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Re: Crater may reveal how dinosaurs became extinct



>Terry Colvin reports:
>
>> They will measure a crater in the Yucataan Peninsula in Mexico that
>> is believed to have been created by the impact of the meteorite or
>> comet that killed the dinosaurs.

Well, it seems that impact crater or not (what else COULD something like
that be?) dinosaurs existed through many such events---in the Triassic and
Jurassic as well.  Perhaps it was not the trigger for the extinction of
these animals, as many already argue, perhaps if it was, it just chanced to
hit at a particularly inopportune time when the number and viability of
species was in a downturn.  And whereas perhaps impacts may have served as
events to trigger evolutionary spurts before, at that particular time it
just added too much more stress to an already [at the time] particularly
stressed group of animals and "broke the camel's back".

Seth A. Ellestad.