This is an informational book on some of the world's unsolved mysteries, there are some videos linked so you have a broader understanding of the concept.
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We all probably know that the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, but what was the cause? There are many theories suggesting how the dinosaurs went extinct, the asteroid impact theory, also known as The Alvarez Hypothesis is the most accepted one, then there is the volcano eruption which spew a lot of magma and ash clouds which filled the atmosphere and dinosaurs either burned or suffocated to death. Why the meteorite theory is more accepted is because of this guy,Walter Alvarez, in 1980, he was studying clay deposits in Italy which dated back 65 million years ago and he found out that they contained many times more Iridium than normal and the more he excavated, the more Iridium he found. Iridium is a rare metal which comes from asteroids and meteorites which made their way to earth.
This proves that there was a asteroid collision with the earth 65 million years ago, and it was proved that the asteroid was 10 meters in size.The transition was really abrupt that there is a line in-between the rocks which were formed before 65 million years ago and the rocks which formed a few million years ago. Its known as the Cretaceous and Palo-gene boundary, this is also a clue because this line shows up all over the world in the same way, a sudden appearance of a layer of clay thats rich in Iridium.
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A new question arose, Where is the crater where the asteroid hit?
In 1991, while looking for an answer the scientists found a crater off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, approx. 180 meters across and the crater was really big, what you would probably expect a 10 meter meteorite would do. It was marked by huge disruption in layers of the rock when the meteorite hit. When the asteroid hit, the blast was so powerful scientists claimed that this was equivalent to 150,000,000 megatons of TNT. Well, this is a just theory(most widely accepted theory) and not everyone will agree that this actually happened but most of them will agree.
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Well, scientists say that it's not entirely because of the asteroid impact, it seems there were volcanoes erupting and the asteroid impact was actually in the middle of the worst eruption of volcanoes in the world. Because of the ash which was spewed by the volcanoes covered the entire earth like a blanket of ash stopping sunlight and heat from keeping the planet warm. With the ash covering the earth, the global temperature dropped by 7 degrees in some places and because of the sudden shift in the temperature, many species have died.
At first, because there wasn't ay sunlight, the plants have no way to do photosynthesis and have died. After the death of the plants, the herbivores didn't have any food so they fought over places there are plants and have died. Without any herbivores, the carnivores don't have any food and they have died. Many amphibians(animals which can live on land and water) have adapted to the climate but only the smaller species survived. In conclusion, this asteroid and the volcanic activity have killed all dinosaurs, more than half the species of plants, half the species of reptiles and amphibians.
You may think, "This mystery is solved, why did the author put this in his book?". This is a theory only. There are many factors suggesting this theory but there are also other theories which are more unlikely, but it hasn't been finalised that the asteroid impact theory is correct.
