I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Boron Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
We think that the dinosaurs died out because a very large asteroid collided with the Earth about 65 million years ago. This caused a huge amount of dust to choke up the atmosphere and reduce the Earth’s temperature significantly. The change in temperature was too much for the dinosaurs – who were (probably) cold blooded – to survive.
The asteroid crater is in Mexico at a place called Chixculub. The size of the crater matches what is needed to create a cloud big enough to cool the Earth quickly for the dinosaurs to be wiped out. The age also corresponds very well to the time most of the dinosaurs disappeared.
0
as simon said
0
Nice answer from Simon.
0
But there are some other theories… which you could find out about on the internet.
0
Simon covered the most likely theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
The extinction at the end of the other great dinosaur period the Jurassic (from movie fame) 145 million years ago is not so well understood. It was thought to be a period of intense volcanism which produced substantial changes in global climate. This may have been a cause, but why so many species were lost and so quickly remains a mystery. Such mysteries are one of the challenging, yet intriguing aspects of science.
0