Asteroid Theory Essay

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The mass extinction of the dinosaurs is still a mystery today, but there are some theories today that suggest what happened. One of the more widely accepted theories is the asteroid theory. This theory suggests that an asteroid with an approximate diameter of 6-15 km, hit the earth with a force of five billion atomic bombs. Another theory that they believe could of happened is the volcano theory, that many volcanoes erupted and wiped the dinosaurs out.
Even though we don't know what happened for sure to the dinosaurs and how they were extinct, there is evidence that suggest how they were extinct. A massive crater with more than 180km in diameter was found buried at Chicxulub in Mexico in 1990. This finding helps support the asteroid theory. They say that the impact of the asteroid would have incinerated all plants and animals in its path, caused fires, generated earthquakes and tsunamis and scattered debris, dust and sulphuric acid into the atmosphere. When all the plants die all of the herbivore dinosaurs will die. When all the herbivores die the carnivores will follow as they feed …show more content…

Both the events that we argue about, the asteroid impact and the volcano eruption both could wipe out most life forms on earth. The effect after both events are very similar. The eruption of a volcano would shoot ash and other fragments into the sky most likely blocking the sunlight to reach any life forms and also dropping the temperature. The impact of an asteroid with an approximate diameter of 6-15 km would have scattered dust, debris and sulphuric acid into the atmosphere and that would of blocked or minimised the amount of sunlight resulting in a drop in temperature. Both events after, would of wiped out any plant forms as the would be a lack of sunlight and the temperature drop would be too cold for some to survive. (Oxford university, 2012,

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