Dinosaurs have fascinated us since childhood, and not just because of the hit movie ‘Jurrasic Park’, mostly because they lived millions and millions of years ago
and met with a mysterious sudden extinction. Dinosaurs were a varied group of animals.
Paleontologists have identified over 500 distinct Genus and more than 1,000 different species of dinosaur and remains have been found on every continent on Earth. Some dinosaurs were herbivorous, others carnivorous.
Since the first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the early nineteenth century, mounted dinosaur skeletons have been major attractions at museums around the world, and dinosaurs have become a part of world culture.
After decades of research and debates, a major study claims to have conclusive proof now that dinosaurs were wiped out within a short period as weeks, because of an asteroid the size of the Isle of Wight slamming into the Earth.
Researchers say the impact sent a vast flume of dust into the atmosphere 65 million years ago, unleashed a torrent of powerful earthquakes and triggered forest fires across North America, blocking out the sun and wiping out half of all species.
The panel consisted of of 41 international experts, which included British researchers from Cambridge University, Imperial College and the University of London.
And they looked at 20 years of research to settle the long running debate about what killed the dinosaurs.
The mass extinction event also wiped out the bird-like pterosaurs and the large marine reptiles, which they believe cleared the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.
It has long been a debate if the dinosaurs were killed by a space collision or by volcanic activity in India, where a series of ‘super volcanoes’ erupted for more than a million years, cooling the atmosphere and triggering torrential acid rain
As per daily Mail reports, Dr Joanna Morgan, the co-author of the review at Imperial College London, said: ‘We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the extinction.
This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale and continental landslides, which created tsunamis. However, the final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs happened when blasted material was ejected at high velocity into the atmosphere.’
‘This shrouded the planet in darkness and caused a global winter, killing off many species that couldn’t adapt to this hellish environment.’
The paper, published in Science, pieces together powerful evidence collection since the 1990s. However, the biggest evidence seems to be the 65-million-year-old layer of iridium that is found in rocks all over the world.
The metal is extremely rare in the Earth’s crust, but is common in asteroids and almost certainly came from a collision with a massive asteroid.
Geologists have also found large amounts of ‘shocked quartz’ dated to the same time. The mineral is created during meteorite collisions or nuclear explosions.
The fossil record shows that immediately after the asteroid impact, there was a dramatic fall in the number of animals’ species.
In the previous 500,000 years, however, there are no signs of species dying out, at least not in this scale despite the large number of active super volcanos.
This seem to prove the argument that the massive collision, not the volcanos that killed the Dinosaurs
This also comes with a discovery of a 65 million year old 125mile wide crater, which was caused by the impact with a nine mile wide asteroid, at Chicxulub, Mexico.
The asteroid is thought to have hit the Earth with the force of one billion Hiroshima sized atomic bombs and would have blasted material at high speed into the atmosphere where it would have blocked out the sun.
Dr Gareth Collins, of Imperial College London, said: ‘The asteroid was about the size of the Isle of Wight and hit Earth 20 times faster than a speeding bullet.
The explosion of hot rock and gas would have looked like a huge ball of fire on the horizon, grilling any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn’t find shelter’.
While this sad hellish day signalled the end of the 160 million year reign of the dinosaurs that facinates us today, it turned out to be a great day for mammals, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth.
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