No Sudden Impact Did In Dinosaurs, 3 Scientists Tell Gathered Geologists

Acatastrophe such as an asteroid impact did not do in the dinosaurs overnight, as is widely held, according to three scientists who are presenting papers this week at a gathering of geologists at the San Diego Convention Center.

“What our data demonstrates is that there wasn’t a mass, overnight extinction,” said Robert Sullivan of the San Diego Natural History museum.

Sullivan, San Diego State University biology professor David Archibald and Peter Dodson of the University of Pennsylvania are giving papers that dispute a theory made popular in the late 1970s that an asteroid crashing into the Earth 65 million years ago was responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs.

Archibald, who studied a site in Montana that contains the world’s only known complete record of dinosaur fossils at the time of their demise, agreed that there might have been some sort of “impact,” but that the dinosaurs were well on their way toward extinction at the time.

“You can find a smoking gun but still prove that the person died of stab wounds,” Archibald said.

The three scientists contend that the world was going through massive geologic changes at the time, including the formation of mountains, intense volcanic activity and receding seas. They said the fossil record shows that species fell off at a rate of 35%, as opposed to the 75% rate that supporters of the “impact theory” use.

“There is this perception that we have to have something real nasty to get rid of these beasts,” Archibald said.

Rather, Archibald contended, fate decides which species survives or dies.

“There is an element of chance, and who you are and when you are that determines if you succeed,” Archibald said in outlining his “Blackjack Theory,” named after the card game.

Sullivan also argued that birds are actually specialized dinosaurs, originating about 243 million years ago, and thus dinosaurs as a group are not extinct.