Re: What really happened 65 Ma ago (not a joke)

[Amtoine Grant <ajgrant@eastlink.ca>]

On Wednesday, January 5, 2005, at 01:49  PM, John Bois wrote:

> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, David Marjanovic wrote:
>
> > I'd definitely not say that. Lots of of proposed explanations have 
> > been
> > disproven since (1905), and we now know a lot about the impact.

Which is said to have happened millions of years BEFORE the KT event. 
Taking the recent SE Asia tsunami into account, what's the factor that 
is said to raise the death toll even higher? Disease. Now I know the 
initial size estimate for the Chixulub rock was exaggerated, but that 
still would have displaced a LOT more water than the recent plate 
movement did. Makes you feel bad for the dinos on the East coast of the 
Americas & West coast of Europe/Africa, cause we all know how far those 
plates moved. Shore-dwellers may've suffered near extinctions 
repeatedly.

> And many proposed impact-caused mechanisms have also fallen out of 
> favor
> since the 1980's.  The latest--heat radiating from re-entering
> ejecta--fails to explain bird survival.

Also fails to explain pterosaur(then again if most flying birds didn't 
make it, I guess it kinda does), mosasaur, pliosaur & plesiosaur 
extinction. I feel I should also note that it seems to me that the only 
somewhat large-bodied survivors were cold-blooded(crocodiles, turtles, 
snakes) and sharks. And we know that crocodiles & snakes can survive on 
much less food than warm-blooded creatures, eating as little as once a 
month[or even year]. The only mammals at that time were very small and 
at least most of them were capable of burrowing, right?

> > > Well, anyhow, there were living Titanosaurids yet 62-60 Ma ago in 
> > > Gondwana
> >
> > I think that's where people overlooked a hiatus between them and 
> > middle
> > Palaeocene mammals.

And U also have to figure in the Mokele Membe, which has been recorded 
up to recent times ;)