Posted on 03/13/2019 4:47:46 AM PDT by vannrox
Scientists have debated whether the dinosaurs were already in decline before a massive asteroid impact finished them off 66 million years ago. New research shows they were thriving in their final days.
Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign.
Dinosaurs once reigned on Earth, until a cataclysmic event – now thought to have been a massive asteroid impact, or possibly intense volcanic activity – wiped them out about 66 million years ago during the Maastrichtian age at the end the Late Cretaceous epoch. This mass extinction event was sudden and brutal, powerful enough to wipe out the largest creatures to ever walk on the Earth – and countless others as well.
There has, however, been some debate as to what was happening before the mass extinction. Some scientists thought the dinosaurs were flourishing right up until their demise, while others suggested that they had already been in decline before they were finished off.
So which scenario is correct? A new study by researchers from Imperial College London, University College London and University of Bristol shows that it was the former.
Illustration of a late Maastrichtian palaeoenvironment in North America, where dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex, Edmontosaurus and Triceratops roamed the floodplains 66 million years ago. The Maastrichtian was the latest age of the Late Cretaceous epoch. Image via Davide Bonadonna.
The new peer-reviewed paper was published in Nature Communications on March 6, 2019. Alessandro Chiarenza is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial and lead author of the study. Chiarenza said in a statement:
Dinosaurs were likely not doomed to extinction until the end of the Cretaceous, when the asteroid hit, declaring the end of their reign and leaving the planet to animals like mammals, lizards and a minor group of surviving dinosaurs: birds.
The results of our study suggest that dinosaurs as a whole were adaptable animals, capable of coping with the environmental changes and climatic fluctuations that happened during the last few million years of the Late Cretaceous. Climate change over prolonged time scales did not cause a long-term decline of dinosaurs through the last stages of this period.
According to the researchers, previous studies had underestimated the number of living species at the end of the Cretaceous period – when the asteroid hit – due to changing fossilization conditions. This led to the erroneous conclusion that some species had already been in decline or gone extinct before the asteroid collision.
The study focused on North America, where some of the most well-known dinosaurs used to roam, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.
A massive asteroid impact – or possible intense volcanic activity – caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, according to current research. Image via James Thew/iStockphoto.
Way back then, North America was split into two halves by an inland sea. The Rocky Mountains in the western half were forming at this time, and sediment from the mountains created ideal conditions for preserving dinosaur bones. Conditions in the eastern half were far less conducive to preservation, however. Fossils in the western half, along with some mathematical predictions, had been used to suggest that dinosaur populations were in decline before the asteroid hit. Paper co-author Philip Mannion, from University College London, explained:
Most of what we know about Late Cretaceous North American dinosaurs comes from an area smaller than one-third of the present-day continent, and yet we know that dinosaurs roamed all across North America, from Alaska to New Jersey and down to Mexico.
The researchers used a method called ecological niche modelling – or species distribution modelling – that takes into account different environmental conditions, such as temperature and rainfall, which each species needs to survive. When they mapped these conditions, both across the continent and over time, they were able to determine where different dinosaur species could most easily survive changing conditions – before the asteroid impact occurred.
Global map showing distribution of surface temperature on the Earth in the Late Cretaceous period. Warmer colors show higher temperatures while colder colors indicate lower temperatures. Image via Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza/BRIDGE University of Bristol/GETECH.
Instead of being in decline, they found that many species were actually more widespread than previously thought. Those species, however, were in locations where fossils were less likely to be preserved and those locations were smaller than initially estimated. The lesser numbers of fossils in these areas had previously led scientists to the conclusion that those species were already in decline, when they actually were not. According to the researchers:
The results of our study suggest that dinosaurs as a whole were adaptable animals, capable of coping with the environmental changes and climatic fluctuations that happened during the last few million years of the Late Cretaceous. Climate change over prolonged time scales did not cause a long-term decline of dinosaurs through the last stages of this period.
Bottom line: These findings make this tale all the more tragic – dinosaurs were thriving at their peak on this planet in the Late Cretaceous. They had taken over the world, and survived other potential calamities, only to have a random chunk of rock from space – or unprecedented volcanic eruptions – seal their ultimate fate.
enjoy.
I thought it was dinocow farts?
Meanwhile natural peat fires in Indonesia account for 40% of world emissions ...
Wow, before the meteor, look at all of that Global Warming.
said "like, the world's gonna end in 12 years or something, whatever", who listened?
Guess this a prime example of the “$h!t Happens” theory?
Dinosaurs were killed by a flood. Read Genesis.
Which flood? Noah’s flood or the one prior to Genesis chapter 1 verse 1?
. The dinosaurs 🦕 were thriving until they stopped crowd funding EarthSky. Then EarthSky took them out.
“Which flood? Noah’s flood or the one prior to Genesis chapter 1 verse 1?”
Was void... i.e. Became void.
For those unfamiliar with this concept Strong’s Concordance talks about that word “was” in Genesis 1. You can also find a reference in Jeremiah 4:23 which says:
“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.” Continuing on and Jeremiah he explains the other destruction that he be held. That’s a frame of reference for the term “void.”
Choose to ignore it but the fact is geologic evidence on Earth today and the agree that the Earth has gone through very cataclysmic periods in its creation and it continues to be a dynamic Planet.
This is no longer the Middle Ages were people like Galileo were almost burned at the cross for attempting to educate the population on things such as the interaction of planets in our solar system...
The Rock’s are speaking, the fossil record is speaking. The geologic and tectonic nomenclature is and has been opened up for our exploration and for our discernment.
Personally, I think the creation started with the word let there be light. And was that word a release of energy which started the process alongwith various naturally occurring processes in accordance with His plan?
And then we gaze heavenward at night and look at those stars and galaxies that are still functioning or have ceased to function and that we might or might not ever find out if they continue to exist or not because light travels only so fast and some of those galaxies are thousands of light years away from showing us what’s happening right now.
It’s not unfathomable to think like that, but we have to keep our mind open to understand the glory of the Lord rather than pigeonhole the glory of the Lord neatly in our attempt to organize the how and why.
Eventually we are dead, and gone, we will be in the presence of the Lord and we will be glorifying the Lord and not asking stupid questions that have no relevance to our Earthly frame of reference because that too... Will no longer exist we will be on a different plain in the presence of his everlasting loveingkindness.
Is existence here moved? Yes it is. But we are built to explore, and to learn, and to be instantly interested in our surroundings. Just as the Lord intended us to be. Any discovery that is scientific and is proven to a correct through observation in a repeated observation is of the Lord. It’s not satanic to seek understanding the dynamic workings of our planet, or our solar system, or a bit of our universe. Understanding is of the Lord, and if we understand but the Lord is in complete control of everything then we can understand that the Lord is Almighty.
And so I will leave this imperfect posting for anybody who is interested in picking up it apart to pick it apart. But fundamentally I think a lot along these lines and I think that we have been following in the Middle Ages for too long and we need to break out of that mindset embrace the Lord and embrace what the Lord is trying to tell us because scriptures really do say that the rocks will speak but we have to be listening. Because I think the rocks are speaking and we understand what they are saying to us. But in many cases and by many of those who hear these rocks speaking, we choose to ignore it.
Not to complicate things, but there are at least five massive meteor strikes which play major roles in floods (plural). The last that we can be fairly sure of....was around 12,900 years ago. But the dinosaurs for most part....were way gone before that one single event.
Have large deposits of ancient animal bones ever been found in S America?
Thanks vannrox.
DONE IN BY CLIMATE CHANGE..................OR SOCIALISM................
“other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?” comes to mind.
So why didn’t this cataclysmic event wipe out the cockroaches?
‘Face
;o]
I read the headline as “Dinosaurs Thrilled by Fatal Asteroid Impact” and felt sorry for the poor critters who didn’t realize what would happen afterwards.
Or cold-blooded species like snakes, gators/crocs, turtles, lizards, etc. Maybe not provable, but it is likely that at least some dinos were warm blooded, but only the birdlike varieties survived the cataclysm, to become today's birds.
I believe in God and his creation, but not that it is only thousands of years since He did it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
