WHAT HAPPENED NEXT AFTER AN ASTEROID ENDED THE DINOSAURS?
About 66
million years ago at the end of the cretaceous period, the planet lost its
dinosaurs everyone knows that this happened because of a global catastrophe but
what happened immediately after the mass extinction. I decided to go back in
time for a while and see for me and it turns out that everything was
completely different than we're used to thinking.
Today we're
going to visit a planet that humans haven't yet set foot. On a planet that was
almost destroyed by a meteor strike. You'll find out which of the ancient
inhabitants of the earth died immediately. You’ll read who managed to survive.
You'll learn what climate changes they had to face and how the earth was
recovering from a monstrous disaster.
WHAT WAS THAT ASTEROID HIT?
Dinosaur wandered the earth for 160 million
years until their abrupt downfall some 65.5 million years prior, on any occasion
presently known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, eradication occasion.
At the end
of the Mesozoic era, a huge asteroid or comet crashed into the earth scientists
are still arguing about this. The diameter of this celestial body was anywhere
from 11 to 80 odd kilometers or from 7 to 50 miles that is on average.
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| Source - Google | Image by- newsweek The Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona is one of the best-preserved ancient craters to be found today. |
It might have been the size of the city of Washington
D.C. When one edge of the asteroid had already hit the ground the other end was
still higher than the flight zone of the Boeing 747.such a collision couldn't
pass without a trace.
The asteroid
left behind a giant crater. It covered half of the Gulf of Mexico and no wonder
the crater has a diameter of 150 kilometers or93 miles and a depth of about
20 kilometers or 12 miles. This wasn't the first collision between our planet
and a celestial body but it has become one of the largest.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF THAT ASTEROID HIT?
The world
changed in an instant the impact caused
mega-tsunamis with a height of more than 100 meters or 330 feet that reached
the territory of modern-day Texas in Florida. Other sources indicate a height of 300 meters or 985feet that's for example the height of the Eiffel tower
and some claim that the first wave rose up to one and a half kilometers or nine
tenths of a mile tall five Eiffel towers.
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| Source - Google | Image by- mbari |
Forests
within thousands of kilometers or hundreds of miles were destroyed in just a second.
Some scientists believe the explosion was equivalent to a hundred trillion tons
of TNT. It was enough to destroy the coastline caused 12 point earthquakes and
landslides all the way to Argentina and these in turn caused new tsunamis a
real chain of horror.
WHAT WAS THE LONG CHAIN OF DEATH?
Impossible to survive, if you found yourself in its path, but this was only the beginning of the disaster. The energy with which the asteroid crashed into the earth was enough to set fire to the landscape within a radius of 1500 kilometers or 930 miles.
Even huge
dinosaurs like diplodocus died. Those
that weren't hit by the explosion or fires were dragged away by the retreating
wave. Tiny particles of rock and other fragments were thrown high into the
atmosphere.
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| Source - Google | Image by- walkingwith.fandom DIPLODOCUS, a giant dinosaur |
Later geologists have found these fragments
all over the world because after being blown into the air about 40 minutes later
the particles began to fall rapidly. They were like drops of hot glass their
kinetic energy was equivalent to 20 million megatons of TNT and all of it was
converted into heat. Each falling particle turned into an incandescent lamp.
Together they quickly warmed up the atmosphere
and the earth became a real hell. The vast majority of dinosaurs and many other
terrestrial organisms were in the affected area after avoiding a tsunami or
earthquake they likely died after a few hours from intense heat. The planet
previously covered with forests almost instantly caught fire.
About 75% of living things were destroyed including any mammal weighing more than 25 kilograms or 55 pounds, acid rain oxidized the oceans, half of the plant species also died immediately or within a few hours. Soot from the fires combined with dust from the impact blocked the sun's rays the earth was deprived of sunlight for about a year.
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| Source - Google | Image by- america.aljazeera Mass extinction of the DINOSAURS |
This greatly affected the climate. For a long time, there was a gigantic measure of volcanic action continuing, heaving gases into the air and majorly affecting the worldwide atmosphere.
There were
likewise longer-term changes. The landmasses were floating near and parting
separated from one another, making greater seas, which changed sea and climate
designs the world over. This likewise strongly affected the atmosphere and
vegetation.
The last
non-feathered creature dinosaurs inhabited a period of natural change, some of
which started a huge number of years before they went wiped out. The space rock
was the last, executioner blow.
IS SOMEONE WAS ALIVE AFTER THIS DESTRUCTION?
In the end
some of the plants that managed to survive the impact also died. After these,
large herbivores miraculously survived. Then carnivore’s water ecosystems were
also destroyed but not completely. For example, turtles and the ancestors of
crocodiles managed to survive.
Turtle survived the massive heat of destruction
Some researchers called the environment of
that time lunar desolate and barren as it was. It was almost impossible to
survive in such conditions, yet life on our planet didn't stop. As is said all
of the big animals died those who remained began to repopulate the land.
The foraminifera was the first to recover these
are single-celled organisms that appear in the crater. A few years after the
impact. Then the ferns awoke. In just a
millennium they were able to expand and occupy almost all of the space that was
left. But large mammals faced different conditions. There wasn't enough food therefore only small
animals weighing no more than 600 grams or one and three-tenths of a pound roamed
among the ferns.
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| Source - Google | Image by- thesaltgiantfellowship A scanned electronic image of foraminifera |
There were
just a few flowering plants and nutritious seeds in the world. But after a
hundred thousand years mammals returned to the size of a raccoon. The ferns
were replaced by palm forests there was more food the world was gradually
returning to normal. 200,000 years later the so-called palm period was replaced
by the period of pecan pie of course no pies were prepared then but there were
not like plants.
This means
that there was much more nutritious food. Mammals took advantage of this the
diversity of species increased by about three times. The largest individual’s reached
25 kilograms or 55 pounds this is the weight of a fairly large beaver or
gazelle. It seems that mammals evolved along with plants.
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| Source - Google | Image by- science.time A small ancient mammal evolved after the destruction. |
Finally
about 700 000 years later there were beans and this is much more important than
it seems at first glance. Beans worked as protein bars for ancient mammals they
further increased the size of the animals and at the same time the diversity of
species. At this stage, the future rulers of the planet weighed more than 50
kilograms or 110 pounds. This is about the weight of a large modern cheetah.
The ancient
mammals were a hundred times heavier than their ancestors who lived among the ferns
and less than a million years had passed. Yes for a human or any other creature
that’s a very long time but for evolution it's nothing. The oceans recovered much
more slowly.
Scientists estimate that it took them about 3 million years only then did the flow of organic material return to normal. New species took over the vacant ecological niches.
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| A Fern plant that evolved after the destruction |
Paleontologists
consider birds to be one of the few surviving dinosaurs. Their non-avian
relatives died out but a small portion of the lizard’s still adapted. Most likely their
ability to dive swim or seek shelter in water in swamps helped them.
Many birds
species can build nests on the ground all of this helped their ancestors cope with
the horror that was happening around them.
HOW THE ASTROID HELPED IN HUMAN EVOLUTION?
As a result
life on earth returned to normal over time evolution led to the appearance of
humans. This wouldn't have happened without the asteroid hitting the earth. Think
of the mass destruction was not there and the dinosaurs were still alive, will
the human can feel safe from their deadly teeth? We can say it was a trigger for
human evolution but what would happen if such a disaster struck again.
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| Source - Google | Image by- amitoben |
Well you
already have a rough idea surely most of humanity wouldn't survive a new attack
from space. But our planet would certainly recover. Life goes on despite the
fact that we're talking about events that occurred tens of millions of years
ago, today scientists know quite a lot about them this was made possible by fossils
as well as various samples of earth and stones. For example from the bones of ancient
mammals and lizards, scientists have learned when the age of dinosaurs ended. It
took a long time to figure this out.
CONCLUSION...
The huge destruction that took place 66 million years ago was the prime cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of human beings. Scientists are still doing research on this topic and exploring new things. Different types of fossils of different dinosaurs were discovered, and this gives an idea about how big creatures walk on this land.
This was not the end, but a sign that such asteroid hit can take place any time in our future, and then we have to submit ourselves to the power of mother nature.
Comment below in the box what you think about this topic and what you feel is going to happen in the future.
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