The point is, the “gradual extinction” idea (which is inherently ridiculous) got pantsed by the emergence of the Alvarez model; that model was based on actual evidence — the iridium spike in the narrow band between two paleontological layers — and the actual impact site didn’t need to be found. Oddly, the impact crater was identified in 1960, long before there *was* an Alvarez model.
Anyway, the gradualists rejected the idea outright — I’ve got a book I picked off a remainder table that purported to prove that the sudden extinction (the only kind that there is, logically, btw) was impossible, and that the impact model in particular was impossible.
The volcano “rock people” wanted in on the act, their field having been given swirlies by the Apollo landings — the lunar landscape is completely of impact origin. One of these guys, nearing the end of his career, fought tooth and nail against the Alvarez model, published papers which were shown to be not up to rigorous academic standards, and was shown the door. It seems not unlikely that other less senior academics at his employer were not all broken up about his sudden retirement. Anyway, he actually started a website to peddle his views, and on there claimed that Luis Alvarez had threatened him, and led to his nervous breakdown and early retirement.
There’s been a substantial contraction of the length of time the Deccan Traps are said to have been erupting; the idea is, in the past, millions of years of eruptions had the usual influence, meaning, local effects, slow continual accumulation of strata, no worldwide issues. In response to the slam-bang Great Dying that killed the dinosauria within days, weeks, or months, the length of time for the Deccan Traps’ eruptions had to be shrunk, which allowed amplification of their impact on worldwide climate, flora, and fauna, and restoration of a nice clean Darwinian uniformitarian gradual extinction.
Moving backwards I’m still wondering how our Earthy shows evidence of dinosauria (I like that word) tracks chasing or following human like tracks. Truly a difficult and demanding area of study that only seems to be getting harder.
Sobering.
Regrettably, the more I read of the internals of academia, the less respect I have for all of its fields.
I don’t see why extinction could not be somewhat gradual. For example, a number of us here think that Firestone et al. are right about a Northern Hemisphere boloid strike(s) around 13,000 years ago. This also coincides with the death of many of our mega fauna. However, it is also known that Mammoths and some others were still around several thousand years later, if not here, then in Europe and Siberia. I think that many dinosaurs were destroyed by the immediate impact devastation. I think the direct burns of the fiery radiation killed many. This even probably also destroyed the ozone layer so that skin cancer killed many survivors. I believe this is why small jungle/forest living mammals survived, as did snakes, turtles, crocodiles, and other creatures that were not running around in sunny open spaces. Nevertheless there were probably some dinosaurs protected by being asleep in a forest/jungle, on the safe side of a hill or cliff, or in a canyon that did survive for a time, but as the climate continued to stay bad for a long time gradually all died out.