• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Fossil Site Reveals Day That Meteor Hit Earth and, Maybe, Wiped Out Dinosaurs

Stealers Wheel said:
FAKE NOOZ! Every Christian evangelical knows that this could not have happened because it would have also wiped out Adam and Eve's descendants. The dinosaurs were wiped out because there was no room on the ark for them. DUH!
Click to expand...
Post of the Day!
 
Napoleon said:
I’d say probably not. What they found are marine specimens.
Click to expand...

Well, the article states that dinosaurs were found in abundance, although it’s not part of the paper.

Unless this is setting up as an epic fraud (like cold fusion), it looks like there’s a lot of substance here.
 
j-mac said:
Put me down for not taking anything you say seriously then....
Click to expand...

Great!!!!!!!!

As a TRumpet, my insightful posts would only confuse you and give you a headache.
 
Erod said:
He's brilliant. How many socialists do you know that have three homes worth more than a million, financed by public service jobs?
Click to expand...

As long as you continue to believe that socialism is some monolithic confiscatory Soviet-Cuban-Venezuelan cookie cutter model, that will remain a mystery to you.

I could attempt to explain that it's not, in the same way that not all Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or even ham radio operators are the same, but I doubt it would reach through that thick binary mindset of yours, or that you'd even allow it to moderate your vindictive and somewhat Bircherite paranoia.

I could even attempt to explain that Sanders pretty much embraces what FDR set forth in the New Deal, and that Sanders is more of a social democrat (which is a capitalist who mixes a tiny amount of socialism INTO their capitalism like A1 sauce on a steak) but you'd probably ignore that, too.

I could even try to explain that Americans have been enjoying their socialism mixed into their capitalism for well over a generation, only they are frightened of the label itself, but they have managed to benefit from the few mild quasi-socialist tweaks which still remain today, but you'd deny it.

And of course, in the end, for you anyway, it's really just all about you getting the euphoric "stick it to the libtards" buzz because you think you've scored a hit by attempting to portray Sanders as some kind of hypocrite because he's not wearing the regulation socialist sackcloth, ashes and IWW red hat and living in poverty like a good little prole.

Did you want a cookie?
 
Last edited:
Threegoofs said:
Well, the article states that dinosaurs were found in abundance, although it’s not part of the paper.

Unless this is setting up as an epic fraud (like cold fusion), it looks like there’s a lot of substance here.
Click to expand...

It’s not dinosaurs, but it’s still cool.
 
Stealers Wheel said:
FAKE NOOZ! Every Christian evangelical knows that this could not have happened because it would have also wiped out Adam and Eve's descendants. The dinosaurs were wiped out because there was no room on the ark for them. DUH!
Click to expand...

JesusDinosaur.jpg
 
noonereal said:
Great!!!!!!!!

As a TRumpet, my insightful posts would only confuse you and give you a headache.
Click to expand...

:roll: good grief....Do you know how ridiculous you look here?

I think it is great that our scientists have found a treasure trove of materiel to study that can expand knowledge as to what happened when the dinosaurs went extinct...It's interesting as hell...But, sadly people like you can't put their political differences aside long enough to agree on this one simple point, and have to just come in here and **** all over any and every thread you can...Why don't you just can it, and get to topic.
 
Very cool.


And much appreciate the additional information from those willing to share.


It's great when we can put politics aside for even a little bit and come together to enjoy a fascinating bit of history.
 
Napoleon said:
I’d say probably not. What they found are marine specimens.
Click to expand...
Red:
"An estimated 50-80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space [, a volumetric, not areal, term,] on the planet. Less than 10% of that space has been explored by humans." (Source)
​

Um...We call Earth the "Blue Planet" because 70% of it even now is covered water. 65 Million years ago sea levels were high enough that, as the images in post 18 show, even more of the planet was submerged. So, of course, what they found are marine specimens. Then, as now, most of the planet's lifeforms lived in the water.

When it comes to encountering fossils of lifeforms from 65 million years ago, we are limited in what we can and will find. Much that lived and died in the oceans will simply never be discoverable because dying the in oceans means the thing will either sink to the bottom, which we can't very well explore, or get eaten on the way to the bottom, which means we won't happen upon it to begin with. What we will happen upon are lifeforms that dwelt in water locales whereby some set of circumstances, often recession of the water itself, preserved them before their endo-/exoskeletons could be eaten, "dissolved" or compressed into oil or coal. Of course, we also can find fossils of lifeforms that weren't ocean dwellers.


FWIW, it is also true that the vast majority of known species are land species. That's very easily explained: humans can, with relatively little ado, traverse the land and find them.
 
j-mac said:
:roll: good grief....Do you know how ridiculous you look here?

I think it is great that our scientists have found a treasure trove of materiel to study that can expand knowledge as to what happened when the dinosaurs went extinct...It's interesting as hell...But, sadly people like you can't put their political differences aside long enough to agree on this one simple point, and have to just come in here and **** all over any and every thread you can...Why don't you just can it, and get to topic.
Click to expand...

Lignten up. You are way to serious.

This is very cool stuff to discover.

Maybe Trump will fund a full excavation? :lamo
 
Xelor said:
Red:
"An estimated 50-80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space [, a volumetric, not areal, term,] on the planet. Less than 10% of that space has been explored by humans." (Source)
​

Um...We call Earth the "Blue Planet" because 70% of it even now is covered water. 65 Million years ago sea levels were high enough that, as the images in post 18 show, even more of the planet was submerged. So, of course, what they found are marine specimens. Then, as now, most of the planet's lifeforms lived in the water.

When it comes to encountering fossils of lifeforms from 65 million years ago, we are limited in what we can and will find. Much that lived and died in the oceans will simply never be discoverable because dying the in oceans means the thing will either sink to the bottom, which we can't very well explore, or get eaten on the way to the bottom, which means we won't happen upon it to begin with. What we will happen upon are lifeforms that dwelt in water locales whereby some set of circumstances, often recession of the water itself, preserved them before their endo-/exoskeletons could be eaten, "dissolved" or compressed into oil or coal. Of course, we also can find fossils of lifeforms that weren't ocean dwellers.


FWIW, it is also true that the vast majority of known species are land species. That's very easily explained: humans can, with relatively little ado, traverse the land and find them.
Click to expand...

Yes, but none of this lends anything to the impact hypothesis. The problem being that the K-T boundary is not the termination point it’s proponents make it out to be. There are all sorts of bits and bobs of horn and teeth extending 1 million years into the Paleocene. The proponents of the impact hypothesis try to explain this by saying, well the fossils must have been eroded from the original rock and redeposited in later layers. Dubious, perhaps, but the biggest problem with the hypothesis isn’t what is in the fossil record but what it absent from it.

What has yet to be explained by proponents is why there are no dinosaurs, or at least no more evidence of dinosaurs than exist in the Paleocene layers, in the 300,000+ or so years leading up to the K-T boundary. The simple answer is that the impact could not have killed off the dinosaurs because they were already dead.
 
Threegoofs said:
Much of the Great Plains were a shallow sea.

The Tsunami might not have come from Mexico- it may have been a seiche- massive earthquakes causing shallow bodies of water to slosh around.
Click to expand...

New Mexico, one of the mountainous states, was was once shallow sea. And as geological forces pushed the mountains up out of the sea, we were rain forest for awhile. Now all these many millions of years later, the state is mostly desert and alpine terrain and has the least surface water of all 50 states. Yet forming the eastern boundary of our largest city, the Sandia Mountains rise to a maximum of 10,678 feet above sea level. And up there you can clearly see the ancient sea fossils embedded in rocks.

Our planet almost seems like a living organism itself and is constantly changing in amazing ways. It would be interesting to see how it will look 100 million years from now and it most likely will be here as our sun isn't scheduled to burn out for another 4 or 5 billion years.
 
AlbqOwl said:
New Mexico, one of the mountainous states, was was once shallow sea. And as geological forces pushed the mountains up out of the sea, we were rain forest for awhile. Now all these many millions of years later, the state is mostly desert and alpine terrain and has the least surface water of all 50 states. Yet forming the eastern boundary of our largest city, the Sandia Mountains rise to a maximum of 10,678 feet above sea level. And up there you can clearly see the ancient sea fossils embedded in rocks.

Our planet almost seems like a living organism itself and is constantly changing in amazing ways. It would be interesting to see how it will look 100 million years from now and it most likely will be here as our sun isn't scheduled to burn out for another 4 or 5 billion years.
Click to expand...

Indeed, a living system, the Earth.

I was under the impression that the Chicxulub impact causing the KT boundary and the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and many other life forms was generally accepted theory.
 
AlbqOwl said:
New Mexico, one of the mountainous states, was was once shallow sea. And as geological forces pushed the mountains up out of the sea, we were rain forest for awhile. Now all these many millions of years later, the state is mostly desert and alpine terrain and has the least surface water of all 50 states. Yet forming the eastern boundary of our largest city, the Sandia Mountains rise to a maximum of 10,678 feet above sea level. And up there you can clearly see the ancient sea fossils embedded in rocks.

Our planet almost seems like a living organism itself and is constantly changing in amazing ways. It would be interesting to see how it will look 100 million years from now and it most likely will be here as our sun isn't scheduled to burn out for another 4 or 5 billion years.
Click to expand...

Those fossils predate the Cretaceous by 100-200 million years.

If I recall, all the fossils in the Sandias and Sangre De Cristos are Pennsylvanian, which was pre- or proto- dinosaur age.
 
Threegoofs said:
Those fossils predate the Cretaceous by 100-200 million years.

If I recall, all the fossils in the Sandias and Sangre De Cristos are Pennsylvanian, which was pre- or proto- dinosaur age.
Click to expand...

Pennsylvanian fossils dated roughly 300 or so million years ago and Mississipian fossils that are 50 or 60 million years older. The Sandias themselves are young mountains formed some 35 to 40 million years ago. The Sangre de Cristos are the southern end of the Rocky Mountains and are younger yet being pushed up if I remember right roughly 27-28 million years ago.
 
Napoleon said:
Yes, but none of this lends anything to the impact hypothesis. The problem being that the K-T boundary is not the termination point it’s proponents make it out to be. There are all sorts of bits and bobs of horn and teeth extending 1 million years into the Paleocene. The proponents of the impact hypothesis try to explain this by saying, well the fossils must have been eroded from the original rock and redeposited in later layers. Dubious, perhaps, but the biggest problem with the hypothesis isn’t what is in the fossil record but what it absent from it.

What has yet to be explained by proponents is why there are no dinosaurs, or at least no more evidence of dinosaurs than exist in the Paleocene layers, in the 300,000+ or so years leading up to the K-T boundary. The simple answer is that the impact could not have killed off the dinosaurs because they were already dead.
Click to expand...

I think the central assertion you've made -- the absence of land-living dinosaurs (dinos) in the fossil record of ~300K years prior to the "KT event" shows dinos died out before the "KT event" -- relies on previously, until about 2003, extant stratigraphic-dating resolution limits for terrestrial life at the 66-million-year and older "level" of the fossil record. Your assertion is certain plausible, and reasonable as a question to ask about "KT event" caused dino extinction theory, but to be more than just plausible it must also be supported by positive etiology of dinos' extinction. As the content at the preceding link indicates, pre-KT event climate change and pole shifting apparently didn't.

I don't know whether some scientists have presented a hypothesis that matches the structure your assertion (or what I've summarized as the thesis of your assertion), but I do know the logical structure of your remarks is "we can't find thing X that we expect to find prior to event Y; therefore something prior to event Y, not event Y, caused the non-existence of thing X." Now that's not terrible reasoning, but it calls for a very different declaration, specifically a qualified one, than the one you made, which is an unqualified one.

The thing is that in science, one cannot say a given theory is wrong simply because it doesn't answer XYZ question, particularly if the theory answers tons of other questions and/or is corroborated (directly and indirectly) by tons of other findings. What you've presented may be a happenstance KT-event-driven dino extinction theory hasn't yet answered, but it's not a death sentence to the theory writ large.


See:
 
Xelor said:
I think the central assertion you've made -- the absence of land-living dinosaurs (dinos) in the fossil record of ~300K years prior to the "KT event" shows dinos died out before the "KT event" -- relies on previously, until about 2003, extant stratigraphic-dating resolution limits for terrestrial life at the 66-million-year and older "level" of the fossil record. Your assertion is certain plausible, and reasonable as a question to ask about "KT event" caused dino extinction theory, but to be more than just plausible it must also be supported by positive etiology of dinos' extinction. As the content at the preceding link indicates, pre-KT event climate change and pole shifting apparently didn't.

I don't know whether some scientists have presented a hypothesis that matches the structure your assertion (or what I've summarized as the thesis of your assertion), but I do know the logical structure of your remarks is "we can't find thing X that we expect to find prior to event Y; therefore something prior to event Y, not event Y, caused the non-existence of thing X." Now that's not terrible reasoning, but it calls for a very different declaration, specifically a qualified one, than the one you made, which is an unqualified one.

The thing is that in science, one cannot say a given theory is wrong simply because it doesn't answer XYZ question, particularly if the theory answers tons of other questions and/or is corroborated (directly and indirectly) by tons of other findings. What you've presented may be a happenstance KT-event-driven dino extinction theory hasn't yet answered, but it's not a death sentence to the theory writ large.


See:
Click to expand...

The problem with the K-T extinction theory is the distinct absence of evidence to support it. The only evidence ever offered in support of it is that there are no dinosaur fossils after the boundary. But, as I’ve pointed out, that isn’t entirely true and the explaination offered for that is somewhat dubious and could apply to any fossil for that matter. But even if we accept that explaination, the cutoff point in the fossil record is long before the boundary. It would be a good explaination for the global extinction of the dinosaurs if there were evidence of a global mass extinction at that time or even evidence of dinosaurs in the layers immediately preceding it, but there isn’t. So, from a scientific standpoint, why should impact hypothesis be accepted as an explaination of an extinction event that has no contemporary evidence of having occurred?
 
Napoleon said:
It’s not dinosaurs, but it’s still cool.
Click to expand...

Honestly sea reptiles are still pretty cool. When I was little my library had this show called "Prehistoric Planet" which was Walking With Dinosaurs but like re-dubbed for kids and the episode they did with Liopleuradon was always my favorite.
 
Napoleon said:
The problem with the K-T extinction theory is the distinct absence of evidence to support it. The only evidence ever offered in support of it is that there are no dinosaur fossils after the boundary. But, as I’ve pointed out, that isn’t entirely true and the explaination offered for that is somewhat dubious and could apply to any fossil for that matter. But even if we accept that explaination, the cutoff point in the fossil record is long before the boundary. It would be a good explaination for the global extinction of the dinosaurs if there were evidence of a global mass extinction at that time or even evidence of dinosaurs in the layers immediately preceding it, but there isn’t. So, from a scientific standpoint, why should impact hypothesis be accepted as an explaination of an extinction event that has no contemporary evidence of having occurred?
Click to expand...

It'd be nice if you were to refer to specific research documentation because, frankly, I'm not going to just "take your word for it." (If you care to yield your anonymity and declare yourself as a specific paleontologist, geochronologist, etc., fine; I'll "verify" your "bonafides" and call/email you at your place of work as researchers in this discipline aren't particularly hard to contact. I'm not willing to yield my anonymity -- it is what allows me to be as forthright as I have been, for some of what I've shared would be imprudent, shall we say, for me to express in association with my name -- which is why I provide reference materials rather than bidding folks to "take my word for it.")

I suspect I know what specific findings you're referring to, but insofar as you've not cited them, I'm not going to presume I'm right, and I'm certainly not going to waste my time trying to refute a nebulous claim, particularly one presented absent a specific alternative explanation that is supported with credible reference material, for which you've provided no reference that I can review.

I cannot defend or refute any given paleologic theory because I'm not a paleontologist of some stripe or a geochronologist. I can only read extant documentation and assess its rigor and the soundness of its conclusion based on its methodology. If you don't provide specific references, I cannot evaluate them or your claims that may be based on them.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Honestly sea reptiles are still pretty cool. When I was little my library had this show called "Prehistoric Planet" which was Walking With Dinosaurs but like re-dubbed for kids and the episode they did with Liopleuradon was always my favorite.
Click to expand...

Red/Off-topic:
Good on you for recalling that name. There's no way I'd remember a name like that from any point in the "when I was little" phase of my minority.
 
Xelor said:
Red/Off-topic:
Good on you for recalling that name. There's no way I'd remember a name like that from any point in the "when I was little" phase of my minority.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I did watch the show approximately nine hundred and sixty three times. Stuff sticks with you lol
 
Xelor said:
It'd be nice if you were to refer to specific research documentation because, frankly, I'm not going to just "take your word for it." (If you care to yield your anonymity and declare yourself as a specific paleontologist, geochronologist, etc., fine; I'll "verify" your "bonafides" and call/email you at your place of work as researchers in this discipline aren't particularly hard to contact. I'm not willing to yield my anonymity -- it is what allows me to be as forthright as I have been, for some of what I've shared would be imprudent, shall we say, for me to express in association with my name -- which is why I provide reference materials rather than bidding folks to "take my word for it.")

I suspect I know what specific findings you're referring to, but insofar as you've not cited them, I'm not going to presume I'm right, and I'm certainly not going to waste my time trying to refute a nebulous claim, particularly one presented absent a specific alternative explanation that is supported with credible reference material, for which you've provided no reference that I can review.

I cannot defend or refute any given paleologic theory because I'm not a paleontologist of some stripe or a geochronologist. I can only read extant documentation and assess its rigor and the soundness of its conclusion based on its methodology. If you don't provide specific references, I cannot evaluate them or your claims that may be based on them.
Click to expand...

There’s a lot to cover and a lot of competing hypothesis to go through. I’ll try to stick to some of the highlights. The first is the notion that the extinction of the dinosaurs was a sudden conquence of the Chicxulub impact rather than a capstone on gradual trend towards extinction that began long before it. A number of studies over the years have challenged that assertion of the impact hypothesis. An interesting and relatively recent study does a great job in pointing out that the dinosaurs were in decline for millions of years prior to the impact.

D75803DE-FEA1-44C8-A3ED-EE6A99581149.jpg

The above chart, taken from the study, highlights the fact that speciation among the three major suborders (theropods, sauropods, and ornithischia) began its decline in the mid-Triassic and the extinction rates finally exceeded speciation in the early Cretaceous - tens of millions years before Chicxulub. So if it isn’t the sole and sudden cause of the extinction of an otherwise thriving population of dinosaurs , as impact hypothesis insists it is, then what did it lend? Turns out, significantly less than originally thought. More on that and the work of Gerta Keller in a later post.
 
Last edited:
Napoleon said:
There’s a lot to cover and a lot of competing hypothesis to go through. I’ll try to stick to some of the highlights. The first is the notion that the extinction of the dinosaurs was a sudden conquence of the Chicxulub impact rather than a capstone on gradual trend towards extinction that began long before it. A number of studies over the years have challenged that assertion of the impact hypothesis. An interesting and relatively recent study does a great job in pointing out that the dinosaurs were in decline for millions of years prior to the impact.

View attachment 67253871

The above chart, taken from the study, highlights the fact that speciation among the three major suborders (theropods, sauropods, and ornithischia) began its decline in the mid-Triassic and the extinction rates finally exceeded speciation in the early Cretaceous - tens of millions years before Chicxulub. So if it isn’t the sole and sudden cause of the extinction, as impact hypothesis insists it is, then what did it lend? More on that and the work of Gerta Keller in a later post.
Click to expand...

Red:
Dude, do you not realize you pointed me to a paper that doesn't at all support your assertion that dinos were extinct well before the "KT event?" I didn't have to read past the abstract of the paper to see that.

From the study you referenced ("Dinosaurs in decline tens of millions of years before their final extinction"):

We find overwhelming support for a long-term decline across all dinosaurs and within all three dinosaurian subclades (Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda), where speciation rate slowed down through time and was ultimately exceeded by extinction rate tens of millions of years before the K-Pg boundary. The only exceptions to this general pattern are the morphologically specialized herbivores, the Hadrosauriformes and Ceratopsidae, which show rapid species proliferations throughout the Late Cretaceous instead.​

Furthermore, the researchers conclude their paper saying:

The fact that our model predicts a decline in dinosaur net speciation, in which extinction rates exceeded speciation rates (dinosaurs were going extinct faster than being replenished with new speciation events), does not necessitate that dinosaurs went extinct before the K-Pg boundary.​

Call me crazy if you like, but last I checked, Hadrosaurs and Triceratops-like beasts are still classified as dinosaurs and they showed "proliferations throughout the Late Cretaceous," a period having its end date defined by the "KT event" that occurred 66 Mya. Dinosaurs did not, therefore, go extinct prior to the "KT event," at least not based on the information presented in the paper you've cited.

I will note too that "in decline" and "extinct" are two very different statuses.


Hadrosauriformes

52bbcc161f47697ace8feead7bfa9805.png



Ceratopsidae​

afbc84b341c71668c5fdb4ea8201b7a2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Xelor said:
Red:
Dude, do you not realize you pointed me to a paper that doesn't at all support your assertion that dinos were extinct well before the "KT event?" I didn't have to read past the abstract of the paper to see that.

From the study you referenced ("Dinosaurs in decline tens of millions of years before their final extinction"):

We find overwhelming support for a long-term decline across all dinosaurs and within all three dinosaurian subclades (Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda), where speciation rate slowed down through time and was ultimately exceeded by extinction rate tens of millions of years before the K-Pg boundary. The only exceptions to this general pattern are the morphologically specialized herbivores, the Hadrosauriformes and Ceratopsidae, which show rapid species proliferations throughout the Late Cretaceous instead.​

Furthermore, the researchers conclude their paper saying:

The fact that our model predicts a decline in dinosaur net speciation, in which extinction rates exceeded speciation rates (dinosaurs were going extinct faster than being replenished with new speciation events), does not necessitate that dinosaurs went extinct before the K-Pg boundary.​

Call me crazy if you like, but last I checked, Hadrosaurs and Triceratops-like beasts are still classified as dinosaurs and they showed "proliferations throughout the Late Cretaceous," a period having its end date defined by the "KT event" that occurred 66 Mya. Dinosaurs did not, therefore, go extinct prior to the "KT event," at least not based on the information presented in the paper you've cited.

I will note too that "in decline" and "extinct" are two very different statuses.


Hadrosauriformes

52bbcc161f47697ace8feead7bfa9805.png



Ceratopsidae​

afbc84b341c71668c5fdb4ea8201b7a2.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes and, if you’d care to re-read my last post, there are a variety of competing theories to the impact hypothesis. The one I chose to focus on in the last post is a refutation of the idea that the dinosaurs were otherwise at their peak at the time of the impact and that the impact was the sole and sudden cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs. As the study points out, that simply is not the case:

“Our results show that dinosaurs were in decline for a much longer period than previously thought—extinction rate surpassed speciation rate at least 40 My before their final extinction.”

The dinosaurs, on the whole, were already well on their way out with the impact serving as the final blow. The work of Greta Keller suggests that it didn’t even do that. The point of this is to demonstrate the cornucopia of views among paleontologists about what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom