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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.

Ways to Destroy Life. Bristol University. Good site for understanding how mass extinctions happen, including short explanations concerning how you "boil it, freeze it, drop a meteor on it, or cover it with lava and ash."

Dinosaur Extinction. Morrison Natural History Museum. Good summary of the extinction and various extinction theories. Includes information on the magnitude of the extinction on land and sea; the history, strengths, and weakness of the impact theory; summaries of other theories, including volcanic eruptions--the Deccan Traps, 26-million-year "death star," supernova, galactic dust, climate change, epidemic diseases, and egg predation by mammals.

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.

Dinosaur Extinction--The Volcano-Greenhouse Theory . Dr. D. McLean’s site in which evidence is provided for a volcanic cause of the dinosaur extinction, rather than an impact. Good summary of how massive vulcanism would affect carbon cycle, illustrations of the traps, models of Deccan vulcanism, and explanations of how different types of organisms are affected by carbon cycle perturbations. Numerous links to author's technical papers and abstracts.

Dinosaur Extinction. Newton’s Apple®. A classroom exercise in which grades 10-12 students build a shoebox earth and drill for samples. The exercise is linked to a discussion about core drilling in Mexico, which suggests a meteor impact at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

 

See also Mass Extinctions Web Sites

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

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