How did the Dinosaurs become extinct? Which theories are widely believed?

Question

What could be the most likely event that caused their doom?

Answer 1

the most widely accepted theory involves a massive meteor hitting the earth 65 million years ago which caused a giant, sun-blocking cloud of dust and debris in the atmosphere. This cloud kept most sun light from penetrating the atmosphere and thus caused drastic climate cooling which resulted in the death and extinction of many life forms, including the dinosaurs

Answer 2

The extinction of the dinosaurs (and many other species) seems to have coincided with global cooling and with an increase in iridium segments. This is consistent with a meteor impact, and a crater attributed to that meteor has been found in the Mexican Gulf.

It is not clear how sudden the extinction was, as an interval of, say, 100,000 years look pretty much like an instant in geology. It is also not quite clear why the extinction of large marine reptiles occurred around the same time. Although few scientists have doubt about the meteor hypothesis, it's possible that other factors played a role as well.

Answer 3

Climate change - just as we are experiencing.., despite the knowledge that many species of animals and insects are dying off as a result of global warming weather changes.., we will not know the full impact of species to go extinct until its all said and done.

If a meteor had really been responsible for killing of the dinosaurs as the flawed main accepted theory suggests - then mankind as well as all mammals would have been extinct as well. While a meteor would have without a doubt caused some extinction, it would not have been global for the above given reason.

Scientists do a heck of a lot of guess work. In a thousand years some archaeologist will dig up a typical parking meter and determine it to have been our primitive worship device which we fed the religions icon, money, to appease the gods...LOL..

Answer 4

A combination of factors lead to the extinction of large dinosaurs; there was huge climatic change at that time, dinosaurs are already declining in population before extinction, widespread platonic activity and volcano eruption caused change in weather, change in plants toward angiosperm is starting to inhibit large herbivor dinosaurs, which in turn impact the population of large carnivore dinosaurs , then a meteor hit and aside from local damage (highly unpleasant, tsunami, huge amount of heat, amount to a nuke fest) produce a nuclear winter with extreme weather.In short, large dinosaurs were already unfavorably inclined toward extinctionand the meteor merely acted as a coup de grace. I say large dinosaurs because not all dinosaurs died out; it was accepted that birds are descended from small dinosaurs and early birds are practically identical to them so in a sense can be considered dinosaurs, thus not all dinosaurs died out some lived on as birds.

Answer 5

no-one knows for sure. Best guess is the meteorite - as mentioned above - which cause enough dust to rise into the air (it was a big one) to effectively dim the planet, resulting in massive and rapid cooling. The dinosaurs, being cold-blooded, couldn't cope well; furthermore, the entire ecosystem suffered, which works against the top of the food pyriamid (everything below them suffers, and they are screwed). Hence the rise of the (then) small, warm-blooded mammals.

Answer 6

The most believed theory is a massive meteor shower.
Other theories say that they became extinct because of changes in their enviroment,and their failure of evolving to get used to these new type of enviroments.

Answer 7

Some believe Chuck Norris invented a time machine , went back in time roundhouse kicked all of the dinosaurs, because he didnt like the movie Jurrasic Park.

Another theory is that the Chuck Norrisaurus killed all of them , then becasue it ran out of things to kill..Roundhouse kicked himself to death

Answer 8

Science still adheres to the meteor impact theory and the nuclear winter.

A mass extinction owing to disease seems rather unlikely

Answer 9

We don't know..we only have theories. Which in my opinion are rubbish. If we don't know how or why, then we are not meant to. Besides, what difference would it make if we knew...who really cares?

According to fossils, they were killed instantly. Some in the middle of eating. Some babies while they were hatching. What would cause something like that? A metoer would cause a gradual killing off of the dinosaurs not an instant one...only in the vacinity where it would have hit.. That theory is bogus

Answer 10

a popular belief is a massive meteor crashed into the earth, the crater of which is believed to have formed the gulf of mexico. the huge ammount of dust and debris caused by the impact got flung into the atmosphere and caused a nuclear winter (effectivly blocking out sunlight) that caused the tempreature of the earth to drop and cause an ice age.

As the dinosaures were cold blooded they couldn't adapt and all died.