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Dinosaur Extinction Web Sites

• Dinosaur Extinctions, Enchanted Learning Software®. Provides information and colorful graphics about mass extinctions, the asteroid theory for the Cretaceous extinction, other theories for the dinosaur’s extinctions, and explains how scientists study and test these theories.
• DinoBuzz--What Killed the Dinosaurs? University of California, Berkeley. This site provides a description of mass extinctions, what types of animals and plants died during the Cretaceous extinction, and an interesting list that shows how scientists test extinction hypotheses. A section on Invalid Hypotheses discusses theories that most scientists no longer believe in. The Current Arguments section discusses the many different theories that are presently debated concerning the Cretaceous extinction, their common ground, and their differences.
• Big 5 mass extinction events. BBC (British Broadcasting System).  Short, easy-to-read summary of possible causes for this mass extinction event, as wells as information on the other four major mass extinctions.
• Lecture 24--The Impact Theory of Mass Extinction. Columbia University. Part of an online lecture series for Dinosaurs and the History of Life. Presents the history of the impact theory, from its original origins to the multiple lines of testing and different types of data that have been used to support the theory.
• Blast from the Past!, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution site that offers a short description of the evidence for a meteor or comet impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary collected from cores in the Gulf of Mexico. There is also a reference list of journal articles (some on line) concerning the possible impact.
• Impacts and Dinosaur Extinctions, A site of the Planetary Society®, a non-profit society founded by Carl Sagan. This site provides provides information about the theory that a comet or meteor impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Transcripts and images from several field expeditions to Belize and surrounding countrys describe the evidence for a catastrophic impact.
• Researchers Drill into Dinosaur Crater . BBC News, 2000. Short report on drilling into the Yucatan to find evidence for the K-T impact. Picture of the space rock and short summaries of various theories about what type of dust was ejected into the atmosphere after the impact.
• Dino Crater Viewed from Space . BBC News, 2003. Space Shuttle image of the Yucatan peninsula showing the tell-tale outline of the buried crater.
• Quick Demise for the Dinosaurs. BBC News, 2001. Summary of research that concludes that dinosaurs became extinct within 10,000 years of the impact. Good short explanation of extinction theories, including volcanic theory, with some images.
• 100 Greatest Discoveries: KT Asteroid. How Stuff Works with Bill Nye.  Short on-line video that shows Walter Alvarez talking about the KT boundary layer, an animation of the asteroid impact, and a video of Meteor Crater in Arizona for comparison to the KT impact crater (7 minutes).
• American Dinosaurs: Dinosaur extinction. How Stuff Works. Short on-line video showing an asteroid impact and the extinction of the dinosaurs by blast, heat, etc. (5 minutes).
• Unraveling the Chicxulub case. Sever, M., Geotimes. Easy-to-read summary of the search for a meteor crater following the proposal of the Alvarez asteroid theory in 1980, the discovery of Chicxulub, and the research that followed the initial discovery. A sidebar also discusses research on modelling the effects of an impact on climate.
• Earth suffered pulses of misery….Science news, 2002. Short summary of research that models global wildfires that would have been formed by the impact of the meteorite in the Yucatan peninsula at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
• Chunk of death-dealing asteroid found. Monastersky, R., Science News Online. Short summary of the discovery of a tiny fragment of a meteorite fragment from the K-T boundary layer in the Pacific Ocean that is likely a fragment of the meteor that collided with the Yucatan peninsula.

Some key references (technical articles): impact theory

Some key references (technical articles): other theories

Compilations of research papers

Books

 

See also Mass Extinctions Web Sites

See also Earth History Web Sites (links to mass extinctions by period)

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