you believed caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Why? Do you think it could happen again, to us?

[GenocideAlive]

You should check out information on a Gamma Ray Burst. It's quite possibly one of the scariest things that you can imagine, it's basically the finger of God pointing at the Earth. Light traveling from millions of billions (yes, you read that right) away from a star blowing up can basically blast away the entire ozone layer. Queue massive solar radiation and subsequent poisoning of every species on the planet. Species begin dying at a rate as to make the "Endangered Species List" a joke entirely.

It's also believed to have been very likely the event that wiped Trilobytes.

[Oblongato]

I like trilobites. R.I.P.

But it is obvious that the same thing can happen to us, and will happen to us. Stars have a life span and when ours goes, that'll be the end of the planet. Of course, something drastically wrong could happen long before that.

Incidentally, if the experts are divided, I can't say what my opinion is, since all of the experts know far more about the subject than I do. I defer to them.

[Battlezerg]

Personally I think a meteor did crash on into Earth and that it wiped out a large porcent of the dinosaurs but not all of them. The remaining one died because of the climatic changes that were caused by the dust that blocked the sun's light (wich was caused by the meteor crash) and it's heat, killing most plants wich lead to the dead of the herbivore dinasours wich then lead to the death of the carnivorous ones because lack of food. Wow, this ended up to be longer that I wanted it to be.

And if the topic of it happening again, yes, it could happen to us, only difference is that we might be able to stop a meteor from hitting earth using our current technology. And if we couldn't stop we would probabbly be able to adapt to the climatics changes and survive, even if just barely.

[Tael_Zenith]

I Agree with Battlezerg, though that is because to my (somewhat limited) knowledge Iridium is not a element that is produced en earth, and there is somehow an Iridium rich blanket over the world at the K-T event.

[Toucan]

If dinosaurs where completely wiped out, what evolved into birds?
Many species may have been terminated at that time but some thing remained and is still here today, evolved into a completely different life form, but still here none the less.

The idea that dinosaurs became extinct in a mass extinction is a misconception from before it was realized that birds evolved from dinosaurs. If all dinosaurs had died out at that point in time then they would not have had the chance to continue evolving.

[Jimmy_the_saint]

As a Christian i believ that the people of the time where doing things that they shouldnt of been doing like gene splicing and whn god saw what was happening he saw that it was evil and cuased the flood that wiped out the dinosaurs and the rest of the humans that where doing said things, save Noah and his family.

[Toucan]

Ummm dude. There where no people on earth when the dinosaurs lived!

[Darkslayer633]

Ummm dude. There where no people on earth when the dinosaurs lived!

May I remind you he started his post with I'm Christian

Thats like a banner for I don't care what science tells me.

at any rate... I agree with toucan on the whole mass extinction thing.. non existent, how else do we get birds?

[GroG]

Toucan, I suggest you read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs

A list of believed dinosaurs with feathers (which could have potentially evolved into birds):

Sinosauropteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosauropteryx) (1996)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs#_note-jiji1996)
Protarchaeopteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protarchaeopteryx) (1997)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs#_note-ji.26ji1997)
Caudipteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudipteryx) (1998)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs#_note-Qiang_et_al_1998)
Rahonavis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahonavis) (1998)*
Shuvuuia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuvuuia) (1999)*
Sinornithosaurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinornithosaurus) (1999)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs#_note-Xu_et_al_1999_a)
Beipiaosaurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beipiaosaurus) (1999)[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs#_note-Xu_et_al_1999_b)
Microraptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor) (2000)
Epidendrosaurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidendrosaurus) (2002)
Cryptovolans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptovolans) (2002)
Scansoriopteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansoriopteryx) (2002)
Yixianosaurus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yixianosaurus) (2003)
Dilong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilong_paradoxus) (2004)
Pedopenna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedopenna) (2005)
Jinfengopteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinfengopteryx) (2005)
Sinocalliopteryx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocalliopteryx) (2007)
Velociraptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor) (2007)*


If you look at each of those dinosaur links, you'll see that all of those dinosaurs fossils range from the Jurassic period to the Cretaceous period. If no extinction occurred, are you saying that all of those dinosaurs evolved into birds in the same time period?

I personally think it's more plausible that one or two may have evolved (although I'm not so sure I think dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds, since it is only a theory), but I do honestly believe that some cataclysmic event caused the extinction of all the dinosaurs. I don't understand any other way of how hundreds to thousands of species of cold blooded animals all died in a relatively small (given the range) period of time.

[Toucan]

Paleontologists tend to lean toward dinosaurs having been warm blooded. Though 5 toed large reptiles where most likely cold blooded they where not dinosaurs, they where large reptiles, dinosaurs have 3 toes. There are no exceptions.

That dinosaurs evolved into birds is not a theory, it is scientific fact. When it comes to dinosaurs articles published by the university and museum of paleontology of California (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/about/index.php) will serve you better than an end user created wiki article.

If there was a disaster of such magnitude that it could wipe all life off the face of the earth then why only the dinosaurs? why didn't all other life become extinct as well?

What ever happened some how only limited the survivability of only one species group, the dinosaur. All other groups survived. Its more of a puzzle than meets the eye.

[GroG]

Well, I poked around at that website a bit, but unfortunately I couldn't find anything related to what you are talking about. That link you gave out just sends you to the "About UCMP" page.. so I'm not sure if you are trying to give me specific evidence to support your claims or not. If you would like to give me direct links to your claims about dinosaurs not being cold blooded, dinosaurs evolved into birds, and that there was no exinction event, I would be grateful. The burden of proof is on you to prove this to me. And also, make sure that it doesn't say "theory" or else it really proves nothing, as I have already confirmed those topics as theories.

[Thedutchjelle]

As a Christian i believ that the people of the time where doing things that they shouldnt of been doing like gene splicing and whn god saw what was happening he saw that it was evil and cuased the flood that wiped out the dinosaurs and the rest of the humans that where doing said things, save Noah and his family.

1) As said before, there were no humans alive at the time. This point alone is enough to nuke your theory, but let's go on.
2) If we could gene splice and clone and w/e, why couldn't we build a fucking boat cept for Noah? Why was it made out of wood and not metal, and why couldn't we do space travel back then?
3) Why are there no remains? A flood doesn't wipe out all traces of a massive civilization.
4) Since, according to your theory, Noah came from some extremely high tech civ, why didn't he like rebuild that and prevent the bad things from happening instead of going back to the stone age.

You make no sense, kthx.

[Protogod]

As a Christian i believ that the people of the time where doing things that they shouldnt of been doing like gene splicing and whn god saw what was happening he saw that it was evil and cuased the flood that wiped out the dinosaurs and the rest of the humans that where doing said things, save Noah and his family.

I agree. As a Pastafarian (http://www.venganza.org/), I believe that the humans of the time were actually having sex with the dinosaurs, creating inhuman monstrosities that enraged the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

He then proceeded to asphyxiate everyone with his noodly appendages. Then he used their broken bodies to create the next generation of life, which we presume (mistakenly) to be the first generation of human life.

This also explains what have been mistakenly called "vestigial" appendages and other similarities between modern and ancient life that scientists assume is caused by "evolution" when in actuality it is because our new bodies were formed from the dead components of ancient life.

[Toucan]

Avians (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html)
Ask your average paleontologist who is familiar with the phylogeny of vertebrates and they will probably tell you that yes, birds (avians) are dinosaurs. Using proper terminology, birds are avian dinosaurs; other dinosaurs are non-avian dinosaurs, and (strange as it may sound) birds are technically considered reptiles. Overly technical? Just semantics? Perhaps, but still good science. In fact, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of birds being the descendants of a maniraptoran dinosaur, probably something similar (but not identical) to a small dromaeosaur.............

............... Some researchers today do not agree that dinosaurs gave rise to birds, and are working to falsify this theory, but so far the evidence for the theory has swamped their efforts. If they were to conclusively establish that birds are more likely descended from another group (Crocodylomorpha, the group containing crocodiles, has been suggested), that would be a major upheaval in our knowledge of phylogeny. One single well-preserved fossil bird unequivocably of Triassic age might shed some doubt on the theory of the maniraptoran affinities of birds. That would be a major find. Some bird-like fossils have been presented as Triassic birds, but so far have not held up under peer review. Such is the dynamic nature of science.

One has to consider that dinosaurs never did become totally extinct as we thought they did, we just took a long time to realize that we where just giving another classification to pre-historic birds.

[singo]

The idea that dinosaurs became extinct in a mass extinction is a misconception from before it was realized that birds evolved from dinosaurs. If all dinosaurs had died out at that point in time then they would not have had the chance to continue evolving.


But there again birds existed BEFORE the end of the cretaceous period, they got out early so to speak. And it only needs one species to do that and hey presto, a few million years later theres birds everywhere.


It looks pretty much like dinosaurs were for the most part on the way out already, and whatever happened 65 million years ago finished them off. So, gradual changing of climate (possibly caused by an increase in vulcanism) and the coup de grace delivered by several thousand tonnes of rock travelling at excessively high speed.

[Toucan]

It looks pretty much like dinosaurs were for the most part on the way out already, and whatever happened 65 million years ago finished them off.
Say what???? Dinosaurs where at there peak during the Cretaceous period. They didn't slowly die out, they vanished.

But there again birds existed BEFORE the end of the cretaceous period, they got out early so to speak.
In fact the oldest fossil ever found and categorized as a bird is from the Jurassic era, Archaeopteryx (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/birds/archaeopteryx.html).

Confuciusornis sanctus (http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/cufuci.htm) is the oldest fossil found of a toothless bird.

[singo]

Say what???? Dinosaurs where at there peak during the Cretaceous period. They didn't slowly die out, they vanished.


Well, disregarding the fact that the fossil record is very sparse, making it an absolute git to tell what heppened, there is a good amount of evidence that a good number of species were already beginning to decrease in numbers before the extinction event. Not throughout the entire cretaceous period, but for the last ten million years or so of it.


And okay, birds went back even further. Reinforces my point though. Well, one of them anyway.

[Toucan]

That depends, that the first bird fossil is so old also proves that birds where present at the extinction event (so where monotones) but for what ever reason survived.
Dinosaurs where the most successful life form this planet has ever known, they ruled it for 350 million years. They where the most adaptable over the entire globe.

It isn't a case that all life was wiped out and then evolved again, just one animal group perished.
If it was a meteor strike that caused the extinction of dinosaurs it was meteor from a sniper rifle.

Just because there is a period that there is no discernible fossil record doesn't mean everything died.

[singo]

On the subject of how did they all get wiped out when not much else did, that ones easy, they were the most numerous (easier target for that meteor launching sniper rifle :D) and, more to the point, they were the biggest.

Most life other than dinosaurs (on land anyway) was smaller than even the small dinosaurs, the better to not get eaten by them, as such, they needed less food to get through the lean times following the "Nuclear Winter" style effect that said meteorite would have caused.