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End of the "Lone Asteroid" Theory?
hussar writes "This BBC article reports on research that suggests the dinosaurs were not killed off by the Chicxulub asteroid's immediate effects but ultimately fell to evironmental stresses caused by a second asteroid that hit about 300,000 years later. The second impact may have been in the Indian Ocean."
The second impact may have been in the Indian Ocean
I'm checking my notes now, but as I recall, the 'Indian Ocean' wasn't there when the second one augered in. Who writes this stuff....
This is *one* study as opposed to many studies tending to confirm the theory. I doubt it's conclusive.
This isn't to say that it's wrong, but I think it's obvious that Keller's paper certainly shouldn't be accepted as definitive unless and until studies confirming it are undertaken and reported.
There were many groups of animals and plants that vanish or change radically at the K/T boundary, not just dinosaurs. It's possible that a virus would kill off one species. The likelihood decreases, I suspect, as you add more and more loosely related groups. It seems more likely that environmental change killed all of dinos, nautiloids, lots of mammals and birds (even though most survived, some did not), plankton, etc., than that a plague did it.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
The obviousness of this question makes me suspect it is a dumb one to ask but maybe someone can clarify for me. Why is it so strongly believed that some kind of environmental change wiped out dinos and not some kind of disease/virus?
Not likely.
The disease would have to act slowly enough to allow for it to be spread over the entire planet without killing the carriers too soon. And, there would be areas where dinosaurs would have been isolated (except by air) due to changes in earth formations such as valleys & large rivers temporarily trapping dinosaurs in specific areas. Those dinosaurs should not have been infected.
The disease could have been carried by flying dinosaurs, but the chances of them covering every location on earth before dying isn't likely.
Not to mention, the virus would run into resistant dinosaurs due to species differences.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
Of two meteors, one near-extinction level, the second not-quite-but-enough-to-finish-them-off level, within 300,000 years?
Personally I say slim and none. 300,000 years is a fucking long time. Remember where humanity was 300,000 years ago (hint: not exactly homo sapiens sapiens). Whatever near-cataclysmic damage the first meteor did, nature would have moved on. If the first meteor didn't wipe them all out, the ones that did survive would also have been those with the best odds against the second meteor. So, it doesn't really make sense.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There seems to be a popular opinion that humans are the most evolved of all species... that statement is totally bogus for a number of reasons, but if you define most evolved as best adapted to surviving whatever its environment throws at it (the galactic environment you could say), you just can't beat single celled organisms. The more adapted you are, the more you depend upon the situations and circumstances that make those adaptations beneficial. If we have a true Armageddon, I'm voting for the bacteria that live in deep sea volcanoes... it doesn't even need the Sun's light to survive.
I think it's incredibly ironic somewhere right now there is probably someone using a satellite link to look at the Flat Earth Society web site.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
You have to keep in mind that humans are one of the few bare mammals. Also that as we're mobile and adaptive, we can live as well in the arctic as the equatorial by modifying living habits, clothing and shelter. Mammals in their native habitat are pretty well tuned to survive its extremes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'd be the last to propound a literal interpretation of the Bible, but I believe the traditional interpretation of Genesis is that all of humanity is descended from Noah's children. Asians are presumed to be the descendants of Shem. You'll have to look for the origins of racism elsewhere.
The significance of publication in a peer reviewed journal should not be overestimated as the press seems to do so often.
I remember from about 10 years ago that an article on letter on equidistant letter spacing in the Bible (I.e. Bible Codes) was published in "Statistical Science" -- a recongized peer reviewed journal. I also recall that those who approved the article did not agree with it. The reason for publishing it was because they could not refute the mathematics in it. It was a sufficiently interesting finding and methods to merit publication. The work was later effectively refuted, as most knew it would be -- the hypothesis was nutty.
The point here is that Keller's work may have merited publication even if we regard it likely that he is wrong. I don't know one way or the other myself. I guess I am reacting a little bit to the idea that Smits is upset that Keller was even published. It smells of censorship. But maybe he is right.
The abiotic theory on the origin of oil, while politically convenient to certain groups due to it's consequence of almost unlimited oil reserves, is still highly controversial. It is not reasonable to expect it to be taught as fact in textbooks for a long time, if ever.
The only thing I really have trouble with is the Carl-Saganish misuse of probability. The fact that something happened once doesn't make it any less likely to happen the next day. The odds remain the same.
The second misuse of probability here is the assumption that there's no causal relation between the two events. They are simply treated as random occurrences, which fact is not in evidence. For all we know the two meteors could have been parts of the same original object on the same orbital path.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."