Dinosaur Extinction - One Giant Mystery

Many different species in the history of life on this planet have simply ceased to be. Gone but not forgotten these strange animals leave evidence of their existence in the sedimentary layers of the crust buried. Fascinating as these fossilized discoveries are, what is even more intriguing is the mystery of what happened to them.

The story of the dinosaurs is the most exciting of all records from extinction. Giants, who reigned over the earth their disappearanceboth confusing and fascinating.

Formulated new theories and new scientific discoveries are made, but industry experts disagree on the facts behind the end of the dinosaur.

Deep in the past, nor the only clues to a series of different theories.

Asteroids and volcanoes?

Approximately 65.5 million years ago was an event meant that the mass extinction of about 70% of land animals and plant species in a relatively shortgeological period. It's called the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event or the KT. A thin band, a geological signature called the KT boundary indicates this.

The dinosaur remains around the world (the non-avian variety) have only been discovered below this KT boundary. This suggests that dinosaurs became extinct before the event, either directly or because of it.

Luis and Walter Alvarez, along with researchers at the University of Californiaduring the late seventies were studying closely the KT boundary in Gubbio, Italy when they made an interesting discovery. In a clay layer at the boundary point found 30 times the normal level of rare element called iridium. This high iridium was theorized, could have only two sources: either asteroids or violent volcanic activity.

The asteroid

Many in the scientific community have postulated this impact event theory. The theory states that alarge asteroid fell to the ground and created a cloud of dust and other aerosols that blocked the sun's rays for up to one year. This reduction in sunlight radically plant and animal life causing a change in atmosphere influences. Upon impact of an intense radiation pulse of many species and the resulting climate change and global firestorms decimated the rest.Dinosaurs killed, who were due to their size, the first to succumb.

Volcanic activity

The Deccan Traps is located in WestIndia, at the end of the Cretaceous period, which also formed the disappearance of dinosaurs from the Earth. The traps are a by-product of violent volcanic eruptions. This theory postulates that the volcanic activity time would be huge amounts of sulfuric aerosols and ash into the atmosphere again causing a major change in Earth's climate released. A shift that the dinosaurs were not equipped to survive.

Ice Age

Another theory is based on the notion of a sharp dropTemperature, the extinction of dinosaurs [http://blog.discoverychannel.ca/dinosaurs] and survive, while the warm-blooded mammals caused more isolated. In this case, all plants, animals and marine life that could not adapt to temperatures that are extinguished. A number of scientists pair this theory with the asteroid theory, claiming it was the asteroid that triggered the deep freeze.

There are many plausible explanations and scientific theories about the extinctiondinosaurs. New scientific evidence is all the time, which supports one hypothesis or another but the truth is that we really do not know what the rule ended by the discovery of prehistoric giants.

It 's a mystery that may remain until the moment of our extinction.