by Betty Carew

Created on: April 05, 2009   Last Updated: April 18, 2009

There are many theories on how dinosaurs became extinct from the realistic to the ridiculous. With the many reasons given the most popular one at the moment is the asteriod theory and there are good reasons for this. Scientist know that a huge asteriod hit our planet approximately 65 million years ago which coinsides with the extinction of the dinosaur.We can consider each theory that is given and decide which explanation is more feasible.

Asteroids

There is proof that an asteroid did hit the earth sixty five million years ago. There is proof that the asteroid was over nine miles wide and struck on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. Asteroids are not rare even today, in reality; they still strike our planet but the size that falls to our planet today is miniscule to what hit the earth 65 million years ago. A nine mile asteroid would have devastated our planet drastically and not merely from the immediate impact but it would also be the aftermath of this collision. It would alter the atmosphere all over the world, it would cause massive forest fires that would burn through entire countries and there would be devastating storms that would take place in the atmosphere. It would cause such poor air quality that anything living out in the open would find it difficult to escape. There would be massive tidal waves from ocean to ocean but the most catastrophic of all, it would eradicate all sunlight from the earth for longer than six months. This would result in the eradication of seventy percent of all life on earth. The only life that would survive a catastrophe such as this would be the animals that could hide out for the duration of this upheaval deep into the earth. Although there is defining substantiation that the asteriod did hit the earth we can assume this is what happened to the dinosaurs. This therory it is a very logical one and one that is widely acknowledged in the field of science.

The Greenhouse Effect

Some people's have a therory that the extinction of the dinosaurs came from the greenhouse effect. This scenario would be the earth's atmosphere trapping all solar radiation caused by the collection of gases, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane, which allow inward bound light to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth's surface with no place to escape. In a simpler form this means it would be like a blanket covering the earth where no heat could escape and temperature would rise drastically makeing the earth scorching

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