Age of Dinosaurs

[mauigal10]

When the giant meteor hit the earth and caused the disappearance of the Age of Dinosaurs why only the dinosaurs, why not other forms of life as well?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by mauigal10

When the giant meteor hit the earth and caused the disappearance of the Age of Dinosaurs why only the dinosaurs, why not other forms of life as well?

In fact, other forms of life disappeared in great numbers.

The end of the dinosaurs: Chicxulub ... - Google Book Search

Originally Posted by Charles Frankel

The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions: page #14:... Marine sediments of Late Cretaceous age are thicker and more widespread than their continental counterparts. They show the great mass extinction of marine plant and animal life at the end of the period to be equal to, if not worse than, that on land.

[modest]

I've heard that approximately 60% of all species went extinct at the KT boundary. Hardest hit were ocean species(1). Most any species that depended entirely on sunlight was wiped out. A T-Rex for instance fed on plant-eating animals who in turn fed on plants which relied on sunlight. Whatever event caused the KT boundary (probably an impact) seemed to have shrouded the earth in darkness wiping out any food chain that couldn't deal with extended darkness.

Luckily mammals were mostly burrowing creatures which ate insects, worms, and roots. A good wiki page:

Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, dinosaurs didn't so much go extinct. We still have birds which are avian dinosaurs.

~modest

[Theory5]

When the giant meteor hit the earth and caused the disappearance of the Age of Dinosaurs why only the dinosaurs, why not other forms of life as well?

This is why :-P

I think most anything living above ground (I dont know how plants survived), and anything in the water. I wonder if the asteroid triggered hundreds of fault lines?

[lemit]

I'm sure they must be very old by now.

Possibly even older than that joke, although that's kind of hard to imagine.

--lemit