Re: Re[2]: dinosaur environs

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM>]

From: "Cunningham, Betty" <bcunning@nssi.com>
 >      
 > >Even for that hypothesis of volcanic eruption and dinosaur extinction, 
 > >the volcanoes would have been in just one small corner of the earth 
 > >(most people suggest India, in particular)--not everywhere.
 > 
 > Aren't several bonebeds in the American Midwest due to death by volcanic 
 > activity?

Yes, but so are some human bone beds (such as Pompeii).
[And I bet most of the people buried by the explosion of Mt. St. Helens
have been preserved].

All this says it that *some* dinosurs at some particular time died
in a volcanic eruption.

Sure there *were* volcanoes in the Rockies during the Late Cretaceous.
But no more than there are now along the west coast of North America.

The eruptions that formed the Deccan Traps in India right around the
K-T boundary were far more massive than anything we can see today, and
were restricted to India. [The closest we come today is probably
Iceland, but even that pales compared to the massive outpourings
required to make the Deccans].

 > I'm thinking of a group death of some kind of hadrosaurs. 

Maiasaura.
But it lived several million years *prior* to the extinction, so
that eruption had nothing to do with the terminal Cretaceous extinctions.

 > The Rockies were forming during the Creataceous, weren't they?  So the 
 > Montana and Utah and Alberta dinosaurs may have seen volcanic activities. 
 >  Right?   Just not often.  About like what Lassen gets now.
 > 
More or less.  Remember, we are talking a LARGE area here.  The
coastal plain east of the proto-Rockies extended from at northern
Canada to the southern USA.  A volcanic eruption is, say, what is
now Montana would not be noticed in Texas or northern Alberta.

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.