I read on some website somewhere that if animals could burrow it could survive on seeds and from a less reliable source on a television program that if trees and plants were in swamps they survived (which I suppose is where the seeds come from). So what's the real deal? Have I been duped by unreliable information?
2006-09-28 05:01:46 · 7 answers · asked by Professor Armitage 7 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
It's really hard to know exactly what happened during any of the mass-extinctions as we really don't have enough data yet (we need more paleontologist and geologists, hint hint) so there's a lot of speculation involved, especially in tv programs. We don't even really know for sure if the K-T extinction was caused by the meteor impact, it could have just been a coincidence that that happened around that time.
But the impact seems to be a pretty good hypothesis that explains a lot of stuff by a dust cloud and global darkness. Like the fact that we know that in low latitidues of the northern hemisphere, 75% of plant species went extinct. But near the south pole, in New Zealand (at the time) and Antartica, very little plant life went extinct. Plants near the poles were used to recovering from 3 months of darkness a year already.
The dinosaur food chain went plants - herbivorous dinosaurs - carnivorous dinosaurs. So they were stuffed when the vegetation temporarily disappeared. But the surival of half to 60% of mammal species could be due to the fact that most were insectivorous. And I guess some could have burrowed and greedily stored what food was around.
Vertebrates which lived in freshwater environments also survived very well - 90% in one study - like crocodiles, turtles etc. It seems to be a bit of a pattern in a lot of mass-extinction events that freshwater environments fare ok. Maybe cos the ecosystems are used to big daily and seasonal fluctuations in climate, or maybe as they are a bit removed from other food-chains, only needed a bit of detritus to come in. I dunno, you can speculate forever!
2006-09-28 07:46:08 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
There was a meteor that hit earth and it caused a dust cloud to surround the earth and the dinosaurs died from lack of light for that period of time. Birds are modern dinosaurs and they survived because they could fly over the dust cloud. Many animals become extinct because of humans. Oil spills kill many animals today.
2016-03-26 21:23:51 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope. The calamitous destruction that destroyed the dominant life forms, that is most of the dinosaurs, did not kill all life on Earth. More efficient life forms, such as small mammals, were able to survive and went on to become the dominant life forms themselves. It was surely not a comfortable existence for a long time, though!
It is harder than you'd expect to actuallly destroy the life-carrying capacity of Earth. Life has existed continuously for four billion years, almost as long as the planet itself has existed. And even if every atom bomb went off in a catastrophic war that killed all the major life forms, bacteria and cockroaches and deep-sea worms could continue living on the bonanza of decaying flesh and undersea vents. I would expect that life will in fact continue on our planet until it is swallowed by a red giant Sun in five billion years!
2006-09-28 05:14:45 · answer #3 · answered by poorcocoboiboi 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
In fact they claim 80% survived. The adaptability of those species to the changing surroundings is the reason
2006-09-28 05:42:57 · answer #4 · answered by Dr M 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
small animals scavenged. plants either went into a dormant mode (like a tree for an extended winter) and/or seeds remained dormant in the soil until conditions improved.
2006-09-28 05:11:08 · answer #5 · answered by mzJakes 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well if you are a religious person then you would know that the whole dinosaur theory is false. Man, animals, and plants were created by God.
The devil just put the whole dinosaur theory on earth to stray people away from God. Forget about the whole dinosaur thing and use that energy and interest into reading the bible and discovering more about God and how he created man, plants, and animals. All of your answers is in the book of Genesis.
2006-09-28 05:16:25 · answer #6 · answered by John&Heidi 2 · 1⤊ 6⤋
paleology has so far not fetched any definite results.all the present notion are hypothetical.For furtherinfo refer to http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/extinction.html
2006-09-28 05:19:40 · answer #7 · answered by jahnavi 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋