Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Study: Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit
University of Colorado News Center ^ | May 24, 2004

Posted on 07/08/2004 12:29:19 AM PDT by LibWhacker

According to new research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive.

The six-mile-in-diameter asteroid is thought to have hit Chicxulub in the Yucatan, striking with the energy of 100 million megatons of TNT, said chief author and Researcher Doug Robertson of the department of geological sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. The "heat pulse" caused by re-entering ejected matter would have reached around the globe, igniting fires and burning up all terrestrial organisms not sheltered in burrows or in water, he said.

A paper on the subject was published by Robertson in the May-June issue of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. Co-authors include CU-Boulder Professor Owen Toon, University of Wyoming Professors Malcolm McKenna and Jason Lillegraven and California Academy of Sciences Researcher Sylvia Hope.

"The kinetic energy of the ejected matter would have dissipated as heat in the upper atmosphere during re-entry, enough heat to make the normally blue sky turn red-hot for hours," said Robertson. Scientists have speculated for more than a decade that the entire surface of the Earth below would have been baked by the equivalent of a global oven set on broil.

The evidence of terrestrial ruin is compelling, said Robertson, noting that tiny spheres of melted rock are found in the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or KT, boundary around the globe. The spheres in the clay are remnants of the rocky masses that were vaporized and ejected into sub-orbital trajectories by the impact.

A nearly worldwide clay layer laced with soot and extra-terrestrial iridium also records the impact and global firestorm that followed the impact.

The spheres, the heat pulse and the soot all have been known for some time, but their implications for survival of organisms on land have not been explained well, said Robertson. Many scientists have been curious about how any animal species such as primitive birds, mammals and amphibians managed to survive the global disaster that killed off all the existing dinosaurs.

Robertson and colleagues have provided a new hypothesis for the differential pattern of survival among land vertebrates at the end of the Cretaceous. They have focused on the question of which groups of vertebrates were likely to have been sheltered underground or underwater at the time of the impact.

Their answer closely matches the observed patterns of survival. Pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs had no obvious adaptations for burrowing or swimming and became extinct. In contrast, the vertebrates that could burrow in holes or shelter in water -- mammals, birds, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, turtles and amphibians -- for the most part survived.

Terrestrial vertebrates that survived also were exposed to the secondary effects of a radically altered, inhospitable environment. "Future studies of early Paleocene events on land may be illuminated by this new view of the KT catastrophe," said Robertson.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: archaeology; asteroid; catastrophism; chicxulub; crevolist; deccantraps; dinosaurs; economic; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; theory
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 201-212 next last
To: LibWhacker

Well, it was 1 hour, forty minutes and thirty-three seconds.



Seriously,

"only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive"

What about Mosasaurs and Ichthyosaurs?


61 posted on 07/08/2004 8:58:55 AM PDT by ZULU
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker; Victoria Delsoul; PatrickHenry; Quila; Rudder; donh; VadeRetro; RadioAstronomer; ...






FYI


62 posted on 07/08/2004 9:06:20 AM PDT by Sabertooth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker; hchutch
According to new research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive.

And, of course, Bush and Halliburton did it.

63 posted on 07/08/2004 9:07:45 AM PDT by Poohbah ("Mister Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" -- President Ronald Reagan, Berlin, 1987)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker
"......only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive........."

This explains why the Creationists are still with us.

64 posted on 07/08/2004 9:11:33 AM PDT by DoctorMichael (The Fourth Estate is a Fifth Column!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ZULU
"What about Mosasaurs and Ichthyosaurs?"

I'm not a scientist. but I did just finish a museum exhibit on paleontology a few months ago. I would assume that such large animals would have been faced with a new environment in which they had to adapt or die. They either went extinct, or adapted to meet the post extinction event, and evolved into other species.

65 posted on 07/08/2004 9:21:56 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: Aracelis
That was pretty close to the way I read "rapid and efficient carbon sequestration" at first glance.

I had horses on my mind from another thread and thought I'd entered the Twilight Zone for a minute.

After three in the morning you "could" show a little mercy. ;)

66 posted on 07/08/2004 9:48:02 AM PDT by Free Trapper (Because we ate the green mammals first!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: Michael121
"respected archeologist, he looks like a hippie wears a hat all the time, (name escapes me)"

You are probably referring to Prof Robert Bakker. He is a vertebrate paleontologist. (Archeologists study historic and pre-historic people and culture.) Bakker is one of the leading researchers who has not jumped on the killer comet/asteroid bandwagon.

67 posted on 07/08/2004 10:04:43 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam,
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam,
Spamity-spam, Spamity-spam.

(I love Monte Python)

68 posted on 07/08/2004 10:11:33 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: ZULU

You make a good point. All sorts of species and genera died out with the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. Most people only focus on the larger animals, while ignoring the plant kingdom. But there was another natural kingdom to consider - the microfauna. I spent quite a bit of time in my career working with micropaloentological data. These data often provide a better, more complete record of climatological change than do terrestrial fossils. I do not believe the micropaleo records supports a "sudden" extinction.


69 posted on 07/08/2004 10:18:36 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

If this is true, then why did the crocodiles, aligators, birds, and other assorted animals traced to that time period survive?


70 posted on 07/08/2004 10:23:02 AM PDT by Desdemona ("He throws like a girl." - my mom's observation of John Kerry)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Aracelis
The article mentions the nearly worldwide layer of clay that's laced with ET iridium and soot.

Isn't the soot the carbon we're looking for?

Also,wouldn't extra heavy,extended rainfall cause much of the carbon to be swept into the oceans and possibly be suspended for quite some time?

71 posted on 07/08/2004 10:24:29 AM PDT by Free Trapper (Because we ate the green mammals first!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Sabertooth
Thanks for the ping!
(I almost forgot my manners.) :^)
72 posted on 07/08/2004 10:25:16 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: SoCal Pubbie
Both are air breathers: saurian equivalents to whales. Thy would have had to surface sometime...
73 posted on 07/08/2004 10:26:57 AM PDT by Little Ray (John Ffing sKerry: Just a gigolo!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: lelio
Where on earth did he get this figure from? The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were in the 12-20 KILO ton range, meaning this explosion is 5 MILLION times stronger (provided that a megaton = 1000 kilotons).

an asteroid with a 6 mile diameter would be about 110 cubic MILES of rock and iron hitting the earth at speeds of up to 50,000 miles an hour. Thats a hell of a lot of KE. Comet Shumaker Levy smacked Jupiter hard enough to leave earth sized holes in the cloud cover that lasted weeks. This has happened and will happen again.
74 posted on 07/08/2004 10:30:18 AM PDT by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Sabertooth; NormsRevenge; blam; FairOpinion

Thanks for the ping!

Very interesting.


75 posted on 07/08/2004 10:54:47 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (.New Linux SUSE Pro 9.1 user here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: Drammach

Thanks for the link.

That is a neat animation of the crater forming.


76 posted on 07/08/2004 10:57:05 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (.New Linux SUSE Pro 9.1 user here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: capitan_refugio

What is your take on this then? A series of cumulative disasters?


77 posted on 07/08/2004 10:58:25 AM PDT by ZULU
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: Little Ray

Well, there you go.


78 posted on 07/08/2004 11:09:23 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

I can no more imagine this than I could putting out a charcoal grill with a single ice cube; the deposits of which the author speaks could just as easily been deposited as silt over the course of flux and some several months of time.


79 posted on 07/08/2004 11:10:59 AM PDT by Old Professer (Interests in common are commonly abused.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

That's not good enough, it's like saying you are clever because you're still alive, pure tautology.


80 posted on 07/08/2004 11:12:28 AM PDT by Old Professer (Interests in common are commonly abused.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 201-212 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson