could germs like ebola wiped out the dinosaurs???

Question

ebola is a devestating virus and i started thinking, could the same sort of thing helped kill off the dinosaurs?

but what if the virus jumped species to birds for example, and then spread across the continents

Answer 1

Well, it is possible, but there is a lot of evidence that at the K-T boundary, a large bolide (extraterrestrial object) hit the earth to kill the dinosaurs.

The K-T event is a mass extinction, the 2nd largest ever (to the Permo-Triassic) is famous for the large bolide impact that occured off the Yucatan, creating the Chixulub crater. Glass from the crater is dated to 64.98 +/- .01 million years ago.

This event caused global devistation, evidenced by:
1) Differing Sr ratios from global wildfires
2) Microdiamonds from fried Carbon
3) Tsunami deposits found all over the southeast US
4) Stishovite (a variety of quartz which forms in extreme pressures)
5) Worldwide Iridium anomaly. Ir is usually found abundantly in space, but it is very rare on earth. All over the world, at the K-T layer, the amount of Ir is much higher than normal.

It is theorized that the impact created magnitude 12 earthquakes and blocked the sun for as long as 9 weeks.

Answer 2

QFL24-7 has probably got the right answer, however, there could be another contributing factor, another catastrophic event that occured at around the same time.The Deccan Traps is a large igneous province located in west-central India and is one of the largest volcanic features on Earth. It consists of multiple layers of solidified flood basalt that together are more than 2,000 m thick and cover an area of 500,000 km². The term 'traps' is derived from the Swedish word for stairs, referring to the step-like hills forming the landscape of the region.
The Deccan Traps formed between 60 and 68 million years ago,at the end of the Cretaceous period. The bulk of the volcanic eruption occurred at the Western Ghats (near Mumbai)some 66 million years ago. This eruption may have lasted less than 30,000 years. The gases released in the process may have played a role in the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Answer 3

It's possible. But it's important to note that many other things were wiped out at the same time as the dinosaurs, including many many species of marine invertebrates, down to single-celled organisms. Yet, things in the middle like turtles and crocodiles weren't very affected.

There is strong evidence of a meteor impact around the K-T boundary. But, as hard as we've looked, there is no real evidence for an impact at the time of any of the other mass extinctions in history. What is interesting is that for 100,000's of years around K-T, there is also very strong evidence for a huge amount of volcanism (Deccan Traps, India). And a similar thing happened in Siberia around the Permian-Triassic boundary (biggest extinction in history), and on the ocean floor during the minor mass extinction within the Cretaceous period, and around many other extinction events.

So volcanism is my personal favourite, but no-one knows for sure what caused any mass extinction yet. Maybe it was some terrible phylum jumping disease and the meteor and volcanism are just coincidence - why not!

Answer 4

maybe not the same sort, maybe another sort . However, it would not have casue such a devastating mass extinction all over the globe ... the dinosaurs didn't walk from continent to continent ... consider, they are all gone ... so there must ahve been a global climate change ... and that cannot have been caused by a virus.

Answer 5

No, they would have been killed by the loss of sunlight when that meteor struck Yucatan and killed off the dinosaurs.

Answer 6

Anything is possible , But it is unlikely that a disease killed of so many species of animals In such a short period of time .

Answer 7

it is possible and a good question.recent evidence shows that mastodons Had a long battle with tuberculosis.something like that could have at least been a factor

Answer 8

This was more likely a massive cold age. Cold ages and hot ages have recurred in cycles for millions of years despite Gore's global warming. In a decade it will be too cold again.

Answer 9

i thought they were real dinosaurs

Answer 10

No..