Dinosaur Extinction

are you a parrot? I have heard you say this already 37 times.

 

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You should get out more.

 

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I think it’s a very pertinent point and a valid question (and I'm curious). What is this “academic career” you speak of? (By the way, I have only two degrees and am only beginning my academic career.) Five degrees is impressive, so why not tell us? It’s a bit suspicious that you do not. The suspicion is that none of them relate to the biological sciences. Are you a computer programmer/software engineer?

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What also makes it pertinent, Vallich, is that you were the one who announced the fact that you have five degrees. If it is not relevant why bring it up in the first place?

However - let's return to topic. Now Vallich, please provide us with an explanation of how the eruption of the Deccan traps did not contribute to the demise of the dinosaurs. Clearly, you believe this event was not important, since you assert that it was the bolide impact in Mexico which caused the ELE. So, explain how the climatic impact of the vast eruption did not contribute to dinosaur extinction in a significant way.
Try to do it without googling for, then posting, scientific writings that include all the appropriate words. Try explaining, in your own words, why these eruptions are unimportant.

 

Because you asked me by flaunting your's. I never said the Deccan traps did not contribute to the extinction but the Yucan Meteor is considered amiongst the scientific community, written in the texts, and expounded by most in the journals as being the number one cause.

 

Spurious it will be impossible for him to re-read the thread: that would require that he had read it in the first place, rather than scanned a few words, then reacted to those words.
At least he is no longer claiming meteorites as the cause of all five extinctions. I have him on ignore again - remarkable really. I have never put anyone on ignore before, now he has made it twice.

Vallich, don't bother replying to this - I wont see it. Just be aware that I am pleased to note your climb down from describing the demise of the dinosaurs as being wholly due to the Yucatan (not Yucan, though I suppose you can spell it any way you please) strike, and now conceding a possible contribution from other factors.

 

(I deleted my reply because I claimed that some of us were actually scientists unlike him. But I would hardly call that flaunting, since some of us are. The problem being is that he declared himself king. He knows everything better than anyone else, because he read it somewhere, or thinks he heard it. He fails to grasp however the notion that he could be wrong. That others could be right. That he himself is actually hindering the 'progress of scientific knowledge'. Unfortunately nobody has told him there is no such thing as progress of scientific knowledge. He didn't have that class yet)

 

I never attributed all five extinctions to meteors. At the end of the Ordovician massive glaciers covered Gondwana, sea levels and ocean temps dropped and this is thought to have caused 75% of the species to become extinct during this mass extinction. The mass extinction at the end of the Permian is attributed to a meteor as well as other causes (lava outpouring), Another meteor caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. That's 2 out of 5. Although I believe I did also state that during the mass extinction that marked the end of the Devonian, two large meteorites hit the earth: one in Nevada and the other in Western Australia. There may have been other causes.

 

These are all very interesting posts, but I feel that most of them were put up in quite a bit of haste. I'm a biologist, so I'm not that familiar with this paleontologistic subject matter; I apologize if there are different protocol in this field and I'm making myself the fool.
Why is it that so few of you cite primary documentation or even review articles from respected, peer-reviewed journals? I understand this is a forum for discussion, but many posts declare their correctness without any evidence, even when their declarations are brought into question. And when people do make references, they often omit the year of publication or enough information that the original source can be read.
Again, I’m not trying to attack for the sake of attacking. I think that this is a very interesting conversation. I also think, however, that the only way for conversations of this nature to go beyond the level of banter is to help each other by giving them access to your information.
--Mike

 

Time.
Lack of it.
I am happy to provide primary source material for any statement I have made in this or any other post, except where it is declared as an opinion.
Pointless to provide this for valich. He is incapable of reading it without gross misinterpretation.
I now return to self imposed exile. pm me if you would like any specific source.

 

That's basically a load of crap. While technically unprovable, it is widely accepted.

 

Coincidentally enough, a program aired on the Science Channel a couple of weeks back that I thought about posting about but basically was tired of dealing with Valich so I never did. I guess I will now. I won't go into much detail though.

The program was called "What really killed the dinosaurs" and showed various scientists who don't believe that the Chicxulub bolide impact caused the K-T extinction event.

The two leading scientists behind this are Gerta Keller (of Princeton) and Wolfgang Stinnesbeck (I forget his university. Something in Germany if I recall correctly.)

Basically, the evidence suggests that the layer of iridium and the layer of spherules that are usually thought to be evidence of one and the same impact are actually seperated by a 300,000 year interval (based on layers of certain types of limestone and other minerals found in parts of the boundary layers in Mexico. The type of sedimentary material seperating the two bolide layers supposedly must have taken a long time to form rather than a few days as has been suggested by others.)

Also, in sites farther spread from the impact site, there is a layer of soot that is near world-wide that has long been considered impact of worldwide burning. However, searches for charcoal (which would suggest the plants burned at the spot) turned up fruitless. Also, green plant material was found buried in the soot suggesting that the soot came from elsewhere and buried the green plants rather than a worldwide burning of foliage.


That's about all I really want to get into.

Here's some links.

A transcript to the program: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dino_trans.shtml

Gerta Keller's Home Page with several papers on the subject: http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/faculty/keller/chicxulub.html

I got distracted before locating Wolfgang's site. You might try searching on your own.



Also. On the subject of science and being polite.... Gerta has been subject to some rather impolite behavior from scientists. Valich's constant attempts to link science with polite and non-vulgar behavior is about the most idiotic thing to ooze from his keyboard. And that's saying something.

 

You are not attacking anyone and you make an excellent comment, but when I have posted citations I have been ridiculed by other participants that I am not stating this or that in my own words. As a biologist, you are aware of proper protocol in discussion. I think you should post a quote or a question. You are certainly more than welcome.

 

"...a new study, published online June 15 in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions during the past 500 million years. "

Read more

 

Interesting, but lacking in detail.

We know that under the current continental configurations, the oceans rise and fall some 200 meters depending upon whether we're at full-glaciation, or zero glaciation. Currently, we're right in the middle [where we've been for the past some 12,000 years], with our current shore-line about 300 feet below the highest ancient shorelines, but about 300 feet above where the shore-line was at the height of the ice-ages [which likely buried great archaeological shore-line sites under 300 feet of water!].

These changes greatly affect the salinity, as well as the ability to absorb CO2, etc., which in turn affect the quantity of various types of marine life. It is easy to see that such changes could have drastic impacts, but exactly how remains to be elucidated, I believe.

 

Dino Extinction and a drop of water...

:shrug:
I was watching a program on television called ‘Time Warp’, a great visual oriented program that slows down different events with a high speed camera. Last night they were photographing a drop of water falling into a pan of water. The water drop carves out a depression, and then the cornet comes up and then the pillar of water and finally the concentric rings emanating from the center of the event. This is also the basics of the Chixalub impact. Time Warp also did other demonstrations and one was dropping a drop of water into very shallow water. Everything was the same as the first demonstration, until the pillar of water raise from the center which was not much higher than the coronet and then the concentric rings occurred. The Scientist that was assisting the demonstration team also had a high speed camera and had been experimenting with the drops of water. He made the statement that when the water was shallow you would get the depression being carved out and the cornet but because of the shallowness of the water the pillar of water was never much higher than the coronet. Without the tall column of water and debris raising up from the Chixalub event there would not be the world wide firestorm that would have burned up everything (there has been no world wide charcoal layer associated with the KT boundary or the Chixalub Impact Event) as well as the acid rain which would have killed all the frog species that have come survived the extinction event. The layer of iridium could have come from a portion of the asteroid being burned off as it blasted through the atmosphere (as well as from the burning up of sucker asteroids moving along with the main asteroid), wind patterns would have spread much of the dust, plus from the actual impact. A group of small sucker asteroids following the main asteroid might also account for the irregular distribution of iridium as each of their trajectories might have differed. One must also remember that with all the plate tectonics, weather, erosion, volcanism, and other large natural disasters (including seas being created and destroyed) the iridium layers and spherules may have been displaced which can account for any discrepancies in the dating and the closeness of the continents would have allowed the dispersion to look larger than it would if looking at the present continent arrangement.
The Chixalub impact was not in the same environment that is always displayed when they do an animation of the Chixalub event. The Continents had not really separated very much and the sea that the Chixalub asteroid fell into was a shallow continental shelf sea in the far west of the continents. The Chixalub impact is actually on continental shelf and possibly did not even disturb the Methane Hydride layers. Maybe the Chixalub event was not the whole cause of the dino extinction or even a major effect at all.
If the scenario that is put forth where the Impact was in deep sea bed, which caused the Carbonate Layers to heat turning them into Carbon Dioxide (Which is heavier than air) which circled the earth and killed only the Dinosaurs and a few other plants, and some of the fish and animals I think is a little off base. This is like expecting the extinction event to pick and choose who will live and who will die. If we look at the Lakes in Africa, that released Carbon Dioxide and killed every animal in the area above and below ground, then the Chixalub Impact Event would have killed everything but plant and fish.
According to paleontologist the Dinosaurs had been in decline for at least 3 million years prior to the Chixalub Impact Event when most of the animals and many plants and fish became extinct. If the Methane Hydride layer at the bottom of the ocean was release as methane (methane is lighter than air) it could have left a layer of good air close to the surface. Bubbling out of the oceans, along with an ocean temperature rise, it would have killed most of the ocean species except for the few that lived in areas of the ocean that did not release the Methane Hydride (where water still had a cooler temperature) or fresh water where no Methane Hydride occurs (as a side note various fish species that go to sea then return to fresh water may have been caused due to escaping the Methane Hydride residual in the sea water). If enough of the Methane Hydride is released all at once it could have filled the atmosphere up to a heavy cloud layer which would have been created by the global warming that was occurring at this time. Some data point to an average rise in temperature of 8 °C (14 °F) in the last half million years before the impact at Chicxulub. In refering to a program that was presented that 6 °C raise in temprature would cause the extinction of the human race what would 8 °C (14 °F) do compounded by lowered oxygen levels and climatic changes? Most of the animals that lived close to the surface or below would have been mostly left alone while the ocean fish and plants, land plants and animals that were large and/or up in the area where the methane hydride had collected would have died and the few that might have been left alive would have probably died soon after the event, even if the methane hydride would have been washed out of the air because of the climate change that was occurring.
The fact that, many other large object impacts events have occurred on earth without an extinction event occurring, makes this event suspect. The fact that an Impact event occurred near the same time as an extinction event occurred does not necessarily link it. The likely hood of an impact event that caused the mass extinction even the size of the Chixalub event seems not very likely or at least not with fire raining down then acid rain, I feel that it is very unlikely to have occurred, especially the issue of Carbon Dioxide as the killer released by the Impact Event. I believe the heating up of the atmosphere due to the Caribbean large igneous province flood Basalt from 139 to 69 million years ago with a volume which has been estimated as on the order of 4 x 106 km³, Brito-Arctic province the first which occurred ~61 million years ago was of 2 x 106 km³ in total volume and Deccan Trapps right at the 65 million year mark with a present volume of directly observable lava flows is estimated to be around 512,000 km³. (None of these Flood Basalt Events are Antipode to the Chixalub Event their for probably not related) which occurred at the same time the extinction event occurred which probably heated the atmosphere releasing large quantities of fresh water into the Ocean Conveyor stopping it and allowing the deep sea water to heat enough to release the Methane Hydride layers. It is estimated that the original area covered by the lava flows was as large as 1.5 million km², approximately half the size of modern India. The possibility that an extinction event occurring and only picking and choosing its victims is a little far fetched. The extinction event has to be tailored around the outcome and not the event itself. If everything else has been ruled out no matter how improbable what is left is the answer.

Mod note: You have posted this three times, once as a new thread. I have modified this original post with your most recent edits, deleted your other re-posts of the same material, moved responses from your new thread to this one and closed your new thread as it is merely a duplicate.

 

This scientific theory of an astroid has absolutely no basis, evidence, or logic.

I can't believe some people believe an astroid killed ONLY the dinosaurs. It's silly to think that if there was an astroid big enough to impact the world (because dinosaurs roamed the whole world), it would leave behind mammals, reptiles, marsupials, insects. Makes no sense. People need to realize why species die out. Not speculate about what specific event happened (I'm talking to the scientists who support this theory lol).

Dinosaurs were a migratory species. They traveled north and south of the equator seasonally for food, breeding, etc.

When the continents began seperating, less and less dinosaurs were able to migrate, and since mammals ate the eggs of dinsaurs, their numbers dwindled over millions of years. When the continents split everywhere around the world, the dinosaurs started to become irrelevent. Most died out. Since birds are the dinosaur's closest relative, we now why they can fly. They had to.

Reptiles, for example, didn't die out because they generally stayed around the equator. They couldn't migrate north and south because they're legs aren't built for moving. Their legs go out to the side, while dinosaurs had legs going up and down straight like modern humans. Reptiles also bury their eggs, unlike dinosaurs, who lays it on the open dirt.

I hope this make sense to people.

 

You have not been riduculed for that. You have been riducled for quote mining and for not having either the honour or the courage to admit when you were in error.
I appear to have accidentally taken you off ignore. I'll try not to let it happen again.

 

Ophiolite:

I believe that Valich stopped posting at Sciforums a couple of years ago. His last post in this thread was from 3 years ago. Blobrana revived the thread last June.