by Ray Fauteux

Created on: April 05, 2009   Last Updated: April 22, 2009

There are many theories in the scientific community on what caused the dinosaur's sudden demise. Extinction scenarios vary from very strange and highly improbable suggestions to some very plausible conclusions that were reached after many years of scientific studies by the top experts in the field.

One outlandish theory claims that dinosaurs became extinct because of cataract blindness and if a dinosaur was not able to search out food, it eventually starved to death. Somehow it's hard to imagine monster dinosaurs falling from cliffs, running into trees, and tripping over each other. It has also been suggested that a caterpillar plague was responsible for killing all the plants that herbivores depended on for food. When the plants died, the herbivores died, and that in turn left the carnivores without a source of food. It's not really impossible that the food-chain was disrupted in some way but not too many agree with some sort of insect infestation as being the cause. There is also a school of thought that a metabolic disorder resulted in the thinning of egg shells during the crucial incubation period. Eventually the dinosaur embryos would die because of insufficient protection from predators. The theory is that in a short period of time the dinosaurs disappeared because the survival rate of the embryos was so low.

The impact of a huge asteroid is one of the more plausible and widely accepted theories of the cause of dinosaur extinction. It is believed that when a 10km wide Asteroid hit what is now known as the Yucatan Peninsula, it spawned many deadly after-effects. It is believed the initial impact might have killed every living thing in a 500km radius, but it was the huge Tsunamis, and tons of dust and debris thrown into the atmosphere that were especially deadly.

It is believed the earth was darkened for many years and this had a two-fold negative effect. First of all it made temperatures far colder than the warmer, humid conditions dinosaurs required in order to survive. Worse yet, the darkness that resulted once the rays of the sun were blocked meant plants were not able to grow as sunlight is essential to the process of photosynthesis. The blast from the impact most likely caused a chain reaction of volcanoes, earthquakes, and high winds. This also served to destroy much of the world's vegetation. When the plants died, the herbivores died from lack of food, as did the carnivores as they depended on the herbivores for sustenance. Eventually the mass extinction

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