Re: K/T Extinction

[Andrea Kirk <kirkam@wam.umd.edu>]

Extinction theories?? Oh, it's going to be a busy day. :)

To this, I would have to say "other".  Extreme volcanism and the subsequent
retreat of shallow seaways would have rattled the Cretaceous environments
badly.  Also, we can see a slow decline in dinosaur diversity in the late
Cretaceous (thinking of western North America here).  Was this caused by the
changes brought on by seaway retreat? Could be. (Oh, Dr. Holtz...I'm so ashamed.
I'm getting rusty already.)  Anyway, things were going downhill before the
asteroid hit. Call it the final blow, but I think dinosaurs and some of the
other Cretaceous/Mesozoic critters were on the way out anyway...

Andrea Kirk
University of Maryland
http://animedomain.com/xianghua