What happened to the dinosaurs? We may finally have a definitive answer.
While many theories have circulated regarding the mass extinction event that killed all of earth’s dinosaurs over 60 million years ago, researchers at Yale University said they’ve found evidence that finally points to one clear event — an asteroid strike.
The Yale study points directly back to the previous dominant theory in the field: the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid strike, according to the BBC.
According to BBC News:
“When it hit the Earth, the city-sized object would immediately have generated tsunami and wide-scale fires — in addition to hurling billions of tons of debris in all directions.
“But what scientists have also established recently is that the asteroid struck rocks rich in sulphur. When this material was vaporized and ejected into the high atmosphere, it would have led to a rapid and deep cooling of the climate (albeit over a relatively short period), making life a struggle for all sorts of plant and animal life.
“As the fossil record shows, the dinosaurs, apart from birds, couldn’t get beyond the stressful environmental changes. In contrast, the mammals could and rose to the prominence they enjoy today.”
This is significant because it refutes one of the previous dominant theories that massive volcano eruptions were responsible for the end of the dinosaurs, according to CNN. The study found that while volcanos at the time did cause a warming event, those temperatures had resolved by the time the dinosaurs went extinct.
According to The New York Times, this new research confirms previous Yale research that found that an asteroid hit Earth and its impact subsequently caused the ocean to acidify around the same time the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs.
Further confirming their theory regarding extinction, the researchers in this study found evidence in the sea floor, melted fragments of rock, that pointed to an asteroid strike, CNN reports.
Lead author of the study, assistant geology professor Pincelli Hull, told CNN she believes their new research is enough to end the debate over dinosaur extinction permanently.
“If someone came up with compelling evidence tomorrow, I’d be prepared to say we are wrong. But it really doesn’t look like it based on what we know today,” she told CNN.