Mass Extinction And The Milky Way: Article Analysis

8. The periods in which there were mass extinctions are Permian – volcanic eruptions which spewed lava and put CO2 into the air which warmed the climate an estimated 6 degrees Celsius. The resulting of oxygen deficiency. And Cretaceous – asteroid or comet

Have you ever wonder “why” dinosaurs went extinct? Here is a theory of why the dinosaurs don't exist in today's world. A long time ago the only thing that existed was animals called ‘dinosaurs” they were the only living things on planet earth. These dinosaurs were unique because they could talk but nobody could understand them, it was like their secret “code” language. These dinosaurs lived a happy and healthy life until the small explosion changed the life of these dinosaures. Just few miles away from earth a fight started between two planets called ‘Sun’ and “Moon’. The argument was about who would shine more light on earth. The argument went to the point where they started to shoot fireballs at the moon and then the moon started to throw rocks at the sun. During the fight one the fireballs misses it's target (moon) and made its was towards the earth but “apparently” there was space ship traveling the universe full of aliens and the fireball came in its path which made space ship crashed on Earth including the huge fireball. The fireball was so powerful that it almost brought everything that came in its path such as rocks, asteroids and much more. When the space ship crashed on planet Earth creating a loud bang, making the dinosaurs frighten in terror. Then the biggest problem in Earth’s history step out of the broken space ship. There were 5 weird aliens that step out of the space ship. They had very big heads that looked like blue almonds. When the aliens step out they

The amazing amount of radiation coming from the disk of gas is ripping the galaxy apart.

Dinosaurs ruled the earth for over 65 million years and thankfully for the human race, they became extinct. Ultimately, only a major catastrophe could completely wipe out an entire species, let alone an entity of dinosaurs and the debacle on the causes of dinosaur extinction have flooded the minds of paleontologists for centuries. Geologist and zoologist Stephen Jay Gould published “Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” to compare scientific and speculative causes of dinosaur decimation. Personally, I found this passage very informational and enjoyed reading it. Gould provides three theories that capture the reader’s curiosity, allowing room for pondering in one’s mind.

<b>Introduction</b><br>Think of a world which existed 290 million years ago. As you look out over the terane in front of you, you think that you are on an alien planet. You see volcanoes spewing ash and lava. Beside them is the ocean which is swarming with many different species of echinoderms, bryozoans and brachiopods. As you look down onto the sea floor you are amazed at the countless number of starfish and urchins. Some animals leave you can't even describe and you have no idea even what phylum they belong to. This is a world at its height in diversity of oceanic species. Millions of wonderous species existed at this time in the ocean and most of them will never appear again in earth's history. In the geologic time scale, a million

Science AOL Task There are many theories on how the dinosaurs became extinct over 65 million years ago. The theory that is most common, is the asteroid theory. The asteroid theory proposes that an asteroid hit the Earth, resulting in overwhelming amounts of ash pouring into the atmosphere. Another theory is the volcanic eruption theory.

Asteroids are revolving rocks that move around the Sun and the Alvarez asteroid theory suggests that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by the large impact of an asteroid hitting the earth around 65 million years ago. The main piece of evidence to backup this theory is that there was a huge discovering in Chuxculub, Mexico in 1990, a large crater was found buried in the ground (Cash

The Cambrian Explosion, which happened 541 million years ago, marks a date when a huge number of complex, multi-celled organisms began developing all over the world. This burst of different species eventually led to the development of most well known creatures today. Scientists used the huge number of new fossils to determine a date through radioactive or carbon-40 dating. However, like most good things this huge outburst had to come to an end. A huge event nearing the end of the Paleozoic Era is the Permian Extinction. 251 million years ago marks the end of the Paleozoic Era with a bang: wiping out 90 percent of all earth's organisms. Theorized to be cause by acidic rain and volcanic fumes, the Permian Extinction is known by some scientists as the largest murder mystery ever. Through an even larger increase in fossils than before, scientists yet again determined the date of these fossils by using radioactive or carbon-40 dating. As the Paleozoic Era is nearing its end the next era is right on the

Was it the confluence of events outlined in this review (including the prevailing global climate, volcanism), or are some of these factors secondary? For example, we have little idea of the mass of methane hydrates in the Late Permian ocean floor. These and many other questions will need to be addressed before we fully resolve the cause of the end-Permian mass extinction. However, there is a growing realisation that flood basalt volcanism has the potential to be the primary trigger for mass extinctions, rather than meteorite impacts or other external

So what killed the dinosaurs? Without having any background education in science it is hard for the general public to comprehend such matters and they rely on the knowledge of the scientists in this field. Although there has been much research on the subject nobody has come up with a conclusive answer. And we are left to read the countless articles, all having their own opinions as to the mass extinction. One such theory is that a shift in the solar system could have caused the mass destruction. According to an article published in Nature magazine,

According to the research made by Alvarez (1980), it was due to an asteroid impact that single-handedly destroyed dinosaurs to extinction. Advocacy of this mechanism has been aided by the availability and tangibility of supporting evidence in the form of impact craters- the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula's date and timing of impact (dating produced an almost exact date of 65 million years ago), location, enormous size-170 km (Hildebrand et al.1991) and its high iridium content ( a metal not commonly found at the Earth's surface) make it seem that with a theoretical asteroid 10 km big caused the crater great damage at the end of the Cretaceous (Alvarez et al. 1980).

There have been five well known extinctions on this earth. The one most well known is the mass extinction that ended the dinosaurs. Mass extinction is often described as the elimination of a large number of species in a short period of time. Despite what many think, the elimination of species is almost commonplace at this point. The Earth is currently in the middle of a sixth mass extinction, and it’s been caused by the human race.

Nobody knows for sure exactly how the dinosaurs became extinct. However scientists have speculated for decades about possible events that caused the dinosaurs to die out. Possibilities range from asteroids, to volcanoes, to climate changes. One of the more popular or well-known extinction theories involves the belief that an asteroid struck the Earth, causing devastating effects, and triggering mass extinctions around the end of the Cretaceous period.

The power and magnitude of the asteroid is greater than we could ever imagine. If all the world’s atomic weapons went off simultaneously it still wouldn’t cause as much damage as this asteroid did (Erdman). The enormous impact forced large clouds of dust into the air, these clouds blocked the sun causing darkness and extreme climate changes (“What Killed the Dinosaurs”). Out of all the extinction theories the asteroid theory has the most evidence backing it up. As time movies by layers of rock form in the Earth’s crust. The rock formed in the layer around formed the time of extinction contains abnormally large amounts of iridium, a metal found only in asteroids (Erdman). Another piece of evidence found in the rock is impact ejecta. Impact ejecta results from an explosion instantly melting bedrock and throwing it into the air. An abundance of impact ejecta in the rock layer formed near the dinosaur’s extinction suggests that a large asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs (“What Killed the Dinosaurs”). Scientists can locate a layer of rock that formed during extinction because all fossils of a certain species show up under or in a rock layer but never above (“What Killed the Dinosaurs”). “The crater-like shape of the area, the layer rick in iridium and the age of the rocks all lend weight to the theory” (“Eden Channel”).

Extinction is the natural path of all species. All species are either being developed, extant, or in the process of becoming extinct. However, there have been 5 times in the earth’s history in which a tremendous amount of extinctions took place in a relatively short period of time. The largest of these mass extinctions was the K-T extinction which wiped out much of the earth’s species, including the dinosaurs. Scientists have firm evidence that a large comet struck the earth at the tip of the Yucatan peninsula causing a large change in habitats and the earth’s atmosphere.