How dinosaurs became extinct?

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Whenever we think about prehistoric animals,  we always think about dinosaurs. We all do know how dinosaurs became extinct- because of an asteroid. Bu what was that asteroid and what were the other challenges that dinosaurs had to face?
We'll get to know about it all in this blog!


So, what do we know about dinosaurs? Dinosaurs are huge prehistoric animals that came on earth around 245 million years ago. After that, they thrived for nearly 180 million years! They became extinct 66 million years ago when an asteroid crashed onto earth! Dinosaurs were extremely large.  Why is that so? Well, this is because long time back  the oxygen level on earth was extremely high, around 35% in the atmosphere!
These helped land animals to increase their body masses and therefore grow to such a large size. The period between which dinosaurs thrived is known as the Mesozoic Era. The Mesozoic Era is further divided into 3 periods- Triassic period,  Jurassic period, and finally Cretaceous period.  Dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous period.
How?

Cause 1 : The Chicxulub Impactor


There existed an asteroid named the Chicxulub Impactor. We first got to know about it from the Chicxulub Crater in Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Scientists say that this is where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs crashed.


The crater in the image looks very large, isn't it? This large crater is the Chicxulub Impactor.
This asteroid was about 10km in diameter! This asteroid hit the earth  66 million years ago.
This asteroid not only crashed onto earth but also created new disasters which made it hard for dinosaurs to survive. Let's look into these disasters.

Cause 2 : Disasters



The asteroid impact led to arising of many disasters. These include tsunamis and earthquakes. The crash of the asteroid shook the entire earth and sent a lot of shockwaves around the world. These shockwaves caused the emergence of underwater earthquakes. These earthquakes in turn resulted in the formation of extremely large and fatal tsunamis which wiped out entire lands and destroyed a lot of vegetation.  The shockwaves also woke up dangerous volcanoes which started to shoot out lava into the air and released a lot of smoke. This smoke covered the entire earth and blocked the sunlight for many years!

Cause 3 : Starvation

Blocking of sunlight and destroying of land affected the vegetation. Plants started to die out. Since herbivorous dinosaurs depended on plants, these dinosaurs begun to starve and eventually died. This also affected the carnivorous dinosaurs as they fed on herbivores. 

The outcome : Death



All these events made the dinosaurs to die out. But there still lies a mystery. If dinosaurs died out, then why didn't turtles, crocodiles and mammals die out and continued to survive? They probably must have hid somewhere and consumed less resources to survive!




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