The Land of the Lost

About 65 million years ago, there was this Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. The Earth was in such a terrible state that approximately half of the species were wiped off the planet; AKA dinosaurs. For over 20 years there has been a dispute, a battle royale between scientists. What caused this extinction?

In one corner we have an asteroid. A 9-mile wide asteroid slamming into the Earth where Mexico now is. Adios, amigos.

In the other corner we have a volcano. Not just one volcano, but a series of super volcanic eruptions around India that went on for 1.5 million years.

So which contender is responsible for killing of the gigantic reptilian (and albeit some aviary) beings? It seems to be a tough call, one that can only be determined by a coin toss (I call heads). Others suggested a scientific study, which surprisingly outvoted the coin toss.

The study came down to the findings of geologists, paleontologists, sedimentologists, climate modelers, and several other experts to determine which was to blame. 20 years worth of research explained that the asteroid created large-scale fires, destroying life forms both of land and sea. Earthquakes unlike we have ever seen, higher than a 10.0 on the Richter scale. Landslides of continental proportion, causing large tsunamis. This one asteroid is believed to have hit our dear Mexico with a force of one billion times that of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. All of the natural disasters caused by this asteroid caused blasted material into the atmosphere, causing a great darkness that made a global winter. Not many species could adapt to this kind of environment, including our dear dinosaurs.

Our findings of the volcanic activity in India describes only minor changes in our marine and land ecosystems. And even though they were super volcanic eruptions, the asteroid distributed a significantly higher amount of sulphur. Volcanic eruptions need time to cool and darken, not speedy enough for our Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction.

So, even though volcanic eruptions are pretty spectacular, especially super volcanic eruptions, the scientific study (or heads) named Asteroid victorious in the extinction of dinosaurs. Asteroid gets the belt!