When people hear the word extinction, they think of the word that they have been hearing since they were small toddlers. When this word is heard most refer to the dinosaurs becoming extinct. In the book the sixth extinction it mentions how…
weather, and the theory says it simply can't be predicted beyond the space of a…
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…
Were dinosaurs warm or cold blooded has been a long time debated issue. Scientist believe dinosaurs were much like modern day reptiles, cold blooded, and others believe dinosaurs were much like mammals and others birds, warm blooded. Dinosaurs are creatures that lived on Earth around 251 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic Era. This era contained three separate subsections: the Triassic Era, the Jurassic Era, and the Cretaceous. When the Mesozoic Era ended, most or a majority of the dinosaurs were extinct due to a catastrophic event that is still unknown to us today. Dinosaurs walked in an upright position, some dinosaurs used two legs, other used four to walk and move around their environments. Dinosaurs came in an array of sizes. Humans were able to examine the…
1. Before you read, decide which of three explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs you like best. Write an explanation of why you like it.…
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.…
For over 150 million years, dinosaurs dominated Earth. They were incredibly successful-so successful in fact that all of the other animal groups had no choice but to play a secondary role in nature. 65 million years ago, however, every species of dinosaur went extinct as well mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites, and many families of brachiopods and sea sponges. Also, many shark species as well as most vegetation did not survive(“Dinosaur Extinction”). What could have possibly killed off the dominant animal group of the time? The answer to this question is still unclear but there are many hypotheses that attempt to explain this extinction event. To find out exactly how this happened, evidence must be gathered not only from fossils…
Tyrannosaurus Rex, represented by a skull and a tooth in the Earth Sciences Museum, was a fierce carnivorous predator and scavenger that lived in the late Cretaceous, 68 - 66 million years ago. Weighing in at over 7 tons, over 4 metres tall at its hips and 12 metres in length, it is one of the most recognizable dinosaurs19. It is a lizard hipped, or Saurischian, dinosaur. Although it is often portrayed as a predator, it also scavenged, similar to many modern mammals4.…
The Cretaceous-Tertiary ExtinctionAlmost all the large vertebrates on Earth, on land, at sea, and in the air (all dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and pterosaurs) suddenly became extinct about 65 Ma, at the end of the Cretaceous Period. At the same time, most plankton and many tropical invertebrates, especially reef-dwellers, became extinct, and many land plants were severely affected. This extinction event marks a major boundary in Earth's history, the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and the end of the Mesozoic Era. The K-T extinctions were worldwide, affecting all the major continents and oceans. There are still arguments about just how short the event was. It was certainly sudden in geological terms and may have been catastrophic by anyone's…
New insights about the asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs suggest it may have just been the final blow, and that the reptiles were already suffering from a finicky climate prompted by volcanic eruptions long before the meteorite struck.…
The disappearance of dinosaurs is considered a mystery for many reasons. We as humans have no live proof of what really happened that day the Mesozoic left the world. There are many theories as to what could’ve happened. On the other hand, the most common one could be derived from the information found by geologists all over the world discovering unusual patterns on the rocks and mountains of certain places.…
The first started with severe and sudden global cooling and lost 25% of families. The second happened near the end of the Devonian Period and may or may not have been the result of a global climate change of which 19% of families were lost. Evidence suggests that a bolide impact similar to the end-Cretaceous event may have been the cause of 54% of families lost in the third major extinction. Shortly after dinosaurs and mammals had first evolved at the end of the Triassic Period, the fourth extinction caused 23% of lost families.…
Species are produced by individual speciation events, so a single species concept can’t be defining all species. Hugh Paterson’s ideas are significant in understanding evolution. Paterson argues that speciation is not an adaptive process, but is a result of the adaptation of intricate bonding mechanisms to a new environment (Paterson). The conceptual basis of his research is the Recognition Concept of Species. He argues that the Biological species concept isn’t the only mode of speciation, and that this is a better way to define certain species. The biological species concept defines a species as a reproductive group; so there are many limitations. The main limitation is with fossils because fossilized species can’t be applied to the BSC because the organisms no longer mate so their mating pattern in unknown. Paterson believes that species combine as a result of pre-zygotic (before zygote forms) factors within species and not because of isolation mechanisms between species as the biological species concept supports (Paterson). He developed the Recognition concept of species which is compatible with allopatric speciation.…
The three theories of the extinction of dinosaurs fall under the themes: sex, drugs, and violence. The sex theory deals with dinosaur’s testes. Testes can only function in certain temperatures. So after the Cretaceous period, it caused the dinosaur’s testes to function and led to their extinction by sterilization of males. The drug theory is concerned with an overdose. Dinosaurs ate angiosperms that contained psychoactive agents. Their livers could not detoxify the substances and the dinosaurs die of massive overdose. The violence theory pertains to a disaster. Dust blocked the sunlight because a large comet struck the earth. Therefore, photosynthesis was suppressed, world temperatures were lowered, and dinosaurs became extinct.…
This morning, my daughter asked me what happened to the dinosaurs. "Why did they disappear?", she asked while I was fetching her to school. Her teachers had told her that the dinosaurs disappeared millions of years ago after changing to other animals. She is six years old.…