A new research study is stating that dinosaurs may have survived the asteroid strike that is believed to have caused their extinction if it had hit the Earth just a little earlier or later in history. A team of around 10 scientists explained that the dinosaurs were basically just victims of extremely bad luck when the nearly 6.5 mile wide space rock smashed down into what is now Mexico.
Paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who works at the University of Edinburgh, explained that the event happened at a time of environmental chaos. There were dangerous volcanic eruptions, extreme changes in sea levels and major temperature shifts. He added that he believes there is the opinion that the asteroid struck a world that was tranquil but that is not true. The Earth was very unstable at the time.
Such a changing environment created a lack of assortment among the giant plant eating dinosaurs on which the other dinosaurs consumed. This, in turn, damaged the dinosaur’s food chain. Brusatte stated that it caused their food networks to become more vulnerable to ruin, so it made the dinosaurs more prone to death when the rock struck ground. It is very possible that if the asteroid had crashed a few million years earlier it might not have been so literally earth-shattering.
It would have been practically impossible for the dinosaur population to live through a space rock hit because it would have started enormous tsunamis, major earthquakes and gigantic wildfires. After that, the succeeding food chain breakdown would have started wiping out one species of dinosaur after another. Only the flying dinosaurs were able to live through it and evolve into modern time birds, explained researchers.
It could have been the very same for the dinosaurs if the asteroid would have hit a few million years later. The dinosaurs had been dwelling on the Earth for over 150 million years. Their variety and diversity had always been in a sort of continual instability and they always recovered beforehand when they got struck in a rut. For the research study, the University of Edinburgh was in charge of a worldwide group of paleontologists in order to try and better understand how life was changing in the dinosaur domain for a couple of million years leading up to the terrible time of the asteroid crash.
Brusatte stated that the team used the most modern information available with dinosaur fossils to look at their assortment over time. This plainly showed their extinction was sudden and that they had not been deteriorating away toward extinction for many millions of years beforehand.The group’s discoveries were printed up in the scientific journal Biological Reviews.
The research study states that dinosaurs may have survived the asteroid strike that is believed to have caused their extinction if it had hit the Earth just a little earlier or later in history. The team of scientists, working on the study, explained that the dinosaurs were basically just victims of extremely bad luck when the nearly 6.5 mile wide space rock smashed down into what is now Mexico.
By Kimberly Ruble
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