In a message dated 5/31/2002 3:36:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, dinoland@lycos.com writes:
But, we must be equally careful in extrapolating data from one isolated site in one part of the globe to "prove" a gradual extinction. That was the point I was trying to make. Yup.... Like I initially wrote..... I've always been suspicious of studies that look at only one small are and apply what they see there to the entire globe. Of course, perhaps some of these extinctions were due to more gradual causes and others tied directly to the impact. It is difficult to tell, but I would say that most of the current evidence favors a causation correlation between the impact and dinosaurian extinction. Agreed...... most evidence does appear to link the two.... at least in some of the places where you can actually do adequate studies..... Too damn bad we don't have more of these. Sure, the dinosaurs may have been in a brief decline (more data is still needed to confirm this, though), but the fact that other such declines had already occurred and dinosaurs survived them weakens the hypothesis that any LK stress would have caused extinction without the impact. From the record preserved and for which we have found thus far..... yup..... looks like this is true...... But of course..... More data is good data I always say...... Like I said.... I think the KT impact was probably just the straw that broke the tyrannosaur's back. Don't run away. Perhaps the best aspect of paleontology is that anyone can question and hypothesize. Oh...... rest assured...... I'm not going anywhere. I'm just done babbling about this particular topic...... Time to go think of something else to pester you guys with :-) Kris |