Theories of the extinction of dinosaurs. When and why did dinosaurs go extinct? Paleocene dinosaurs or survivors of the cataclysm - wishful thinking

Prehistoric animals dinosaurs now “live” only in museums and research centers. Once upon a time, these giant lizards were the rightful masters of the entire Earth. They lived almost everywhere. Today their remains are found on all continents. The earth has been inhabited much longer than humans. If Homo sapiens appeared on the planet about 40 thousand years ago, which seems to be quite an impressive period of time, and during this time man turned from a caveman upright walking creature into the creator of the computer, the Internet and the conqueror of space, then dinosaurs inhabited the earth for 160 million years! It is very difficult to imagine such a period of time as 160 million years, but this did not save the dinosaurs from death. Their gigantic size and powerful skeletal system, muscles, teeth and claws did not save them. When a catastrophe struck the planet, about which scientists never cease to argue, all dinosaurs became extinct, leaving the earth to their descendants - mammals.

Pangolins, now considered fossils, first appeared about 225 million years ago. Give or take several million years, the very first species of these animals appeared. Over the next 160 million years, they proliferated so much that they gave rise to more than 1,000 different species, at least more than a thousand species have so far been found by archaeologists. Dinosaurs lived in an era that spanned three periods at once - the Triassic (the time of the appearance of dinosaurs), the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. At the end of the Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago), something happened that could completely exterminate the dinosaurs. At the junction of the two periods - and - a mass extinction or large-scale extinction occurred. In addition to dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying lizards, some species of mollusks, and numerous types of algae became extinct. Many scientists agree that the cause of the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago was the fall of a meteorite to the earth. In all likelihood, the fall caused the destruction of almost the entire ecosystem, and the dust that flew into the sky obscured the Sun from the Earth for several months or even much longer, which caused severe cooling. Lizards, which are cold-blooded, that is, whose temperature depends on the environment, could simply freeze. Also contributing to the death were floods, a surge in volcanic eruptions across the planet, the extinction of environments nutritious for dinosaurs, and so on.

After the dinosaurs became extinct, although it is possible that some of their species still existed for several million years, mammals became the rightful masters of the Earth. Due to the fact that mammals are warm-blooded, that is, they are able to regulate their body temperature themselves, they were able to survive a sharp cold snap, and their rather small size, compared to dinosaurs, allowed them to protect themselves from other destructive factors that were caused by the fall of a celestial body. Small mammals could hide in burrows or other shelters. In addition, due to their size, they needed much less air and food, which allowed them to survive the global catastrophe quite safely. After the mammals outlived the dinosaurs, the earth was completely theirs. This gave rise to the development of new life, the life of mammals, which in a fairly short period of time were able to develop into a wide variety of forms and species.

How dinosaurs became extinct documentary film:

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Introduction

Life on Earth arose about 3 billion years ago; it began with tiny single-celled creatures, and about 225 million years ago, dinosaurs appeared on Earth in the process of evolution. They inhabited the Earth for approximately 160 million years, i.e. over a period 50 times longer than the period from the appearance of man to the present day. Not all types of dinosaurs existed at the same time: some species died out, others arose.

Dinosaurs were well adapted to their environment. Some of them were herbivores, others were carnivores, so there was enough food for everyone. Dinosaurs had very tough skin, some species had huge massive bodies and long necks, while others were no larger than a turkey. Dinosaurs reproduced by laying eggs with a hard shell that well protected the embryo during development.

How did it happen that dinosaurs, which dominated the Earth for so long, suddenly disappeared 65 million years ago? The answer to this question interests many, which is why there are many hypotheses about the reasons for the mass extinction of dinosaurs. We'll look at some of them.

Searching for traces of the past

The first dinosaur bone was found by the English naturalist Robert Plot in 1677. At that time, no one had any idea that animals that were different from modern ones once existed on Earth. The discovery of the Raft was considered the bone of an old elephant or even some kind of giant. The first documented dinosaur tracks were discovered in 1802 in Connecticut (USA) by the peasant Plinyo Moody. On a stone slab found in his field, there were prints of three fingers, which were attributed to ... “the claws of the raven released from Noah’s ark after the Flood.”

The word "dinosaurs" was first used by Richard Owen on August 2, 1841. The term is derived from the Greek deinos - terrible and sauria - lizard, so dinosaur means "terrible lizard". After studying many fossil remains, Owen came to the conclusion that these animals had much in common with each other and were the largest in size among all reptiles. The first images of ancient monsters, made from found fragments, immediately appeared, and life-size sculptures of dinosaurs began to entertain visitors to major exhibitions.

From the middle of the 19th century. Amateurs and professionals began searching for dinosaur remains all over the world. Violent passions flared up in the Far West of the United States between 1870 and 1890. The expeditions of two outstanding American paleontologists, Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh, discovered huge dinosaur cemeteries in the Rocky Mountains (Canada). The most expensive expedition was organized by the Berlin Academy of Sciences to Tendaguru (Africa) in 1907. It cost 200 thousand German marks. Over 1,500 people discovered more than 250 tons of fossil remains over 3 years of work. During their study, scientists came to the conclusion that among the lizards there were small, medium, large and simply huge lizards. The body length of dinosaurs ranged from 20 cm to 30 m. In total, there are currently about 1 thousand species of dinosaurs.

The most ancient dinosaurs were land predators, then herbivores appeared. Some of them switched to life in water. Ancient dinosaurs were bisexual, but scientists still do not know for sure how males differed from females. It is assumed that among horned dinosaurs, males had longer and more massive horns, which could be used as tournament weapons. Male duck-billed dinosaurs had a longer crest on their heads than females. It is even assumed that some forms, differing in morphological characters and sizes and described as different species and genera, represent males and females belonging to the same species.

Dinosaur groups

Based on the type of food they eat, dinosaurs are divided into predators that walked on two legs, herbivores and scavengers. They lived alone or in groups, in both warm and cold climates. Some hunted, which required not only muscular, but also intellectual effort. The anatomical features (massive hind limbs, huge body and vestigial forelimbs) of giant predatory dinosaurs created a serious problem: if they fell, they were not able to get back to their feet, because. they could neither lean on their weak forelimbs nor tuck their hind legs under their heavy body.

The distribution of dinosaurs into groups does not depend on their size, mode of movement and nutrition.

Based on the structure of the pelvic bones, dinosaurs are divided into two orders: Lizard-pelvic (Saurischia) And ornithischian (Ornitschia). The differences between them are as follows. The pelvis of four-legged animals consists of three pairs of bones: the pubis, the ilium and the ischium. In lizard-pelvic dinosaurs, the ilia point upward where they connect to the sacrum, the ischia point downward and backward, and the pubis point forward and downward. In ornithischian dinosaurs, the ischial and ilium bones are arranged in the same way, and the pubic bones have two branches directed in different directions: one forward and the other backward, parallel to the ischial bones. The significance of these differences is not clear.

The differences between dinosaur groups in the structure of the jaws and teeth and the associated differences in nutrition are easier to explain. In lizard-hipped dinosaurs, the teeth were located along the edge of the jaw in one row, which reached the end of the muzzle. Each conical or chisel-shaped tooth sat in a separate cell. Ornithischian dinosaurs had a toothless predentary bone in the front part of the lower jaw; front teeth were often absent in the upper jaw. Many ornithischians had a horny beak, like turtles. In addition, the lateral teeth were moved inward from the edge of the jaw, and their arrangement was multi-rowed. This displacement of the teeth is due to the fact that the cheeks were located outside the jaws. This made it possible to hold food in the mouth while chewing. Lizard-hipped dinosaurs did not chew.

All ornithischians were herbivores and walked on either two or four legs. Among the lizards there were both herbivores and predators, which, for the most part, were bipedal.

Like all archosaurs, dinosaurs had a diapsid type of skull with two, and not one, like other reptiles, temporal sockets behind the eye sockets. This made the skull lighter, freed up space for the development of powerful jaw muscles, contributed to better action of the jaws when feeding, and also contributed to the improvement of the hearing aid.

Another characteristic feature characteristic of dinosaurs was the structure of the pelvic girdle and the placement of the limbs, which ensured greater mobility of the animals. Unlike other archosaurs and most reptiles, dinosaurs' hind legs were straight and moved in a vertical plane when walking, like birds and mammals. Most other reptiles (for example, crocodiles, lizards, turtles) have paws widely spaced to the sides. In the pelvic girdle, dinosaurs had a complex sacrum of five fused vertebrae and a perforated acetabulum, into which the head of the femur entered. These anatomical features made dinosaurs the most mobile of the land inhabitants of the Mesozoic.

A – four-radial pelvis with free space below;
B – triradiate pelvis with pubic bones directed forward

One of the amazing features of some large herbivorous dinosaurs, both lizard-hipped (diplodocus, brachiosaurs) and ornithischians (stegosaurs, ankylosaurs), not present in any other animals, was the presence of a second brain (this is reflected in the generic name of one of them: "Diplodocus" translated from Greek means "two minds"). The volume of the brain inside the fused sacral vertebrae of the pelvic girdle was 10–100 times greater than the volume of the brain. The question arises, which brain, the hindbrain or the forebrain, was the main one? It is believed that the hindbrain coordinated the work of the limbs, the forebrain coordinated food activity and sensory organs. This “decentralization” of brain functions, some researchers believe, was one of the reasons for the extinction of dinosaurs.

Hypotheses about the causes of the mass extinction of dinosaurs

From the Triassic to the Late Cretaceous, dinosaur diversity increased. It seemed that nothing foreshadowed their disappearance without a trace. But at the end of the Cretaceous period, the entire prosperous group of planetary owners died out. The extinction of species is a natural evolutionary process. It usually occurs slowly and unevenly. But the speed with which the largest group of reptiles disappeared is amazing.

Hypotheses about how this happened can be divided into two groups:

– hypotheses explaining extinction by external, including extraterrestrial, causes;
– hypotheses linking extinction to internal, biological factors.

Hypothesis 1

The first group includes the hypothesis that on the territory of India, in the Deccan region, lava oozed abundantly from a giant fault 400 km long and there was unbearable heat. Volcanoes released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the hot air. It was almost impossible to breathe such air. Clouds of ash and sulfur, escaping from the vents of volcanoes, rose high into the sky and enveloped the entire Earth. The atmosphere was poisoned by poisonous volcanic gases, and the soil by endless acid rain. Plants died from lack of light, followed by herbivores, and then predators. It started to get colder on Earth. Then the ash settled, and the cold was replaced by heat again. Carbon dioxide (then there was 10 times more of it in the atmosphere than today) created the “greenhouse effect”. Heat was retained near the surface of the Earth, and the air began to warm up, rains became rare, lakes and swamps dried up, and many rainforests were replaced by deserts. The drying out of coastal shallow waters with their rich fauna and the increase in the overall salinity of the Ocean led to the extinction of 95% of marine animal species. And then a new emission of ash darkened the sky again, and the cold returned to the planet. Such sharp climate changes continued for more than 600 thousand years. As a result, only species less specialized than dinosaurs, such as mammals, survived.

Hypothesis 2

Another common version of the death of the Cretaceous giants is the fall of a huge meteorite near the village of Chicxulub (Mexican island of Yucatan). A meteorite that weighed thousands of billions of tons left behind a crater 200 km across! The power of the impact was comparable to the explosion of so many atomic bombs, which is 10 thousand times greater than the current world supply. A monstrous air wave destroyed most of the land species of plants and animals, earthquakes swept across the planet, and giant tsunami waves circled the Earth several times.

This hypothesis appeared in 1970. Its factual basis is evidence from the geological record: in many areas of the world, in marine and continental sediments, a small layer of clays with an unusually high content of platinum group elements was discovered, in particular iridium, rare in the earth's crust, but widespread in meteorites element. Such a layer is believed to have formed only if the sediments were "diluted" by large amounts of meteorite material. Having estimated how much such a meteorite could weigh, scientists turned their attention to an ancient crater near the village of Chicxulub. The time level of the layer exactly coincides with the time when the last dinosaurs, as well as other groups of terrestrial and marine animals and plants, disappeared.

The dust raised as a result of the explosion made the atmosphere almost opaque to sunlight for several years. The photosynthetic activity of green plants, which are the initial link in the food pyramid, has sharply decreased. Further, as if in a chain, the extinction of various groups of marine and terrestrial organisms occurred.

Hypothesis 3

It is believed that rapid climate change, which led to mass extinction of species, could be caused by continental drift and changes in the direction of winds and sea currents. On the continents, the change of seasons sharply became apparent: hot summers began to give way to cold winters, when herbivorous dinosaurs were deprived of green food. Dinosaurs were unable to adapt to seasonal temperature changes. However, there are no facts confirming such a catastrophic acceleration of the drift of continental plates.

Location and directions of continental drift during the Cretaceous period

Hypothesis 4

In the middle of the Cretaceous period, the largest restructuring of the planet's vegetation in the history of the Earth took place: angiosperms (flowering) plants and grass appeared, and cereals became increasingly widespread. For herbivorous animals that ate more primitive plants, the transition to another diet required a significant restructuring of the entire enzymatic digestive system. It is possible, although very doubtful, that they were unable to overcome this physiological conflict.

Hypothesis 5

Recently, scientists have put forward a new hypothesis for the extinction of dinosaurs - at least some carnivorous species. Prehistoric lizards fell victim to the discrepancy between the energy needs of their gigantic organism and the objective possibilities of satisfying them. Experts from the British Zoological Society link this version with the answer to the question of why nature did not create, say, a lion or a tiger the size of an elephant. Such a huge carnivorous creature would not be able to hunt fast enough to replenish its energy needs in time, they believe. According to scientists, evolution should ultimately lead to the fact that carnivores with a body weight of more than 1 ton, living on the surface of the Earth, will lose the right to exist due to energy deficiency. However, it is doubtful that this shortage occurred suddenly and led to the extinction of all dinosaurs in a historically short time.

Hypothesis 6

Perhaps the dinosaurs lost the fight for survival with new, rapidly emerging species of mammals and birds. However, this hypothesis lacks factual material to substantiate.

Hypothesis 7

As a result of any catastrophe on a planetary scale, the destruction of the ozone layer could occur, and ultraviolet rays could cause a sharp increase in the rate of mutations in organisms. Perhaps common parts of the dinosaur genomes were unstable to such mutations, which led to the rapid extinction of all their species. Species with stable genomes survived.

Conclusion

A meteorite near the village of Chicxulub and a powerful eruption in the Deccan are the main “suspects” in the case of the death of dinosaurs, which occurred at the turn of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods 65 million years ago. But for more than 20 years now, scientists have not reached a final “verdict.” The controversy flared up with renewed vigor in March 2004, when Hertha Keller from Princeton University (USA) stated that she had evidence of the “innocence” of the meteorite. She claims that the Chicxulub stone fell to Earth long before the death of the lizards.

The sediments at the site of the famous crater contain fossilized remains of tiny marine animals that went extinct along with the dinosaurs. This layer appeared after the cosmic catastrophe, and its formation took approximately 300 thousand years. According to G. Keller, one Deccan eruption would be quite enough to destroy the dinosaurs, and a meteorite - Chicxulub or otherwise - could be only the last straw that overflowed the cup.

A proponent of the “meteorite” hypothesis, Dutchman Jan Smith, believes that Hertha Keller misinterpreted the results of samples taken in the crater. In his opinion, after the meteorite hit, the crash site was covered by a powerful tidal wave - a tsunami - and went under water, and it took only a few weeks for such a layer of sediment to form.

According to geologist Vincent Courtillot, the death of ancient lizards was not as catastrophic and fleeting as is usually imagined. The latest fossils from that time show that the giant reptiles died out gradually over hundreds of thousands of years. And this is difficult to explain using the “meteorite” hypothesis. Over the past 260 million years, there have been four mass extinctions on Earth, each time preceded by unprecedented volcanic eruptions.

Not everyone agrees with this opinion. Geologist Eric Byufto is confident that for each case of animal extinction it is possible to select a suitable meteorite crater. Well, then, why should all such disasters on Earth have the same cause? Byufto does not argue with the fact that numerous species of animals became extinct regularly, and these dramas were not necessarily associated with sudden catastrophic changes. However, the extinction of animals 65 million years ago was so massive that it is more correct to assume

that it was caused by some powerful and fleeting impact, for example, the fall of a large meteorite. Well, besides, says Byufto, it is difficult to imagine that dinosaurs, who inhabited the entire Earth from the equator to the poles, became victims of sharp climate fluctuations, but, for example, crocodiles calmly survived the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods.

So, the time for the final verdict is postponed. Scientists still have to examine meteorite craters again and again, carefully study fossils and, finally, find out why crocodiles survived the dinosaurs...

Literature

1. Laura Cambournac. Dinosaurs and other extinct animals. – M.: Makhaon, 2006. – 123 p.

3. Illustrative encyclopedia: dinosaurs / D. Burney; Artist D. Sibbick; Per. from English I.N. Alcheeva, N.N. Nepomnyashchy. – M.: AST Publishing House LLC: Astrel Publishing House LLC, 2002. – 222 p.: ill.

4. Relatives of dinosaurs / Trans. from English S. Freyberg. – M.: Astrel Publishing House LLC: AST Publishing House LLC, 2002. – 56 p.: ill. – (Secrets of living nature).

5. Dinosaurs. Complete encyclopedia /Trans. from English M.Avdoni-noy. – M.: Publishing house EKSMO-Press, 2000. – 256 p.

In the Taklamakan Desert (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China), eggs of giant prehistoric lizards have long been found. And they not only find it. Local residents, not spoiled by the bounty of their arid region, learned to use them as a supplement to their diet.
Before being eaten, a hardened dinosaur egg undergoes a long processing process: it is soaked in a special solution, which causes the shell to come off and the egg itself softens, then it is boiled for a long time, salted, and only then served with various seasonings. This is probably the most exotic dish on Earth called “simajo”.
However, it's not about its exoticism. The fact is that dinosaur eggs are actually quite edible. And this fact refutes the whole building - so slender and complete... it would seem - not only of modern paleontology, but also of other related sciences: geology, biology, history, finally.
Why? Yes, because dinosaurs became extinct, as we all know very well - according to the assurances of this very paleontology - 65 million years ago, and everything that we know about them stems from their fossilized remains extracted from the bowels of the earth. But what are these fossils? These are not just bones or eggs, which due to their antiquity have become hard as stone; no, it is just a copy of these same bones and eggs, resulting from a process known as fessalization. Thessalization, or petrification, is the replacement of calcium contained in a living organism with silicon. There is nothing organic left in thessalized fossils, which allows them to be preserved for such a long period of time to this day. But... a stone, even if it has the shape of an egg, remains a stone, and no matter how you soak it, you will not be able to soften it. This means that the “symazho” is not made from fossilized, but just dried dinosaur eggs! And this is a real disaster for paleontology, undermining all its foundations, and above all, the fossil record of the Earth!
The problem with “unfossilized” dinosaur eggs is that they could not physically survive for 65 million – or even just a million – years. Because, having lost their moisture, the eggs would first mummify during this period - just like the Egyptian pharaohs - and then crumble into dust. But... they just dried out! And it turns out that ceratosaurs, diplodocus and other inhabitants of Taklamakan laid them down not 65 million years, but literally “yesterday”, some 10-12 thousand years ago! By the way, the remains of other extinct creatures are of the same age - mammoths, whose meat frozen in permafrost was also consumed by the population of the north until quite recently.
But... dinosaurs are contemporaries of mammoths?! After all, 65 million years were not taken out of thin air; all paleontologists of the world unanimously assure us that exactly such a breakthrough of time has passed since the giants of the Cenozoic era shook the earth with their steps. And there is no reason not to believe them!
At first glance, yes. But what if you look at these assurances with an open mind?
Already at a second glance, you realize with surprise that it was from the ceiling, and from nowhere else, that these very notorious millions of years were taken. Or rather, from the categorical statement of Charles Lyell (1797-1875), the founder of modern geology, a contemporary and ally of another well-known Charles, Darwin. Captivated by the latter’s ideas, Lyell said: “the forces now operating both on the earth’s surface and under it may be identical in kind and degree with those which in remote epochs produced geological changes,” and “geologists have so misinterpreted the signs of the sequence of events , which was considered centuries where numbers meant millennia, and millennia where the language of nature meant millions of years...” He said this in response to attacks by opponents of the theory of evolution, who stated that the changes noted in this theory, the time of the existence of the Earth It's just not enough. And... they believed him! Without evidence or facts, they simply believed it! Since then, paleontologists have followed the course indicated to them, unable to leave the laid track.
But what about all these ultra-modern methods for determining the age of fossil objects, which the same paleontologists pray to like icons: the radiocarbon method, the potassium-argon method, the uranium method? Unfortunately, all of them not only do not differ in any acceptable accuracy - for example, the errors produced by the radiocarbon dating method are comparable to the age of the object being studied - but also... in the length of time over which they can be applied. After all, all these methods are based on the half-lives of certain radioactive elements, and, therefore, cannot “see” an object whose age is more than twice as long as this period. For uranium, for example, the longest-lasting element, this period is 24 million years; therefore, fossils and objects that are older than 48 million years are no longer accountable to him. And again we return to the question with which we began: where did the 65 million years since the death of the dinosaurs come from, not to mention the 5.5 billion years since the origin of the Earth? And the answer, unfortunately, also remains the same: from the ceiling! Because it is BENEFITABLE for paleontologists!
True, in fairness, it is worth noting that paleontologists themselves, it seems, are not too satisfied with the current situation in their science and therefore are looking for other, more suitable, methods of determining age. And they even found one such one - based on the rate of sedimentation. It has long been known that our Earth is “getting fat” - adding on average one centimeter per hundred years to its diameter. This happens due to the decomposition of organic remains - animals and plants - as well as inorganic sediments: sand and clay, which are “supplied” by mountains collapsing due to weathering. The rate of this accumulation of precipitation, of course, is uneven and depends on the terrain - tropical jungles “get fat” the fastest, and deserts the slowest. And 1 centimeter is precisely the average value of this speed, in reality it ranges from 1 millimeter to 3 centimeters per century.
Wonderful! At least some certainty! But... Ah, this notorious “but”! How it ruins everything! It’s so easy to believe that scientists who have been doing their science all their lives know what they are doing and what they are talking about! Believe - and do not check their statements! It would be worth it! And why wait? Let's do it right now, especially since it won't require much effort. Because this test is available to any first-grader. So, 1mm × 650,000 centuries = 650,000 mm = 650m! Six hundred and fifty meters! This is exactly how much sediment should have accumulated in the 65 million years that have supposedly passed since the death of the dinosaurs!
Of course, under the pressure of the upper layers, the lower ones are pressed, becoming deeper and thinner, but this deformation can be neglected, especially if we take the lower bar for the calculation - which is what we did. If we make the calculation based on the average sedimentation value, we will get a fantastic figure of 6.5 kilometers! And the sedimentary rocks that supposedly arose during the origin of the Earth should generally lie at a depth... from 55 to 550 kilometers! For comparison, an ultra-deep well on the Kola Peninsula, which remains a record to this day, barely reached 13 kilometers.
No one has ever excavated at such a depth! Yes, this was not required - dinosaur bones are much closer to the surface - two to three meters; in some places, like in the same Taklamakan, they are barely covered with a thin layer of sand. Three meters... 3000 millimeters... Let's calculate the age. 3000mm × 100 years = 300,000 years. Three hundred thousand! But not 65 million! However, at such a depth the compression and compaction of soil layers is minimal, and in this case it is possible to calculate their age using the average value. And such a calculation gives a completely “childish” figure - 30,000 years! This is the REAL age of the layers that lie at a depth of 3 meters and contain the bones of dinosaurs that “extinct millions of years ago.” And looking at these numbers, I just want to shout: people! Wake up! You are being shamelessly, shamelessly, shamelessly deceived! And dinosaurs are not things of the past, but practically your contemporaries! This is directly evidenced by the traces discovered by those same paleontologists around the world. Fossilized traces of dinosaurs - and people who passed alongside these “terrible” lizards!
However, if we take the time of extinction of dinosaurs to be precisely thousands, and not millions, of years, then such a neighborhood becomes quite understandable and even natural. After all, it was 30 thousand years ago that man began to settle not only in Europe, but also in America, where most of his “abnormally ancient” fossilized traces are found, an eyesore for modern orthodox paleontologists.
It seems that paleontologists themselves are no longer too satisfied with classical chronology. In any case, having discovered in the “fossilized” leg of a tyrannosaurus, dug up in 1990 in the Hell Creek formation in Montana (USA), soft tissues, flexible (!), branched blood vessels with dried, but not destroyed (!) hemoglobin and veiny , but an elastic bone matrix, the author of the find, Mary Higbee Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, “let slip” in an article in Earth magazine in 1997:
"Perhaps the mysterious structures were, at best, derivatives of blood modified by millennia of geological processes." (“Perhaps the mysterious structures were, at best, derived from blood, modified over the millennia by geological processes”).
“Millennia” was written (millennia), not “millions”, much less “tens millions” (tens of millions)!
However, as I noted earlier, 2-3 meters is not at all the universal depth for fossilized remains of dinosaurs. In most places, these bones are found almost on the surface, and their age in this case is limited to “only” a few thousand, and sometimes several hundred years! And this is already a historical period, a period in which humanity, having mastered writing, used it to its fullest, recording all the more or less significant events in its chronicles. Shall we honor them?
According to the ancient Celtic chronicles, King Morydd was killed and swallowed in 336 BC by the giant monster Beloit. The monster “swallowed the body of Morvidus (the name Moridda in Latin transcription. Author), like a large fish swallows a small one.”
The early Brythonic king Peredar was more fortunate - he won a battle with a similar monster in the area of ​​Llyn Llyon (Wales). British chronicles also tell of many places in what is now Wales that were inhabited by the monsters Afanc and Carrog. One of the last Afancs was killed in 1693 (!) by Edward Lloyd at Llainar Afanc on the River Conway. And in the chronicles of the Canterbury Temple (Great Britain) it is noted that on Friday, September 16, 1449, near the village of Little Conrad on the border of Suffolk and Essex, many residents observed a fight between two giant reptiles.
However, why has everything changed so much? Why did dinosaurs become extinct? Well, taking into account all the above chronicles, as well as unrecited, but well-known fairy tales, epics, legends and myths, we can safely say that the last representatives of this species were destroyed, sadly enough, by man himself. But dinosaurs were still - and paleontology does not lie - perhaps the most numerous species of living beings on our planet, and man simply physically could not serve as the main reason for their extinction. This means that there was another, much more significant reason, which sent the “terrible lizards” onto the path of extinction. The man just completed what she started. “The reason is the Yucatan meteorite!” - any more or less educated person will say now. And... he’ll make a mistake again!
Before 1991, there were several dozen theories designed to explain the inexplicable disappearance of ancient lizards - from climate change to a supernova explosion in the vicinity of the Sun. But then the Yucatan meteorite crater was discovered, and these theories were forgotten, deciding that the solution had finally been found.
Paradoxically, the main blow to this “solution” is dealt by paleontologists themselves. More precisely, their finds are the same fossilized traces that were mentioned a little earlier. Moreover, here human traces can, with a clear conscience, be left “behind the scenes” and focus specifically on the traces of dinosaurs. Because if the thessalization of bone remains is still understandable, then the thessalization of the traces does not have any reasonable explanation - neither in the light of the meteorite nor any other theory. And paleontologists, who are well aware of this, try once again not to draw attention to these prints: “Here are the traces of a dinosaur that passed here 65 million years ago... And here is its skeleton! Just look how big and scary he is, how well all his bones are preserved! And what teeth he has! With teeth like that you can easily bite through a car!.. What, marks? What about the traces? Traces are like traces, what's special about them? Don’t get distracted and look better at the bones!”
And the traces are precisely what are special, because they simply SHOULD NOT exist! Think about it - in order to preserve them for MILLIONS (!) of years they had to (for the same millions of years): a) stop raining; b) the winds blow; c) animals that can trample them will disappear. There are billions of living creatures on Earth, but nowhere and never, with the exception of the “dinosaur” period, have their traces lasted longer than a week; Usually this period is one, maximum two days. That's all! They are erased by the elements and other animals that pass by later. And there are dinosaur tracks! So what could be the reason for their persistence?
Undoubtedly, this was a catastrophe on a global scale, and the Yucatan meteorite has nothing to do with it, precisely because of the weakness of its impact on the earth’s bio- and geosphere. Its influence, even according to the wildest assumptions of astronomers, geologists and paleontologists themselves, disappeared within a radius of 2000 kilometers from the place of its fall; where could he influence the WHOLE Earth? And at the same time?
So what killed the ancient lizards?
A supernova explosion can be rejected outright: X-ray radiation - the only consequence of such an explosion that could be felt on Earth - would simply sterilize our entire planet, destroying all life, even bacteria, so now we would not discuss this issue with you. Changing of the climate? It has now been proven that dinosaurs, at least some of them, were warm-blooded, and even a sharp cold snap could not lead to their widespread death. Much more likely it would have destroyed turtles and crocodiles, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs - and calmly survived their death. What then?
In 1971, in the Gobi Desert (Mongolia), paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a Protoceratops and a Velociraptor locked in combat. Both – the predator and its prey – died STANDING, without even opening their jaws, clenched on each other. From everything it turned out that their death was unexpected for them and simultaneous, and also lightning fast. Something killed them on the spot, turning them into monuments to themselves; and after that, not only did they not fall lifeless to the ground, but for some reason more than one scavenger also did not touch them, leaving the corpses untouched.
The only reason why a body seems to freeze in the position that preceded its death is... no, not cold - even liquid nitrogen is not capable of instantly freezing a living organism, especially one as well-fed as Protoceratops, which in size and structure was very looks like a modern pig - ah... heat! Burning heat, at least 5000 degrees, leading to convulsive contraction of ligaments and tendons and instantly drying them out, as a result of which the body loses all mobility for a very long time. However, this heat should not affect the body for more than a few seconds, otherwise it will simply burn, leaving only a pile of charred bones. At the same time, such heat and the same duration leads to the sintering of the soil into a kind of concrete, on which traces of those creatures that passed through this soil shortly before it was exposed to high temperatures are perfectly preserved.
Nuclear explosion? Or, given the scale of what happened, a global nuclear war? No, although this will disappoint the adherents of lost ancient civilizations. The fact is that a nuclear conflict, like a supernova explosion, would destroy not only dinosaurs, but all living things in general, and our Earth would now be a radioactive ball covered in ash, empty and completely lifeless. Then what?
All the heat and all the energy that we have on Earth has one single source - the Sun. And it is to this that we must turn our attention in search of an answer.
The 11-year periods of activity of our central luminary have long been known. However, other cycles have been identified - secular (lasting 80-90 years) and millennial, lasting 1800-2000 years. By the way, the latter is associated with the emergence of the Sahara Desert, which some 4,000 years ago was a land full of life, water and vegetation. Surprisingly, all the “suns” of the ancient Mayans into which they divided their calendar were approximately 4,000 years long, with the exception of the last, fifth “sun,” which lasted 5,126 years. However, the Mayans are a separate conversation, but for now let’s return to our, not the calendar, but the real Sun itself.
So, approximately every eleven, 85 and 1900 years something happens to our star, and it begins to behave “inappropriately”: it flares up, bringing down on the Earth a real flurry of all kinds of radiation - X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, the consequences of which are felt by all weather-dependent – and not so much – people. Even the suicide of whales and dolphins suddenly washing ashore is now associated with these outbreaks, which disrupt the navigation of marine mammals in their native element.
We are already so accustomed to hearing about these solar storms, minimums and maximums of solar activity that we do not think about what is hidden behind these so familiar words: that the Sun pulsates and periodically explodes, like a miniature supernova, throwing off its excess energy into the surrounding space. energy. This means that much more significant fluctuations can occur on it: explosions whose energy is millions of times higher than the energy of the flares known to us. They CAN happen - and have happened! As a result of one of these explosions, which occurred about a million years ago (oh, those millions!), the melanin pigment was formed in animals and birds - and in people - which gave us black crows, black cats - and the Negroid race. This is an indisputable fact, recognized by astronomers, biologists, and paleontologists. However... the long-standing nature of what happened makes it somehow insignificant in their eyes, and they brush aside the idea that something like this can – and should! - repeat! And that one of these flash-explosions was the reason why the Earth suddenly turned into a red-hot steel-smelting furnace for a few seconds, killing the dinosaurs and preserving their traces!
So it is not asteroids or aliens that are the main threat to us, but our sun, which gave us life, but can easily take it away. It’s probably not for nothing that the Mayans still divided their history into “suns”; it seems that they, unlike us, knew perfectly well that the Sun is the beginning of all things. And - its end.

Dinosaurs are terrestrial vertebrates that lived on Earth during the Mesozoic era. They first appeared between 247 and 240 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 175 million years.

It is believed that the last dinosaurs went extinct approximately 65 million years ago. This is the end of the Cretaceous period - the last period of the Mesozoic era. There are various theories as to why this happened.

Theories about the extinction of dinosaurs have become the subject of much controversy. Scientists have not yet come to a consensus.

Huge asteroid

One of the popular theories, supported by a large number of scientists, is the theory that a huge asteroid (or group of asteroids) crashed into the Earth near the Gulf of Mexico.

The asteroid was so huge that the dust and debris that rose into the air as a result of its impact blocked the Earth from sunlight. Mountains formed at the site of the asteroid impact. The tsunami buried plants and animals under thick piles of rubble. The planet cooled and remained that way for many years. On Earth, climate conditions actually changed, and most species of animals and plants became extinct.

A deadly chain of events occurred. Without the sun, plants died. Without plants, herbivores died. Without herbivores, predators died.

There is one problem with this theory that may undermine its plausibility. Paleontologists have not found dinosaur skeletons in the rocks dating back to the period of the asteroid impact. Some evidence even suggests that all dinosaurs died before the asteroid hit Earth.

Volcanoes

There is another scientific theory that concerns volcanoes. Scientists have found plenty of evidence that even before the asteroid hit, life on Earth was already in trouble.

Multiple volcanic eruptions released molten rock and corrosive gases. They could acidify the oceans. All this could have created an imbalance in the ecosystem long before the asteroid hit.

When dinosaurs lived on Earth, the climate was most likely hot and humid. No evidence of an ice age or glaciation has been found in the rocks of this period. Carbon dioxide was close to current levels.

The ice caps at the North and South Poles have melted, causing sea levels to rise. Australia was breaking away from Antarctica and gradually moving away from the South Pole, closer to the equator.

The landscape was dominated by conifers and ferns, and the first flowering plants appeared. About half of Australia was covered by shallow inland seas.

This data was obtained from archaeological excavations of fossils found in the rocks of this region. They contain marine molluscs and large prehistoric reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Today this area is called the Great Artesian Basin.

But what happened to the climate during this period? Between the Early and Middle Cretaceous periods, Earth's climate warmed by as much as 10°C. Some scientists have linked this phase of global warming to the enormous impact of asteroids. Others attribute it to the large number of volcanic eruptions in the area that is today India and Pakistan.

Many great changes occurred during the Late Cretaceous. Continents were destroyed, volcanoes released ash and gas into the atmosphere, rapidly changing the climate. Wind and ocean currents have changed. Sea levels have dropped. Marine changes, combined with volcanic influence, may have caused the mass extinctions.

Other theories

Some scientists believe that the cause of the extinction of dinosaurs was mass diseases and epidemics (such as plague). As a result, entire populations of dinosaurs disappeared.

There are theories about the influence of space - a surge of gamma radiation damaged the Earth's ozone layer, and this led to irreversible consequences in the climate and the development of creatures.

There is also a theory about the influence of flowering plants. As a result of the spread of flowering plants on Earth, dinosaurs were poisoned by them, since such plants contain alkaloids (these are important active substances of plants).

There are a lot of theories about the extinction of dinosaurs, some seem more plausible, and some even fantastic.

It has long been known: dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period due to an asteroid falling on Earth. There is such a version. However, there is little evidence. Scientists are still speculating about the reasons for the extinction of lizards and building new hypotheses.

Asteroid

Opponents of this hypothesis studied the composition of the air in the ancient atmosphere of the Earth in rocks and sediments and came to the conclusion that the composition of the air did not change significantly during the Cretaceous period. At the end of the Cretaceous, carbon dioxide levels were about the same as 100 million years earlier, in the mid-Jurassic period.