Friday, March 7, 2008

The Why Question


Why did all the dinosaurs die?

There is now widespread evidence that a meteorite impact was at least the partial cause for this extinction. Impact craters are visible on most planets in our solar system. A spectacular example of this was witnessed in 1994, when Jupiter was struck by a series of cometary fragments. Some of these impact blasts were larger than the Earth's diameter. Other factors such as extensive release of volcanic gases, climatic cooling, sea-level change, low reproduction rates, poison gases from a comet, or changes in the Earth's orbit or magnetic field may have contributed to this extinction event.

Who are the experts?

Dinosaur experts are called paleontologist and the people that dig up the fossils are called archaeologist.