What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?
For more than 150 million years, dinosaurs dominated Earth. They were so successful that other animal groups - mammals included - had little chance of playing anything more than secondary roles.
Then, 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs vanished from the world forever. Did they meet a quick and catastrophic end, or did they fade away gradually?
In the search for answers to what killed the dinosaurs, scientists have looked beyond fossils. Geological evidence also holds clues and has contributed to many hypotheses, working explanations of how dinosaurs may have become extinct.
The extinction mystery is far from a simple "whodunit." The same piece of evidence is sometimes subject to multiple interpretations. And, as yet, there is no obvious "smoking gun," no piece of evidence that strongly supports only one hypothesis while disproving all others. So what do we know about dinosaur extinction, and how do we know it?
Scientific evidence and observation are the building blocks of hypotheses. Initially, the same evidence and observations may support different hypotheses. As more evidence becomes available, some hypotheses are substantiated, others are disproved, and new ones are formed.
A dinosaur extinction hypothesis is a testable statement describing factors that may have contributed to the dinosaurs' demise and how long the process may have taken. Evidence, observation, and experimentation can serve to support or disprove a hypothesis. Regardless of its ultimate acceptance or rejection, though, a valid hypothesis provides direction for future scientific inquiry.
The key word used in this documentary is the word "seems."
2017.12.31 Interesting that some docu's have their year of release shown while others don't. I'm sure there is a reason for this. My current hypothesis is that if older than a certain date, the date is left off so folk won't be inclined to skip it. It would seem avid docu watchers judge whether they want to watch from the subject matter/title/description and leaving off the date serves what? To LIMIT information that is actually important. Much like the major media does continuously to manipulate the populace into thinking things are true, that are not.
If there is a date for people's comments, my system doesn't show it. So I don't know if certain comments about mining off shore frozen methane were made before or after the fact. However, Japan did so in 2013 and China in 2017, according to the Guardian and Peak Oil News respectively. Since the docu has BBC MMIV on it at the end, it "seems" the docu was released in 2004. Since it typically takes awhile for BBC docus to get here, it would seem wiser for those deciding "we are not there yet" to do a simple web search first, regarding mining the frozen methane.
Of course this is a salient point about society (and scientists) in general. They choose to believe what they want, rather than what is. People just up and decide, for no reason other than some strange ego need to believe they know something that they don't. "I don't know" is the correct answer to a great number of things. A whole new world will open up to you when you actually acknowledge that you don't know much of anything, nor does anyone else.
If you test many of the old theories still taught in school today, they don't hold up. Why do they still teach them? Why indeed. There is a reason and it is not for your benefit. It isn't that in every instance your teacher is knowingly lying (although far too many do when it comes to agendas which favor socialism, which is anti freedom any way you slice it), it is the blind leading the blind.
In another instance a commentor believes "theories" are all "peer reviewed". This is not true. If a person writes a book that is read by enough, providing a scenario for their "theory". Typically if the person has a phD and there is no apparent way to disprove the theory or it serves the political agenda driven NSF such as "ape to man evolution" or "global warming" then the agenda driven major media will find those who accept the theory and ignore those who don't, even if they have good reason and evidence against it. Socialists must abolish guns and God in order to succeed. They also must lie about or not mention (limit your information) all the freedoms you will lose as a result. That is the agenda behind many theories, to abolish God. Yet there is evidence that modern type man existed at the same time as dinosaurs. Also evidence that carbon dating is bogus.
For instance regarding writing a book, how does one prove or disprove "The Big Bang" theory? Some who have bought into it will claim there is all sorts of evidence. Which of course is simply what they want to believe.
It would seem we will become extinct like the dinosaurs if we never learn about our egos, learn to gently observe it back into its proper place. It is through our egos, eager to grow larger and take over control of you, how we are manipulated into believing many untrue things and reluctant to discard them. Any ego fears to be wrong. The problem with science is scientists with egos and politicians and other nefarious types controlling the purse strings of scientific research.
Who should control the money for scientific research? If it is taxpayers money, then the taxpayers should control it. They elect representatives to do that, who for the most part don't even bother to ask where they would like their money spent. These govt class, think you work for them and you owe them more and more. They know nothing of managing and monitoring what they are supposedly purchasing. You may think your party is doing the right things and the other isn't. That is more propaganda you choose to believe.
If YOU see to it, we have better representatives, we will get better science, better schools, better scientists, better theories. If money is limited, which it always is, where should it be spent? On making fake space station tour videos by the hairspray girls or challenging the theories we have been taught, like this docu? You decide every time you choose to do nothing but vote.
This is the best comment stream thank you to all the contributors for the awesome perspectives and thought out posts ?? Let's keep science moving forward
virus killed the dinosaurs...if there was a meteor that formed a dust cloud blocking the sun thereby creating an ice age...ALL of life would perish, not just dinosaurs...
I believe that during the big flood mentioned in the bible in Genesis 6 "Noah's Flood" killed them. The two of them which Noah took into his ship could not live as their food web was destroyed during in the flood.
Great doc. More evidence should be collected and studied... and results independently verified. The worm trails could be from washed up sand (from the tsunami) already containing worms... which just kept on making trails once they and the sand settled. An asteroid the size that hit 65 million years ago would certainly have created an enormous tsunami... and fall out would easily have buried land under several meters of ejecta, for hundreds of kilometers in every direction from the blast sight. Just look at how much debris builds up around your average volcano, after a major eruption. The ash alone is usually several meters thick. Now multiply that a billion fold for a 6 mile wide asteroid stiking at 20 times the muzzle velocity of a rifle bullet.
After realising everything I learned was a lie, I'm leaning more toward what no one else seams to be thinking and that is that Yahweh (god) might have just got rid of them, not all of them but most of them to make space for us humans. That's my theory and I'm sticking too it
So my question is What clues help scientists form their theories about what killed the dinosaurs?
The exact impact crater responsible. This crater is roughly 600 miles in diameter and is also responsible for the creation of most of the northern and Canadian rocky mountains. You will also see a volcano that is roughly 300 miles in diameter and is responsible for the creation of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Rocky Mts.
yes, yes.
After 150 million years on earth they may have died of boredom.
I think it is most commonly thought that an impact was the start of a global fire storm that cause a "nuke" winter...starvation.
I gotta check into the poo theory though:)
Sorry I forget details but I recall a theory that dinosaurs had so filled the world with mounds of their own feces that disease-carrying insects took most of them down. Lots less dramatic than a meteor.
What killed the dinosaurs on land, sea and air? Food scarcity or oxygen deprivation or some species-specific virus or a combination of all could have been their demise.
dinosaurs !!!!!! love them bruv
I think that the dinosaurs went extinct because of climate change and that some dinosaurs got extinct before the next time period. But after 65 million years the Dinosaurs suddenly experienced a climate change. That is how the ice age appeared.
Wait wait wait. I just watched the doc "the day the earth nearly died" and they said that those eruptions of the Siberian Traps killed off the dinos of the Permian era, and now they're saying they killed the dinos of the jurassic era!! Why are these doc not consistent? Boo, they should get their facts straight. I watched "the mystery of the jurassic" doc and these two docs and they're contadicting each other. That's not right. T____T"
bulgarian subtitles :D
Interesting doc.
And if we dissapear will there be some form of life that can explain how and why we left the earth?
az
Being less than a moment into the documentary, i came up with an idea. First of all, i'm not religious, quite the absolute opposite than that. But maybe, the biblical tale of the serpent, which is cursed to live without legs, has roots to actual facts. Considering Nature as a divine entity for civilizations before us and reptile artifacts spread over the globe, you got the concept of the particular story. But since the spectrum of perception was limited and the profits of the priests high, a reason for this animal's ''punishment'' had to be created. The rest is known and being taught even today.
Probably what killed them is the cavemen using them as appliances, hedge clippers, vacuum cleaners garbage disposals etc..
Aliens killed the dinosaurs with their alien diseases!!
it is always a meteorite, we are the third or even fourth or more ciclus after mass extinctions coused by meteorite catastrophe
i think Samoth Leonety's(comment no: 20) view also should be considered because epidemics can also play an important role in extinction but my only doubt is it can't spread from one continent to another. at the time of extinction continents were closer than today's. so... and if they weren't distant enough for spreading ,may be flying dinosaurs could have spread it.
i know this point has a little amount of hope but it should be given some consideration.
this doc was great and the comments are even greater than the doc.thanks vlatko and the commentators.
I love dinosaurs me!! Quality doc. Its good that the accepted theory is challenged, it can only help to further our understanding.
Earth. My mother and my home.