How Did Dinosaurs Become Extinct? Dinosaur Extinction Event, Timeline, Asteroid Impact, Meteors, and Facts
How Did Dinosaurs Become Extinct?
Currently, most people believe that dinosaurs became extinct due to an extinction event such as impacts from asteroids or meteors. A few people believe that dinosaurs became extinct due to viruses, or contagious diseases, which is unlikely. The book "Thiaoouba Prophecy" does not specifically mention the extinction of dinosaurs. However, Tom Chalko wrote on his website that dinosaurs "died when one of the 2 small moons crashed into the earth at around 5 million years ago, causing a global catastrophe, flooding etc...Earth had 2 smaller moons before the one we have now."
Tom Chalko had frequent communications with Michel Desmarquet, until Michel Desmarquet became disappointed when Tom Chalko, who believed that Michel Desmarquet gave authorization to him to do whatever he wanted with the book, decided to have the book "Thiaoouba Prophecy" become freely available for download from his website. According to Michel, "it is about psychology. People will think the book is more important if they pay for it."
Michel Desmarquet also disagreed with certain information that Tom Chalko posted on his website, specifically relating to frequent global warnings about dangers from heat generated from Earth's interior. In Michel Desmarquet's original words, those are "bullshits".
Dinosaur Extinction Event
The asteroid impact hypothesis, also known as the Alvarez hypothesis, was brought to wide attention in 1980 by Walter Alvarez and colleagues, links the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous to a bolide impact approximately 66 million years ago. Alvarez believed that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and many other living things during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event was caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Earth.
Dinosaur Extinction Timeline
There are 335 kinds of known dinosaurs from 165 million years ago, and no one kind lived for more than two million years or so. It means that the extinction occurred more than 2 million years ago.
Dinosaurs mysteriously disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period, around 65 million years ago. Many other types of animals, as well as many species of plants, also died out around the same time. In addition to the great volcanic or tectonic activity that was occurring around that time, scientists have also discovered that a giant asteroid hit Earth about 65.5 million years ago, landing with the force of 180 trillion tons of TNT and spreading an enormous amount of ash all over the Earth's surface. Deprived of water and sunlight, plants and algae would have died, killing off the planet's herbivores; after a period of surviving on the carcasses of these herbivores, carnivores would have died out as well.
However, further work suggested the Chicxulub impact, which is the dinosaur extinction event that Luis Alvarez was based on to estimate the dinosaur extinction timeline, occurred either 300,000 years before or 180,000 years after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. As such, researchers have explored other possibilities.
Dinosaur Extinction Asteroid Impact
As mentioned above, currently, the main suspect behind this catastrophe is a cosmic impact from an asteroid or comet, an idea first proposed by physicist Luis Alvarez and his son geologist Walter Alvarez. Scientists later found that signs of this collision seemed evident near the town of Chicxulub (CHEEK-sheh-loob) in Mexico in the form of a gargantuan crater more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) wide. The explosion, likely caused by an object about 6 miles (10 km) across, would have released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT, more than a billion times more than the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, further research suggested that the timeline of the Chicxulub asteroid impact did not exactly match the time of the extinction of dinosaurs, as it occurred either 300,000 years before or 180,000 years after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
Dinosaur Extinction Meteor Impact Crater
As mentioned above, the theory of meteor impacts that caused the extinction of dinosaurs is based on Alvarez's hypothesis that there were strong impacts on earth by meteors approximately 66 million years ago.
The Chicxulub crater that scientists later found is a meteor impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It was formed when a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometers (6.8 to 50.3 miles) in diameter, known as the Chicxulub impactor, struck the Earth.
Dinosaur Extinction Facts
There are many proposed dinosaur extinction facts, none of which has been proven. Currently, most people believe dinosaurs became extinct approximately 65 or 66 million years ago due to an extinction event such as a huge impact by an asteroid or a meteor. However, it may or may not be what really happened.
Earth may have had two moons 5 million years ago, and one of the two moons of earth back then may have caused the extinctions of dinosaurs due to its crash with our earth. This awaits to be further verified by scientists.
Also see: