Re: Extinction

[dbensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

>>Depending on the duration of the window of destruction, there were plenty
of small non-avian dinosaurs--hatchlings.  One of the great unmet
challenges to this hypothesis is to explain the conditions and timing of
destruction that would produce the patterns of extinction and survival.<<

I was always under the impression that the unpleasent climatological effects
of the meteor (or volcanoes, or what have you) continued for a long time,
several years or decades.  In fact, I remember reading in the April issue of
Discover (last year's) that the meteor might have thrown up a ring of debris
around the Earth which cast a shadow during the day and screwed up the Earth's
climate even more.  Besides, many baby dinosaurs needed their parents to look
after them and were incapable of functioning for any period of time as
orphans.  Baby dinosaurs probably weren't that well equipped to come through a
mass extinction (insects and frogs, on the other hand, may well have been,
some of them can go into suspended animation for years and come out unharmed).

Dan