Who killed the Dinosaurs?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Imperial_Genius, Sep 17, 2001.

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  1. Imperial_Genius Registered Member

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    Okay, this is an Area of large debate, and I'm sure you've all heard and talked about it before. But I just want to put in front of you one of my own little thoughts about it all.

    We've all heard about the story of the Giant Astroid hitting our Earth, and killing all living things (well most of them).
    What I can't get over, is the fact that alot of Animals are still alive today, such as the Crocodile.
    My theory is that Dinosaurs, ate everything, all almost everything! witch cuased them to slowly die off, due to the amountn of food they eat in a day, and the number of them. It would have been possible that none of them could
    find any food, and just died off.
    And any animal, that didn't need a large amount of water and meat intake survived.
    You can find as much evidance as you want about the astroid hitting the earth. But let me ask you this. If an Astroid really did hit the Earth, why do we find bones, perfectly in tacked, not shattered from the blast or impact and shock wave.
    Anyhow, I could go on about this, I'm actully wrightting a book about my theory, anyhow, let me know your comments and suggestions.

    - The Imperial Genius
     
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  3. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Let me start by saying, Welcome to Sciforums, Imperial_Genius.

    They are some threads in general science about this subject. I would suggest a search of Sciforums using the word dinosaur to find them.

    Every where in the world would not be affected as if it was under ground zero of the impact site. Those areas farther away from the initial strike site would be less servely affected. That is as far as the shock wave that is first generated is concerned. There are several speculations on this. One is that not the shock wave but the dust created by the impact created a nuclear winter that lasted a long time. As you have mentioned large animals such as the dinosaur need to have a huge intake of food on a regular basis to survive. probably a good 100 pounds a day minimum to stay alive and fit. When plant life started dying there would not be sufficent food to maintain them. Another scenario is that they did not die off fast but rather they died slowly. From massive volcanoism. Much the same reasons. There is some evidence to support this and you will find it in one of the threads.

    Any fossilized bones are rare finds. Usually they have to be covered with soil within a short span of time or they start to degenerate. The sooner it happens the better the detail left in the fossil.

    Only the smaller species survived. During the prehistoric period, there was a large Crocodile type creature that existed. Now I am working from memory so that may not be as accurate as I would wish but I want to say the creature was over thiry foot long. It did not survive. While its smaller cousin did.
     
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  5. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    Dinosaurs

    Ok, what I'm about to "say" may shock and appall some of you, so if anyone is nursing or carrying an infant, I'd advise you to turn away from your computer screen right now.
    just joking, LOL

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    Alright, this is sort of off-topic on-topic, but I might as well say it: Aliens did it. Yes, aliens. Not the green martian men on t.v., but real aliens. I bet we're all some large experiment, some type of petri dish concoction being observed under a microscope by an alien eye, who are trying to develop a species for their consumption. Maybe the galaxy as we know it is a tiny plot of land on an alien planet, while we're no larger than viruses to our alien farmers. Who knows...it might be possible...and we'll never find out... *twillight zone music intro*

    LOL
     
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  7. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Heres a mixed possibility, The dinosaur Gestation period might have been similar to that of a tortoise.
    Dinosaurs could have possibly carried eggs within them for many years before laying them, and as the dinosuar becomes older the less chance the eggs are fertile.

    This can actually be written out in a way that some mathematicians do when they create demographics or particular computer models.

    Namely Dinosaur X lives 40 years, Dinosaur X takes 4 years to mature and by the 30th year has only a 40% chance of laying fertile eggs. The normal Gestation period is 3 years. Maximum eggs are 8, although its known the number of eggs drops by midlife.

    you'd then have to tally how long the young take before they hatch, and how many of Dinosaur Z have grown up (because they are quicker at growing) and eaten the offspring of Dinosaur X.

    This pretty much goes along with the "they died out because the Omnivores reproduced quicker/grew quicker(Short life expectancy than a herbivore) and ate or the herbivores, that reproduced slower/grew slower (Longer natural life expectancy if not eaten by an Omnivore). Once the omnivores ate the herbivores, they would then turn on themselves.

    Also there is a possibility that if a Meteorite struck an ocean it would create both a large tidal wave, and possibly launch water up into the atmosphere. So instead of clouds of dust blocking out the sun, you have clouds of water, but the water blocks out the sun and causes it to snow on the planet (The ice age) this causes all the large dinosaurs to die off.

    Some valleys where they have found a large number of bones and speculated that the dinosaurs all fell into a tar pit or something like that, is incorrect, The dinosaurs lived through a change on this planet that effect the climate and temperature. So as they moved in herds to try and find not just a warm area, but one with food, they found themselves walking over frozen ice sheets, and glaciers, and as they died from the cold and starvation they huddled together in their pack to try and keep warm.

    Which is why you might find valleys of the dead dinosaurs.

    Thats my guestimate anyway.
     
  8. tmegeney Registered Senior Member

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    Well, dinosaurs reached their peak and stayed there for millions of years. So what happened? Three theories present themselves:

    1. There was a massive meteorite that hit the Earth. It could even have hit what is now Antarctica. As the wet1 said, that would have caused a "nuclear winter" and destroyed plant life, which in turn starved the dinosaurs to death.
    2. They were destroyed to allow the next great evolution to take place. See: Intelligent Observer Theory. This would mean a belief in a higher power.
    3. Global Magnetic Shift. A massage global magnetic shift could have occurred, changing weather patterns and dooming animals that were accustomed to tropical weather, to temperate weather & snow. This is actually my favorite.

    As far as the rest, you know, aliens, sunspots, Ebola-like plague, time travelling hitmen, come on...lets put some real science behind it.
    T.
     
  9. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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  10. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    I still think it's aliens, hehehe

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    We've blamed everything else on them, why not the dinosaur extinction? lol
     
  11. Deadwood Registered Senior Member

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    What about humans or an iceage? I don't think dinosaurs being reptiles had fur. And also being cold blooded would have had awfully slow metabalisms in an iceage. Well, I'm not sure about an ice age but I think humans would have more chance.
     
  12. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    More and more it is believed that dinosaurs may have been warm blooded. There are various clues to this.

    It may be that they dies either over a period of time, say 10 years, or that they simply could not find food to keep them going. That would mean that the largest would probably die first. But in the example of 10 years, geologically that would be no different than the snap of a finger.
     
  13. Teg Unknown Citizen Registered Senior Member

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    We have direct evidence of the asteroid right off of the yucatan peninsula. It is the most widely held theory because it makes the most sense. Remember that the impact would not have ended the majority of dinosaur life. It would be the debris floating above, killing the plant life. Without food the larger dinosaurs died off. It is the affliction of all complex lifeforms, we need only look to the whales. Their complex nature will probably be their downfall. Some of the dinosaurs are still among us (various birds). I have yet to see a better theory.
     
  14. Deadwood Registered Senior Member

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    But what about other creatures other than the dinosaurs who would have supposedly survived that meteor impact. Remember, if debris bloking the sun of plant life on land couldn't survive what would be the chance of plant life in the water surviving. Remember that light doesn't pass through as easily through water as through the atmosphere.

    Hence, plankton and algae would die,as coral, whales the small fish that feed of that plankton and algae then the larger fish who feed of the smaller fish then larger fish and so on. It creates a chain effect through the food web. Therefore, puuting evolution back on the time scale. If made in to a twenty-four hour day supposedly dinours came at 23:50-23:55 at the least. How far back would it put evolution.

    One hundred million years aint enough to make a brain which would take 35 Million years just to count the neurons on the surface let alone an entire functioning human body and an array of other creatures and animals discovered and yet to be discovered after such a climactic event. Plus food chains that are extremely volatile when it comes to any change. All this with no specific goal just 1 in a million pot shot mutations which have only been found to lose genetic information and mostly if always do harm to the plant/animal/human not good.
     
  15. Teg Unknown Citizen Registered Senior Member

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    Deadwood, you forget that mutation occurs rapidly. They generally have long time periods in the between, but it appears that the impact created an environment capable of supporting primates with their complex brains. This is not say that we suddenly grew brains. All complex life has this feature, the only difference being in the brain to body mass ratio.

    *Originally posted by Deadwood*
    Hence, plankton and algae would die,as coral, whales the small fish that feed of that plankton and algae then the larger fish who feed of the smaller fish then larger fish and so on. It creates a chain effect through the food web. Therefore, puuting evolution back on the time scale. If made in to a twenty-four hour day supposedly dinours came at 23:50-23:55 at the least. How far back would it put evolution.

    Any guess about why certain species died and others did not would remain conjecture. Remember that evolution can go backword and forward. There have been multiple extinctions in Earth's history, that have killed up to 99% of the lifeforms on Earth. Also remember that evolution has no predestined path. There are simply too many random factors. My guess about why we still have algae, plankton, coral: remember that the least complex make it through extinctions. How did whales survive? They may have made it through, but they are not many.
     
  16. Radical Registered Senior Member

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  17. Riddler Institutionalized Registered Senior Member

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    Disease killed the dinosaurs????

    The possibilty of massive plagues has hardly been touched on at all. This could be a reasonable scenario. In all the time that dinosaurs lived, it could be that viruses finally adapted to the immune systems of all the older species and wiped them out! The circle of life and death! The old dies and makes way for the young.

    Perhaps evolution brought forth a smaller pack hunting species, that hunted dinosaurs out of existance, as well as many other species. Where there is large reservoirs of flesh (food), there is always going to be some kind of life that will evolve to feed off of it. Come to think of it, we humans are now in that same position today. Likely it is, that something will evolve into a predator that will feed off of us and balance the present imbalance of humanity on this Earth, whether it is a pack hunting group or a massive virus. We may find ourselves in the same position as the dinosaurs.

    Maybe all that methane that resulted from the dinosaur dung finally became too much & set the whole atmosphere on fire! I have heard that if the gases in our atmosphere were to have only a little higher O2 content, that this could very well happen. Maybe the gas balance changed. (The dinosaurs farted themselves out of existance ! ! !)

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    Maybe the mythological greek gods really existed and came to earth many years ago to find the dinosaurs a perfect game animal. Zeus & a few of his beer drinkin buddies hunted the dinosaur into oblivion!

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    Maybe the Earth's gravitational fields were upset by a renegade planetoid that came from another part in the universe! A near miss, the gravitational effect of this near miss caused a complete and utter tidal wave all over the Earth that washed all living land animals into the ocean, or otherwise drowned them outright! Maybe this planetoid was Venus....nay.........??????... Mars!!!!

    Environmental conditions?????? Perhaps the dinosaurs depended on very humid & tropical conditions, that gradually receded into the equatorial belts over a few million years. There is a significant amount of evidence that seems to show that the Earth has been losing it's water vapor canopy, since the beginning. Perhaps the dinosaurs were used to very warm & humid climates and could not cope with cooling temperatures that may have resulted from the gradual loss of this heavy vapor canopy that once existed. Even today, scientists really aren't absolutely sure if the Earth is headed for global warming, or global cooling, for that matter.

    Thinking about dinosaurs and the huge amount of time that they are supposed to have reigned on this Earth, I can't help but to wonder if some branch didn't actually develop into an intelligent,creative, and space faring species as we hope to one day become. Perhaps even today, there may well be a intergalactic race of these Earth born Saurians traveling through the cosmos and colonizing temperate planets throughout the galaxy.......Wouldn't it be a wild trip if our decendants were to meet up with such a Saurian Race from this very same Earth some day in the future? Maybe then, the dinosaur extinction question could then be answered by their own historical records!



    ...cheers.....

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  18. Teg Unknown Citizen Registered Senior Member

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    Riddler,

    Disease?!??!?!?!

    That's not even possible. No matter what the disease you will always have an unaffected number of the population. Combine this with the fact that it would have to be a disease capable of an amazing level of species travel.

    On the pack idea: it would be adequate if not for the fact that some species of dinosaurs exhibited the same factors with better attributes. Consider the veloceraptor. Intelligent and agile they should have been easily able to take down the mammals.

    Your other theories are... interesting.

    The asteroid theory is still the best fit of the data. That BBC report was strange. It seemed to bring up counterarguments as if they were in the same line of logic. Maybe I missed the link that they made.

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  19. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Teg,

    Disease could wipe out a whole population, or if a herd became infected they might only carry while certain carnivore's and omnivore's would have contracted the deadly mutated strain.

    Also the way diseases tend to work (in relation to Virii), if some animals survive that have been subjected to it, it means they have within their genetic code an antibody created from combatting that virii previously.

    (I've always wondered if the anti-bodies if under the right conditions could restart and epidemic through some catalyst, but I'm not asking for an answer since recent events.)

    As for certain types of dinosaur pack hunting, you have to understand, that if the food source they live on being meat is scarce, they feel the effects also.

    Mammals managed to survive as rodents (Rats, mice, small furry creatures) and they could burrow and hide in a tree or small crevis.

    I mentioned my thoughts previously that a meteor crashing into the sea would cause Tsunami's, and vast clouds of vapour that would cool the planet, and even make it snow. Of course this snow could of perhaps then formed glaciers.

    There are signs of climatic change too, due to volcanoes, and it is known that volcanoes that occur below the see could output vast concentrated clouds of Sulphuric acid, which wouldn't be very nice since anything that breathed and was walking around in it's wake would die (and probably disolve without a trace)

    Ontop of that their was Imbreeding, especially if Dinosaurs stayed in packs, or at least some of them. This is still a problem today with some species like the Cheetah problem, which I believe genetic manipulation might be able to resolve.

    When you look at all the possible outcomes for how the dinosaurs could have possibly died out, you should realise, they didn't have much of a chance.
     
  20. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    For pack hunting dino's chances are good that any infected food source could supply the means to infect the whole pack. Thereby leaving another easy meal for the next pack.

    Sulphuric acid.
    A byproduct of volcanoes, though it would tend to thin and disperse with distance. I find it hard to visuallize that these clouds would be strong enough to much more than eat the outer hide. I guess what I am saying is that at some point these giant lizards hae to realize there is a problem and they need to be gone. Another by product is Hydrogen Sulfide, Which also disperses with distance. But up close in concentrations of around 900 ppm's it is deadly to humans. One breathe in is all that is needed.
     
  21. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, I´m sorry, it was an accident, it won´t happen again, I promise...

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  22. Riddler Institutionalized Registered Senior Member

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    TEGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


    Teg,

    What causes you to assume that a widespread disease cannot wipe out an entire species? There is ample evidence of this.
    Wrong, TEG. Disease will continue until it is stopped either by it's inability to "jump" into another group, generally because of environmental boundries, or because there may exist a better food source to follow---the existing prey becoming so scarce that the predator disease either falls in population or finds a new prey.

    "Where there is food, there are predators to feed off of it." For 50 ft tall dinosaurs, there had to be a group of smaller pack of wolflike hunters that could take it down! Evolution demands it! The food source a big fat tyranno is too big an opportunity to pass up! Evolution dictates that that there would have been something to feed off of it. Most likely, there would be smaller pack hunters.

    It's the pattern of evolution & life, TEG. Even the "King of the hill" has to worry about some smaller group of evolving scavengers, who are constantly plotting a banquet in his honor---------

    By the way---- When I write of pack hunters, I do not distinguish between a pack of wolf-like dinosaurs, as being any different than a pack of wolf-like diseases!!!!!!!!!! Whether one views the hunters in the macro or the micro, they are just as deadly to the king.

    I don't get what you have attempted to say, TEG.
    How do you know what the veloceraptor's IQ was? In fact, your example of the veloceraptor makes my very point, TEG. The Veloceraptor is a very good example of a smaller wolf-like pack hunter. Since you have no proof that the Veloceraptor was a loner hunter, then I would offer that it may well have hunted with others of it's own species & quite possibly may have fed off of the larger dinosaurs!

    Finally, the Asteroid Theory is the most popular, not the best theory, teg. It is safe to rest one's position according to popular THEORIES, but it is foolish. NOTHING IS EVER AS WE EXPECT IT ! ! !
     
  23. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Do your fingers still sting? From the slapped hand? You should know by now that if there is no moderator listed in the forums moderator section that Porfirey does those duties himself. I think now you do know.

    What you are saying, Riddler, is that you espouce the law of survival of the fittest. And I would go along with you on that. Where there is a food source, ever is there something to take avantage of it. It would have been no different in prehistoric times than it is today. If for no other reason than plagues have shown that there is always something to seek a food source that is readily available. But the list of examples can go on as long as you wish to search for them. From the high seat on the food chain to the very lowest it is so. No problems with that, Nature demonsrates it constantly.

    On the asteriod theory there is still some confusing data. Yes, I know of the iridium layer around the globe. However, finds indicate that all did not die in the way you would think for such a catrostrophy. You would think that most species would die with in a year or so of the event. On the gelogical time scale this is the same as over night. But finds indicate that though there was massive extinctions of life with species after species dying out, that it did not happen over night. Rather it was spread out of a long time frame. Yes, some species did die out over night. But not all. If it was this bad then all should have perished at about the same time frame. It leads to specultaion that there could have been massive volcanoism coupled with the asteroid impact senerio. I think stryderunknown (I hope I spelled that right) had reffered to in another post. About volcanic gasses and the production of harmful materials from it. Now I do not say that no asteroid hit earth. There have been 5 major extinctions over the course of lifes history on earth and all in some form or another point to major impact interference. If past has any bearing on the present and the future then we may find out soon. For it is with regularity that these events occur and we have arrived at another point on when one could come at any time now. We may be in the unique position to see just how and what occured first hand.
     
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