Re: Comet Impacts Caused Global Crises, Mass Extinctions

[garrison@efn.org (Garrison L. Hilliard)]

On another list, I was forced to make the following reply:



On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 06:41:33 -0400, "Andrew Dennis"
<Andrew.Dennis@HammondSuddards.co.uk> wrote:

>Not quite, but we probably wouldn't have quite the level of civilisation
>that we presently do.  All it takes is for there to be a few survivors of
>the initial impact, and for a few of them in turn to make it through the
>ensuing five years.  It doesn't take many members of a species as adaptable
>as us to make it through a genetic bottleneck.* 
>
>*Even some of the dinosaurs made it past the K-T event, but couldn't hack
>more than a couple of million years of the changed conditions, what with
>declining oxygen levels and a climate that was suddenly not as stable as it
>had been for the previous billion years.

This is bullshit, and I'd really like to know how you could make such anm
ignorant statement. Please tell me where dinosaur fossils have been found
above the K-T layer and, remember, sedimentary disruption of the strata
doesn't count (this ought to be good!).

[Which prompted this reply]

On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:33:01 -0100, "Andrew Dennis"
<Andrew.Dennis@HammondSuddards.co.uk> wrote:



>This is bullshit, and I'd really like to know how you could make such anm
>ignorant statement. Please tell me where dinosaur fossils have been found
>above the K-T layer and, remember, sedimentary disruption of the strata
>doesn't count (this ought to be good!).

You'll have to wait a while for this - I don't have any of my palaeontology
references here in the office, and call me an intellectual lightweight if
you will, I haven't memorised the location and dating of every fossil I
ever read about...

Working from rather hazy memory, there were ceratopsians and some of the
smaller theropods at the very least after the K-T event, but they didn't
last more than a couple of million years into the tertiary.  The fact that
there were some dinosaur survivals is exhibit A in the claim that the
extinction wasn't a catastrophic event like the Yucatan impact or the
Deccan Traps, but something more gradual, but I don't buy that one.

Whatever, details to follow as soon as I get around to it.  Or can anyone
whose paleontology is ready to hand help out?

Andrew

<Now; does anybody want to chime in?)
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