The Geologic Scale Of Dinosaurs

It is hard to imagine that millions of years ago, the Earth was not dominated by humans, but by Dinosaurs. These great Beast’s, who were as big or bigger than cars, roamed the land. Some were giant killing machines, like the Tyrannosaurus Rex.Some are even alive today, while many people do not even notice. There have been countless theories as to how the dinosaurs became extinct.

The age of the planet Earth is estimated to be about four point six billion years old. Life on Earth is estimated to have started one billion years later. Evolution has taken place since then. Evolving life from simple forms into more complex forms through the course of time. It all began with single celled organisms, prokaryotes. Later evolving in a period of two hundred million years, cyanobacteria began to produce photosynthesis. And life went on, evolving, adapting to its home. However through this course of time, mass extinctions have taken place on planet Earth. One of the most recent mass extinctions, has as a matter of fact left various amounts of evidence of the creatures which roamed the Earth at that time. Such magnificent creatures which varied from a very small size to giant sizes. Creatures which are now known to humanity as dinosaurs. The name of this extinction was the Cretaceous-Tertiary Mass Extinction. This extinction took place roughly sixty five million years ago. It has not been too long since this incident compared to the life span of the Earth. And yet it is still unclear how this extinction occurred. Paleontologists to this day, debate on how this extinction occurred. A major factor on what caused this extinction to occur was an impact of an asteroid. Another theory such as sea level regression is considered to be the blame for the extinction. Sea level regression is the drop of sea levels which aids to explain the marine mass extinction, however

The Triassic-Jurassic extinction occurred about 210 million years ago, killing about 80 percent of all living species (“End-Triassic Extinction”). Most species were hit hard, but there were no major full-on extinctions. Still, cephalopods, sponges, corals, reptiles, and pollen and spore producing plants were hit hard. The dinosaurs, however, were lucky and survived the extinction intact. This allowed them to reign supreme for the next geological epoch (“End-Triassic Extinction”). During the time of the Triassic-Jurassic extinction, Pangea was in the process of breaking apart. This caused major volcanic activity to occur, one of the prevailing theories as to what caused this extinction (“End-Triassic Extinction”). Like during the Permian-Triassic

1) A rapid growth in a considerably short time of their life-span. Several studies suggest that dinosaurs would have reached fully adulthood at 30-35 years! (which is faster than modern day large ectotherms !). Some histological studies have shown us that dinosaurs grew very fast during the first 4-6 years in age (from babies of 60 cm to animals reaching the span of 5-7 meters in length during that time!), and even large

For years, directors have made several movies insinuating what life would be like if dinosaurs were living on Earth today, such as what dinosaurs would look like and how they would act. Archeologists, paleontologists, and other researchers have proven the existence of dinosaurs. Fossil, preserved remains, evidence dates back to over 200 million years ago (“Dinosaur”). Each fossil, or remains, gives identifying information about the creature that once lived. Experts have revealed dinosaurs to be in the reptile category. Nevertheless, not all reptiles are dinosaurs. However, aquatic, land, and air life in the Paleozoic, Mesozoic eras in which dinosaurs lived and the Cenozoic era, also known as the present time, animals share many similarities.

Mass extinction of the Dinosaurs the most dramatic extinction in the history of the Earth. ( national geographic, 2015 ) The dinosaur extinction could have been sudden or gradual depending on the cause. Scientists have thoroughly researched and finally found two major options, the asteroid impact theory and the volcanic theory, that have many similar qualities, but on the other hand are very different. These two theories could have possibly caused the extinction many years ago.

Evolutionary scientists say that dinosaurs died millions of years before man had evolved. But does the evidence support that? Could they not have lived alongside man, as so many ancient stories suggest? From the unfossilized T-Rex bone to the stories of encounters with dragons to Mokele-Mbembe in Africa are some of the pieces of evidence that support this view that goes along with the Creationist model of a Young Earth of approximately 6,000 years.

Some dinosaurs were covered with a type of body armor, and some probably had feathers, like their modern bird relatives. Some moved quickly, while others were lumbering and slow. Most dinosaurs were herbivores, or plant-eaters, but some were carnivorous and hunted or scavenged other dinosaurs in order to survive.At the time the dinosaurs arose, all of the Earth’s continents were connected together in one land mass, now known as Pangaea, and surrounded by one enormous ocean. Pangaea began to break apart into separate continents during the Early Jurassic Period (around 200 million years ago), and dinosaurs would have seen great changes in the world in which they lived over the course of their existence. Dinosaurs mysteriously disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period, around 65 million years ago. Many other types of animals, as well as many species of plants, died out around the same time, and numerous competing theories exist as to what caused this mass extinction. In addition to the great volcanic or tectonic activity that was occurring around that time, scientists have also discovered that a giant asteroid hit Earth

Placerias was, at 3.5m long, the biggest herbivore of the Late Triassic Period, whose thick, barrel-like body may have measured a little under a ton. Regardless of its appearance, Placerias was not a dinosaur, but rather a sort of well evolved creature like reptile. It was the remainder of the Dicynodonts, so with its termination that entire heredity vanished. Like different dicynodonts, Placerias had tusks which it used to uncover attaches and a snout to hack up its

The article states that dinosaurs unlike other modern reptiles are endotherms. They are able to maintain constant body temperatures in even cold weather. The article provides three reasons of support. However, the professor explains that scientists believe otherwise and refutes each of the author's reasons.

Triassic Period, The Triassic period was the first-time period of the Mesozoic era. This period occurred between 251 to 199 Million years ago. This was the period of diversification of the earth's ecology especially the marine creatures. Triassic Period is often known as the age of reptiles because there were a group of animals and plants that were extinct the Permian Extinction: One called the Therapsids, which were mammal-like reptiles, spiders, millipedes, scorpion, and centipedes but there was a new insect group of the Triassic period was the grasshoppers. Mosses and fern survived in the coastal regions you could find Lycopodiopsid, Puzzlegrass, Conifers, Cycad plants. Geologists said this period began and end when the large extinction

“Maybe a torrid climate dried up the available sources of water, some say. Maybe it was lava that covered the land, poisoned the air, and brought on an ice age. Maybe too many early mammals dined on too many dino eggs, or the meat-eating dinosaurs ate up all the vegetarian ones. Maybe the need to find water led to massive migrations that spread diseases. Maybe the real problem was a reconfiguration of land masses, caused by tectonic shifts” ( DeGrasse Tyson, Neil. "Knock 'Em Dead." Alabama Virtual Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.). Father-and-son scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez discovered a distinct layer of iridium that corresponds to the precise time the dinosaurs died. With this information it suggests that a comet, asteroid or meteor impact could be the cause of the extinction of

The Cretaceous period was the last and longest part of the Mesozoic Era. This period of time lasted around 79 million years! It lasted from the end of the Jurassic Period’s extinction (145 million years ago) to the beginning of the Paleogene Period (65.5 million years ago.) In this time, the earth’s continents were not in the same shape as they are today. Pangea, the supercontinent, was still drifting apart from itself. The ocean was still separating Northern Laurasia and Southern Gondwana, however the North and South Atlantic were still closed. The Central Atlantic had already started to open up during the Jurassic Period. By the middle of the Cretaceous Period, the ocean levels had risen and the placement of the continents were similar to what they are today. South America and Africa had gotten their shapes by this time, but India and Asia did not join yet, nor did Australia separate from Antarctica.

Jurassic is a period of time with Dinosaurs, rodents and birds. There were also island seas consisting of sharks, sea monsters and blood-red planktons. The existing plants in that period were cycads, ferns and conifers. The Mesozoic era was about 245 million years ago to 65 years ago, so it almost lasted about 180 years in total. The Mesozoic era is divided into three periods of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Mesozoic era means middle animals and it is the era, which the word’s fauna has changed from what is in the Paleozoic era and the most famous organisms of this era are dinosaurs. In the Mesozoic era, the extinction of more than 90 percent of species in the earth was observed and the reason behind it was mostly volcanic eruptions and climate changes. On the other hand, this era had massive changes that represented ecological niches and rise to new creatures such as rodent-size mammals and first dinosaurs. In Triassic, which was the first period of Mesozoic, the mammals and first dinosaurs existed. Later than that, the second period was Jurassic, which giant shaped dinosaurs and other kinds of dinosaurs were developed. Besides that the first flowering plants and primitive birds, with long teeth appeared in that era as well.

The Cenozoic Era is 65.5 million years ago to the present. You might be asking yourself on what exactly is the Cenozoic Era is. To answer your question, the Cenozoic Era is usually called the age of mammals, since the largest land animals to ever live we’re mammals at that time. The Cenozoic era is consisted of three different time periods which consist of the Paleogene (65.5 to 23.03 million years ago), The neogene (23.03 to 2.6 million years ago), and the Quaternary eras (2.6 million years ago to present). An Important event that occurred in the Cenozoic Era would be a asteroid slamming, “ into the coast of present day mexico”, 65 million years ago. Because of this, it caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, such as the brontosaurus.