Scrape TV Humour Scrape TV News Scrape TV On the Air

Politics
U.S.A.
Everyone Else
Health
Science
Business
Technology
Sports
Video Games
Entertainment
Future
Retractions
News Home
News Archive
Other

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEWS > SCIENCE > DINOSAURS POSSIBLY KILLED BY VOLCANOES, OR AN ASTEROID, OR DISEASE, OR MASS SUICIDE

DINOSAURS POSSIBLY KILLED BY VOLCANOES, OR AN ASTEROID, OR DISEASE, OR MASS SUICIDE

December 17 2008

San Francisco, CA – Since the first discovery of a bonafied dinosaur fossil in 1824 scientists have been trying to determine what could have possibly killed the massive animals that once roamed the landscape before mammals began to dominate. Theories have run from the spectacular—a massive asteroid impact—to the mundane—disease—the latest theory only adds to the debate by being the very latest theory.

That latest theory runs that volcanic eruptions could have spewed massive amounts of environment altering emissions, bringing about the toxic environment that led to the mass death of the dinosaurs. The theory, from researcher Vincent Courtillot of the University of Paris, seeks to dethrone the thirty year old asteroid theory as the dominant speculation for the demise of the largest land animals to ever live.

“We're discovering ... amazingly large flows, amazingly short time scales and amazing volcanic (eruptions),” said Courtillot at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. “If there had been no impact, we think there would have been a massive extinction anyway.”

The dominant theory of an asteroid collision has long been the accepted theory for the eradication of the dinosaurs. It was first presented in 1980 by University of California Researcher Luis Alvarez. Other theories have attempted to unseat the dominance of that theory but most have fallen by the wayside. From disease to a spontaneous evolution into modern day birds, no other challenges to the asteroid theory have been able to steal the theory crown.

Many are concerned as well that the volcano theory, while having strong evidence in the fossil record, doesn’t have the same dramatic impact the an asteroid collision evokes.

“This is classic American versus European thinking, old world versus New World. Americans like to blow stuff up, Europeans like things a little more subtle. That is always going to be an issue between the two continents,” continued Poe. “Dr. Alvarez died, or went extinct I guess, in 1988 and isn’t around to defend his point of view which could make the argument much more controversial. Plus, Courtillot is French and we know how the Americans feel about the French.”

For the record, there has been no talk of excavating Alvarez’s grave to uncover any lost secrets.

“Regardless of the reasons that the dinosaurs went extinct the reality is they were a failed species. They grew to enormous sizes but developed limited intelligences and communication skills. Mammals in a much shorter time have been massively more successful and that should show that regardless of the reasons, the dinosaurs probably were better off dying,” concluded Poe. “There has been this idea that they have had some kind of
global mass suicide. Looking at the failure they’re existence had become, they just decided to end it all. It’s not like they had dinosaur psychiatrists. Of course that theory has had even more limited acceptance than the bird one. My guess is that despite their best efforts and the best science, the asteroid theory is going to last. It is after all a giant asteroid hitting the planet and there’s no arguing how much cooler that is. Remember the movies ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Dante’s Peak’? Which one was a bigger hit?”

It should be noted that ‘Armageddon’ was a summer release starring Bruce Willis while ‘Dante’s Peak’ starred the lesser star Pierce Brosnan and was released in the less lucrative late winter season.

Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent

NEWS > SCIENCE > DINOSAURS POSSIBLY KILLED BY VOLCANOES, OR AN ASTEROID, OR DISEASE, OR MASS SUICIDE

Scrape TV Home Scrapeipedia The Town of LaRue Scrape Store (coming soon)

Contact Editorial editor (at) scrapetv.com Website admin (at) scrapetv.com Jobs jobs (at) scrapetv.com Advertise advertising (at) thevirtualunion.com

This work by The Virtual Union is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License Based on a work at scrapetv.com

All original content and scenarios Copyright ©2008-2010 The Virtual Union. All Rights Reserved. All images Copyright © original owners. All content herein should be considered rumour or truth based solely on your perspective. Privacy Policy