New "Last Dinosaur" Find Backs Asteroid Extinction

An anonymous reader writes "A new fossil discovery has suggested that dinosaurs were alive right up until the asteroid impact, and did not go extinct gradually due to climate change or changes in sea level, as previous theories have proposed."

Comments

Re:No, it doesn't

[thoromyr]

what I got from reading the article was that the author had a conclusion that wasn't supported by the evidence. Taking the finding at face value, a solitary find that is significantly closer than expected to the estimated time of impact would tend to support a gradual extinction. If the extinction were sudden, due to the asteroid impact, then a wealth of fossil data would be expected all the way up to the estimated time of impact, with very little (quickly going to none) following it. Instead there is (apparently, and this is information provided and agreed on by the article) a significant gap with -- to date -- a single fossil found in the region.

As far as I can tell it is another data point of no particular significance. To "disprove" gradual extinction before the impact a number of fossils representing normal population levels and distributions needs to be found.