Dinosaur Extinction: One Giant Mystery
Many different species in the history of life on this planet have simply ceased to be. Gone but not forgotten these strange animals leave evidence of their existence entombed in the sedimentary layers of the earth’s crust. As fascinating as these fossilized discoveries are, what’s even more fascinating is the mystery of what happened to them.
The dinosaur’s story is certainly the most compelling of all the extinction records. Giants that reigned over the earth their disappearance is both perplexing and intriguing.
New theories are formulated as new scientific discoveries are made but even the experts in the field cannot agree on the facts behind the end of the dinosaur era.
Buried deep in the past, the only clues remaining, point to a number of different theories.
Asteroids Or Volcanoes?
Approximately 65.5 million years ago an event occurred that caused the mass extinction of about 70% of the earth’s animal and plant species in a relatively short geological time period. It is called the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event or the K-T extinction event. A thin band, a geological signature called the K-T boundary, identifies this.
Around the world dinosaur remains (of the non-avian variety) have only been discovered below this K-T boundary. This points to the conclusion that dinosaurs became extinct either right before the event or because of it.
Luis and Walter Alvarez, along with scientists from the University of California during the late seventies were studying closely the K-T boundary in Gubbio, Italy when they made an interesting discovery. In a clay layer at the boundary point they found 30 times the normal level of a rare element called Iridium. Such high levels of Iridium, it has been theorized, could have only come from two sources: either asteroids or violent volcanic activity.
The Asteroid
Many in the scientific community have postulated this impact event theory. The theory suggests that a large asteroid fell to earth and created a cloud of dust and other aerosols that blocked the sun’s rays for up to a year. This reduction in sunlight radically affected plant and animal life causing a change to the atmosphere. At the time of impact a pulse of intense radiation killed many species and the resulting climate change and global firestorms decimated the rest.Dinosaurs, because of their size, were the first to succumb.
Volcanic Activity
The Deccan Traps, located in western India, formed at the end of the Cretaceous period, the same time the dinosaurs disappeared from earth. The Traps are a bi-product of violent volcanic eruptions. This theory postulates that the volcanic activity at the time would have released massive amounts of sulfuric aerosols and ash into the atmosphere again causing a major shift in the earth’s climate. A shift that the dinosaurs were not equipped to survive.
Ice Age
Another theory relies on the idea of a major drop in temperature that caused the dinosaurs to die out while allowing the warm-blooded, more insulated mammals to survive. In this case all the plant, animal and marine life that could not adapt to the plummeting temperatures became extinct. A number of scientists pair this theory with the asteroid theory, claiming it was the asteroid that triggered the deep freeze.
There are many plausible explanations and scientific theories regarding the extinction of dinosaurs. New scientific evidence is discovered all the time, which supports one hypothesis or another, however, the truth is that we really don’t know what ended the reign of these giants of the prehistoric world.
It is a mystery that may remain until the moment of our extinction.
Who Else Wants Car Insurance Policy?
You have to have insurance on your car before you hit the road. You could hit someone, another car, a tree, or something. Bad enough that you have to repair your car, you might need to stay with the hospital bills to. A simple car insurance policy can take care of all that, and way ahead of time. You won’t know how important this is until something terrible happens to you when you are driving. Don’t wait for such things to happen before getting car insurance today.
Get your car insured; it is the only way to be certain that you are not wasting a lot of money on it. The insurance package is designed to care for the car for you, or to replace it if it got stolen, damaged in a car crash, or burnt. With something like that, your fears should all be gone.
When you neglect to get your car insured, you have no one else to blame but yourself when strange things begin to happen. You could get the car stolen or you could get it crashed, and then you have to pay to repair it, or you are back to nothing. If only you had been smart enough to take the policy when it was offered. But again, if you don’t have car insurance right now, it’s not too late. You can still get one right away.
A friend recently had his car stolen. I was worried when I heard about it, but then I had a word with him, and I realized that he was on the lucky side. He had had the car insured for theft. Lucky him. Don’t hesitate to get your car insured today. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself and your car, of course.
Auto insurance on your vehicle can be simple or extensive, based on what you can afford, or what the government postulates as law. Sometimes, what you have is simply an edict insisting that you must at least cover for the injuries of the other person, and then you get to take care of yourself by yourself.
In the United States, there are way too many accidents; more, it seems, than people have funds to make amends with. As such, more and more states are making it mandatory for drivers and car owners to obtain auto insurance by law. If you flout this law, you pay.
There are certain states now in the United States of America that have laws insisting that you get your car insured. Even if you cannot have everything, you must have the vehicle insured for something. This way, even if you have a death wish, some other poor fellow might get to live, in spite of your er not being very smart.
Whatever the cost of car insurance is in your area, you can afford to have your car insured. Of course no one gets their car stolen every day, or get involved in an accident all the time, but any one time it happens, it could clean you out. That’s why it’s much better to be insured today.
