Ways That Caused The Extinction of The Dinosaurs

The dinosaurs went extinct about 65 MILLION years ago, but the main question about this essay is, How? In this essay I will be describing and listing ways that could’ve caused their extinction 65 million years ago. There are many theories out there to answer this question and many are obviously wrong. Even I believe some of the theories out there. So don’t let your A.D.D. kick in, sit back and give yourself a headache by reading these small letters.

So what happened that was so severe, that could’ve killed more than 45 million dinosaurs? Scientists tend to huddle around one hypotheses that may explain the extinction. Some good and reasonable scenarios could be a extraterrestrial impact, such as an asteroid or comet. This scenario would have filled the skies with debris that starved the Earth of the sun’s energy, throwing a wrench in photosynthesis and sending destruction up and down the food chain.

Once the dust settled, greenhouse gases locked in the atmosphere would have caused the temperature to skyrocket, a climate swing that could answer this question.

Some scientists argue that a meteor or asteroid wasn’t the cause of the dinosaurs extinction. Some believe that instead of an asteroid or a meteor, it was a huge, super destructive volcano. Some scientific evidence that scientists have found is millions of year old volcanic rocks. This can’t be good evidence to support the volcano theory because back 65 million years ago there was MANY of destructive and active volcanoes even older than the dinosaur fossils.

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This is a pretty wrong theory if you think about it and an asteroid in my opinion sounds MUCH more accurate. There are many more theories, such as the Cold climate theory, which meant embryo development was inhibited, reducing dinosaur numbers.

Furthermore if the dinosaurs were cold blooded, they would not have been able to survive through very harsh winters, as they were too large to hibernate and were unable to keep their body temperature at an appropriate temperature. Another theory to the dinosaurs extinction is the Competition with other animals. Much of North America was invaded by Asian mammals, however this explanation is only relevant to a specific part of the world. There is another theory that i definitely disagree with. The caterpillar theory. This theory explains that all the caterpillars so many plants that herbivores starved to death, leading to the death of their predators. There are even more theories. There could have been a rapid evolution of fungi, especially poisonous species. A metabolic disorder related to thinning of eggshells during incubation due to variations in certain hormones. The embryos would die, as the shells would be unable to protect them from predation and dehydration. Therefore within a very short space of time all the dinosaurs could have died out if no infants survived.

Also related to shell defects, is the idea that multi-layer egg shells formed, with two or three shells on individual eggs, which would suffocate any embryo. This idea is based on studies of French and Spanish dinosaur eggs found in the Pyrenees. Therefore, I believe with all the evidence i have, the asteroid theory is the most accurate and most likely true. According to abundant geological evidence, an asteroid roughly 10 km (6 miles) large hit Earth about 65 million years ago. This impact made a huge explosion and a crater about 180 km (roughly 110 miles) across. Debris from the explosion was thrown into the atmosphere, severely altering the climate, and leading to the extinction of roughly 3/4 of species that existed at that time, including the dinosaurs. Compared to the other theories, this one seems the most accurate as you can tell and i strongly believe it is correct.

References

1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/dinosaur-extincti
2. http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/communication/couch/possible.html
3. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/dinosaur-extinction/
4. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/why-did-all-dinosaurs-become-extinct/https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/why-did-all-dinosaurs
5. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/dinosaurs-extinction-asteroid-chicxulub-soot-earth-science/