The Mystery Behind the Extinction of the Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs were pretty cool creatures when you think about it. They were giant animals that ruled the earth entirely. Some of them even got up to over one hundred and thirty feet long. There were over five hundred species that we’ve been able to identify and name, and there is believed to be seven hundred more species that we haven’t even been able to scratch the surface of yet to name! They existed over a span of one hundred and eighty million years (almost unfathomable, right?) and ruled the end of the Triassic period and the entirety of the Mesozoic and Jurassic eras. But where did they go? Why did they go away? For a group of different species to have ruled for so long, surely their kind would have been stronger so as to not go completely extinct, right? Well, unfortunately they did, but it’s mystifying as to exactly how such a large number of creatures could be wiped out at once.
Calm Before the Storm
Envision a world much, much different, yet somehow similar to the one we know now. Earth was just beginning to form its continents and landmarks, and there were just as many dinosaurs on the planet as there are humans right now. No, they didn’t go off to work each day or learn their colors and numbers in the same way humans do, but they did communicate, and they had quite a wonderful type of system in place in regards to the food chain, helping each other nest properly, bathing, mating, and even playing. It is even believed now that the dinosaurs even had their own intricate way of communicating with one another, even across the different types of species. Contrary to popular belief, most dinosaurs were actually about the same size as a large rooster or even smaller—save for the very few enormous breeds of dino.
Life was essentially pretty peaceful for the dinosaurs for about one hundred and eighty million years. It wasn’t until about sixty-five million years ago that the giant K-T event (the scientific name given to the mass extinction) would take place, and when it hit, it sure packed quite a punch. It was a slow progression of a combination of a few different factors that caused this.
Theories about the End
The most popular theory with dinosaur experts is that there was an enormous volcano that contained a recently discovered element called iridium. Our planet’s core is chock full of magma that iridium naturally occurs in. If this enormous volcano erupted, the molten hot lava containing this element, along with soot and ash, most likely came out incredibly fast and because of the speed in which these things were excreted, would have resulted in insanely thick hot and hardened rock. There is evidence that this in fact happened, and it actually covered about one million square miles in the country of India. The end result of this would have blocked out the sun for months, causing vegetation to die, which would then cause dinosaurs to be unable to eat, and when the smaller dinosaurs died off, the larger dinosaurs also found themselves literally starving to death.
It is interesting because the last type of dinosaur to slowly begin to die off was the aviary ones such as your pterosaurs, which is simply the scientific name for “flying lizard”. It would make sense, as they were able to fly and nest high above the volcanic ash and magma in the atmosphere below them, surviving on any vegetation that grew on mountain tops or other similar steep landmarks. Many scientists still consider all birds to be the most direct relative of dinosaurs that we have in today’s world.
The other equally popular hypothesis pertaining to how the dinosaurs went extinct is that an enormous asteroid crashed into the earth. Iridium is also found in large quantities in space, and vaporization of this asteroid over time would have released this otherwise poisonous gas into the atmosphere, slowly killing off the dinosaurs in the same way nuclear fallout would kill humans over time. There is a giant crater site in Mexico that has been carbon dated back to sixty five million years ago, and it is believed that this is directly correlated. It is also a highly plausible theory because while the dinosaurs went extinct, snails, fish, rabbits, and other little creatures survived. Perhaps those animals had an immunity built up to iridium?
Conclusively, it’s difficult to know exactly how the dinosaurs went extinct. The K-T event is singlehandedly science’s most mysterious puzzle that many are still working on to solve. Which theory do you believe?