Dinosaurs

Life of the dinosaurs click to bottom

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of terrestrial ecosystems for over
160 million years, from the late Triassic period (about 230 years ago) to the end of the
Cretaceous period (65 million years ago), when most of them became extinct in the
Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. The 10,000 living species of birds have been
classified as dinosaurs. (I got this news on internet because I don’t know how to start…
^^)

Talking about the Dinosaurs, every one of us always imagine to a grant-shape with
the violent, the cruel which we could see from science-magazines, internet or films…
almost things we know about the Dinosaur is depended on fossils which the scientists
tried to finding and dissecting since early 19-century.

Do you want to know more some details about dinosaurs and their life…? As, when
did the dinosaurs first appear on the Earth? .... The oldest dinosaur types are known from
rocks in Argentina and Brazil and they are about 230 million years old.

Approximately 540 species have been named. However, recent estimates suggest
that about 700 to 900 more dinosaur genera may remain to be discovered.

Dinosaur life-spans probably varied in length from tens of years to hundreds of

years. Some dinosaurs ate lizards, eggs, or early mammals. Some hunted other dinosaurs
or scavenged dead animals. Most, eating plants (but not grass, which hadn't evolved
yet).Dinosaur probably communicated with others by both vocally and visually.

From a scientific viewpoint, the biggest dinosaur we had known is had science-
named Argentinosaurus. Early reconstructions estimated Argentinosaurus at 35 meters in
length and perhaps 80 to 100 tons in weight. And the smallest dinosaur is only sized
65cm in length and 5.5kg in weight.

Nearly 65 million years passed before people appeared on Earth. The last dinosaur
had died out.The reason why the dinosaur were extincted ==>Let’s read this on below.

New words:

Dominant : thong tri

Vertebrate : dong vat co xuong song

Terrestrial (tə'restriəl) : song tren mat dat

 Ecosystems (´ekou´sistəm) : he sinh thai

Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event : su tuyen chung o ki Phan trang thu 3

Estimate ('estimit - 'estimeit) : su uoc luong

Scavenged : bi thoi rua

Vocally: tieng noi

Visually: thinh giac

Lizard: than lan

Mammal: nhung dong vat co vu’

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The extinction of the dinosaurs

Triassic Era
Asteroid Greenhouse Effect Stress

Brain Functions Hitting Asteroids Supernova

Caterpillers Ozone
No One really when or how exactly dinosaurs became extinct. Actually there's a few
people who claim there still is deep in jungles. With this strange mystery comes many
theories on the possible reasons to what happened to stop their species. Click to the top
links to read about the different ideas. Some are not very realistic and none are proven, so
I leave it to you to decide for yourself to which is the most believable.

Did a giant Asteroid make dinosaurs become extinct? Click to top

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Image copyright Astronomy

There is proof that an asteroid Over 9 miles wide stuck the earth on the tip of the Yucatan
peninsula, in the Gulf of Mexico . Asteroids happen every now and then today, but a big
one would be the size of a basket ball nowadays. A 9 mile long asteroid would change
atmosphere all over the world. Massive forest fires would spread through countries,
severe storms all over the world, poor air quality, ocean to ocean tidal waves, and
probably the worst thing ever: It would eliminate ALL sunlight for longer than 6 months.
This would surely kill 70% of all life forms. The only that would survive would be
smaller animals hiding out through this destruction.

The green house Effect cause of dinosaur extinction? Click to top

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If you Are not familiar with the term "Greenhouse Effect" then I'll have to brief you on
the subject. This is yet another theory on a possible reason why the dinosaurs became
extinct.

The definition of the greenhouse effect is as follows:

The phenomenon where the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the
presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane
that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the
earth's surface.

I realize this may be confusing to hear but aside from all of the technical words of the
definition it's an easy concept. There is a much more easy way to explain this.
If there is a heavy amount of carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere than there is a chance of a
greenhouse effect because the carbon dioxide acts like a cloud around the earth and
magnifies heat from the sun to the earth. Now this "cloud" is like a blanket and keeps that
heat in. The heat has nowhere to go and eventually the earth goes through a faze of higher
temperatures. This will create a rise in temperature for the oceans as well. This is a
phenomenon change of the environment because this does happen then the ice caps at the
artic will start to melt. In the artic there is thousands of miles of pure ice because of the
sub-zero temperatures that is there. With the oceans overheating and the atmosphere
being at very hot these miles of mountains of ice will melt which will surely make the
water levels skyrocket. Changes are half of land will be flooded. In time the melted ice
will cool down the planet and the earth will stabilize to the way it was before the
greenhouse effect has happened and everything will clear up. This is not something that
happens in a day. This is a stage of the world that takes probably over 1000 years from
the beginning to the end. After that, we got the earth which is basically a big huge ocean
for the most part of it. Actually even today the Gov't is worried that this phenomenon will
occur. Ever since the 70's scientists have been mentioning that the ice caps are melting
and the earth is currently experiencing a climate change. Of course you don't have to
worry about this tonight because like I said before, if it is happening then you won't
notice for a decade.

Ok, so you understand a bit about the greenhouse effect but how does that come into par
with dinosaurs being extent? Well, volcano's create a mass amount of carbon dioxide and
if there's a huge outbreak then there is a high chance to trigger a greenhouse effect. But
the way the world is now, this isn't going to happen. There simply isn't enough active
volcano's around to do this. Volcano activity in the 2000's are not high at all. I couldn't
even tell you were or when the last one was. In order to find the time when there was
enough volcano activity you would actually have to travel back in time to around 230
million years ago. The cretaceous time which was the last era of dinosaurs right before
they became extinct. During the cretaceous era there was major volcano activity.
Scientists and Paleontologists claim that during this last prehistoric timeline there was so
many volcano's that the world was defaced by them. To them knowing this is simple.
When they dig up dinosaurs the ground level of the Triassic and Jurassic period the bones
where with dirt, soil, a little bit of clay, and other normal ground. But when they found
dinosaur fossils from the cretaceous time there was always special evidence of volcano's
in the ground nearby. It could've been a special common mineral that volcano's produce,
high levels of sodium, or volcanic rock. So, now you know why everytime you see a
dinosaur picture there is a volcano blowing up in the background.

Were dinosaurs just not smart enough? Click to top

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It's common knowledge that the saying "the strong survive" means that the best life form
will stay alive will the weak with struggle or not survive. Through the 2 hundred years of
people researching and finding dinosaur remains to them its common knowledge that
99% of dinosaurs had a very small brain. They can tell by the skull fossils and how much
space is left for the brain inside as well as certain body features that many dinosaurs had.
Most dinosaurs were cold blooded like lizards of today and cold blooded creatures often
have been known to be accustom to automatic bodies functions and not decision making
unlike mammals and animal do use their brain even as far as problem solving and
thinking ahead. If this is true than dinosaurs could be easily endangered to the world
evolving because of their inability to cope with it. Therefore they couldn't compete with
more efficient life forms and could've been slowly dying off and being endangered and
eventually becoming extinct.

Asteroid hitting each other made dinosaurs become extinct? Click to top

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A joint U.S.-Czech team from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Charles
University in Prague suggests that the parent object of asteroid(298) Baptistina disrupted
when it was hit by another large asteroid, creating numerous large fragments that would
later create the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent
Tycho crater found on the Moon.

The team of researchers, including Dr. William Bottke (SwRI), Dr. David Vokrouhlicky (
Charles University , Prague ) and Dr. David Nesvorny (SwRI), combined observations
with several different numerical simulations to investigate the Baptistina disruption event
and its aftermath. A particular focus of their work was how Baptistina fragments affected
the Earth and Moon.

At approximately 170 kilometers in diameter and having characteristics similar to

carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, the Baptistina parent body resided in the innermost
region of the asteroid belt when it was hit by another asteroid estimated to be 60
kilometers in diameter. This catastrophic impact produced what is now known as the
Baptistina asteroid family, a cluster of asteroid fragments with similar orbits. According
to the team's modeling work, this family originally included approximately 300 bodies
larger than 10 kilometers and 140,000 bodies larger than 1 kilometer.

Once created, the newly formed fragments' orbits began to slowly evolve due to thermal
forces produced when they absorbed sunlight and re-radiated the energy away as heat.
According to Bottke, "By carefully modeling these effects and the distance traveled by
different-sized fragments from the location of the original collision, we determined that
the Baptistina breakup took place 160 million years ago, give or take 20 million years."

The gradual spreading of the family caused many fragments to drift into a nearby
"dynamical superhighway" where they could escape the main asteroid belt and be
delivered to orbits that cross Earth's path. The team's computations suggest that about 20
percent of the surviving multi-kilometer-sized fragments in the Baptistina family were
lost in this fashion, with about 2 percent of those objects going on to strike the Earth, a
pronounced increase in the number of large asteroids striking Earth.

Support for these conclusions comes from the impact history of the Earth and Moon, both
of which show evidence of a two-fold increase in the formation rate of large craters over
the last 100 to 150 million years. As described by Nesvorny, "The Baptistina
bombardment produced a prolonged surge in the impact flux that peaked roughly 100
million years ago. This matches up pretty well with what is known about the impact
record."

Bottke adds, "We are in the tail end of this shower now. Our simulations suggest that
about 20 percent of the present-day, near-Earth asteroid population can be traced back to
the Baptistina family."

The team then investigated the origins of the 180 kilometer diameter Chicxulub crater,
which has been strongly linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Studies of sediment samples and a meteorite from this time period indicate that the
Chicxulub impactor had a carbonaceous chondrite composition much like the well-known
primitive meteorite Murchison. This composition is enough to rule out many potential
impactors but not those from the Baptistina family. Using this information in their
simulations, the team found a 90 percent probability that the object that formed the
Chicxulub crater was a refugee from the Baptistina family.

These simulations also showed there was a 70 percent probability that the lunar crater
Tycho, an 85 kilometer crater that formed 108 million years ago, was also produced by a
large Baptistina fragment. Tycho is notable for its large size, young age and its prominent
rays that extend as far as 1,500 kilometers across the Moon. Vokrouhlicky says, "The
probability is smaller than in the case of the Chicxulub crater because nothing is yet
known about the nature of the Tycho impactor."

This study demonstrates that the collisional and dynamical evolution the main asteroid
belt may have significant implications for understanding the geological and biological
history of Earth.

As Bottke says, "It is likely that more breakup events in the asteroid belt are connected in
some fashion to events on the Earth, Moon and other planets. The hunt is on!"

The article, "An asteroid breakup 160 Myr ago as the probable source of the K/T
impactor," was published in the Sept. 6 issue of Nature

Caterpillers the cause of no food for dinosaurs? Click to top

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This theory is actually pretty funny to me. I'm not even sure who exactly came up with
the idea, but it's a little hard to believe. There was many different types of caterpillars
when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Many where much larger than today. It's believed that
they were just like insects and reproduced in vast amounts. There is proof that they have
gone through several stages of evolution during the cretaceous period. Scientists pose that
its very possible that caterpillars could have exhausted the plant life creating a high
demand for food to all of the herbivores that habited the world back then. the conclusion
is that the herbivores became extinct and the carnivores were soon to follow. The idea of
caterpillars being the cause of the extinction of dinosaurs is a far cry from the truth
though. Most people don't believe that this has happened.

Did the Ozone Layer destroy all of the dinosaurs? Click to top

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The sun is the natural source to all life. Without it there cannot be life. But the sun is so
powerful that it does create dangerous substances such as the most common ultraviolet
rays. Ultraviolet rays create a small amount of radiation which is harmful to all living
organisms. It also is known to cause cancer as well, which is fatal. The best way to
protect yourself is simply to stay in the shade. Hair and clothes also provide a lot of
protection as well. This is where the ozone layer comes into effect to fend off these
hazardous and dangerous rays.

The ozone layer is like a protective shield against these rays. It blocks most of the
harmful energy that the sun sends to the surface of the earth. The ozone layer is roughly 1
½ miles high in the atmosphere and is transparent to the naked eye. This ozone layer can
be damaged by pollution and it's common to hear from scientists that automobiles and big
industries are causing damage to the ozone layer. Of course there wasn't cars in the
Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous period so ozone should've been in perfect condition
during these huge reptiles roamed the earth. Actually there is one natural disaster that can
damage the ozone layer really bad. Volcano's.

Dinosaur diggers have found that when they dig up dinosaur fossils that are dated from
the Cretaceous period they also find a lot of volcano rock in the same area. This is very
common, but only for the Cretaceous period. Knowing that, dinosaur researchers were
able to assume that during that time they was many outbreaks of volcano's.

When a volcano erupted it not only sprays millions of gallons of hot lava, but also a mass
of a certain chemical called Hydrochloric acid. This poisonous gas can deface the ozone
layer. One volcano would do much harm but scientists know that during the Cretaceous
period there was not only one, but mass amounts of aggressive behavior by volcano's
around the world.
Most Dinosaurs did not have fur, and many were known not to be like crocodiles laying
in water all of the time. This is proven by the way that their bodies are shaped. So we
know that they ran around land and if the ozone layer broke apart than cancer is free to
spread throughout the world. This would be the beginning of dinosaurs dying off. As for
other creatures such as mammals, most of them have fur which does provide enough
protection that enough could've survived to get through the ozone damage until it repairs.

If you check out other Dinosaur extinction theories you'd realize that many are linked to
volcano's because of the proof of that timeline and the loads of volcano rock material
found at the same ground level as the latest found dinosaur fossils.

The Supernova Exploding Star cause of dinosaur extinction? Click to top

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Some Scientists think that a Supernova is to blame for dinosaur Extinction. Although,
there is not even an inch of evidence to this theory they simple say its very possible. A
Supernova is a Star that explodes and sends a shockwave of the amount of energy of
radiation that the Sun creates at an estimate of about 20 billion years. So, in simple words
a supernova destroys everything in its path and anything far enough out of the path to not
get the explosion may get stomped by mass radiation. This won't destroy the earth but it
will kill just about every living thing that isn't buried hiding in a hole for years. The
supernova isn't just a exciting fictional belief either. It happens every 50 years or so in the
milky way.

Did the stress of dinosaurs create physicial problems to make them extinct?

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A man named Heinrch K. Erben came up with this theory. It's not too proof providing,
but does make sense. He was an active Dinosaur egg digger. Over the years he collected a
heavy amount of certain species and found a very strange observation. He didn't mention
what species of dinosaur it was that he made this assumption on, but regardless it was
very interesting. He claimed that the oldest dated dino eggs had a very thick shell and up
until the latest dated dino egg which was very thin. The eggs of the same species were
getting thinner over millions of years. If this was true then that would mean that there is a
high possibility that the chances of a baby dinosaur to develop, hatch, and be immune
would be rare. With minimal baby dinosaurs would mean starvation of predators in which
would change the whole environment. In the end based on this theory herbivores would
increase and exhaust the food and water area's, in which then comes the extinction.

Still this doesn't explain dinosaur "STRESS". So we know that the eggs got thinner but
the real question you should be asking is WHY?. There's a simple enough answer for this.
Certain animals, mammals, insects are known to not be able to handle the pressure of
change. If you ever had a fish aquarium you'd know that if you buy a fish you can't just
throw it in your aquarium because they have to get used to the different water from the
bag its in (from the store) to your tank. The ph levels are different, temperature change,
your other fish, different oxygen levels, and the different environment. All of these things
will create stress for the fish and its important that it's carefully and gradually brought
into that new aquarium. Some life forms do not have this problem. Humans are very
efficient with this. In some area's of Mexico the heat out there is so hot that people sleep
during the day and work at night. In Canada the winter is long and temperatures reach a
low as -45C, but people are doing ok out there. So humans are not sensitive to change.
It's been known for quiet some time that some species of modern day birds and lizards
have had the same effect with thin eggs because of stress from a change in the
environment. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth there could have been a large
change in the temperatures causing this stress to occur. If this change did actually happen
then the estrogen in the dinosaurs would surely cause this thin egg theory.

There you have it in a nutshell, errrrr a eggshell, or lack of one.

This is a pretty good guess by Heinrch K. Erben, but unfortunately he never was able to
back this with more solid proof. It hasn't been proven that he even had the eggs, they
were never shown and no one else really has made any finding of eggs that got thinner
with the same species. He was the only one who mentioned anything strange about
dinosaur eggs to provide evidence of extinction.

Come on Heinrch K. The least you could've said is which species of dinosaur you were
basing this research on?

Did You Know:

Dinosaurs lived and evolved for over 185 million years until they became extinct.
The cause has not been proven yet, but many believe that an asteroid Over 9 miles
wide hit the earth In the Gulf of Mexico .

Minh and Cuong

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