How did the dinosaurs really die?

Ice age/disease

Some people say it was because of a dramatic climate change which rid the dinosaurs of their food and they all died…
and others say it was cause of this huge a** meteor or something…nobody knows really.

They ignored blatant warnings about the hazards of smoking.

I’ve heard global warming kiled their food source off and then I’ve heard it was just the oppsite, the extreme cold. I’ve also heard that it was a volcano. I’m sure no one knows for sure since there wasn’t anyone around at the time and the ansestors of the dino’s aren’t speaking lol.

Too much staring at computer screens. Once they got bored, they decided to let their two legged pets run free whilst they roamed the rest of the universe looking for a decent night out that doesn’t involve Mr Brightside.

@eLenaLicious Asteroid really, leading to climate change.

I am sure you can find many sources on the net though.

From the movie Airplane II, here is the definitive history of the world:

“First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di’s clothes. I couldn’t believe it.”

This is how.

They didn’t. They evolved. In fact I have one in a cage in my living room named Cory.

This is what killed them

No one’s really sure, but there are a few models out there. As my professor explained to us, there are the “denters” (people who think some extra-terrestrial object hit the earth), the “belchers” (people who blame volcanic activity), and then there are people who think it was just a gradual change, just to name a few. Now the rest of this is straight from my course notes from last semester.

There’s a lot of evidence supporting the “denter” theory. 1) There is an elevated concentration of iridum and chromium, which are rare on Earth, but more common in extra-terrestrial debris in the K/T boundary clay (that is Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary). 2) There are mineral spherules and dumbell-shaped tektites which are formed upon impact of large objects on space to the Earth’s surface. 3) Also present is shocked minerals such as quartz which would have gotten that way by a significant physical impact. 4) There is an elevated concentration of fine carbonized debris which could have been from the soot from wildfires caused by impact. On a more local level… 5) There’s a crater in Yucatan Mexico which could have been a possible impact site. 6) Presence of amino acids that would have come from an extra-terrestrial source as can be determined by the different forms of development is found near the crater. 7) There are Caribbean “rubble” deposits that could have deposited by a tsunami after impact. 8) There’s an elevated concentration of microscopic diamonds which is found in outerspace.

On top of all this evidence if we look at the survivors of the event it could also promote the asteroid theory. Large creatures like dinosaurs were affected most. They required more food than the small mammals that lived back in the Cretaceous and food would have been much more scarce after that event. Dinos were also ecological specialists where mammals were generalists and found it easier to survive in the aftermath. Many of mammals pre-existing adaptations also made it easier for them to survive, such as nocturnal tendencies, fur, omnivory, and tendency to burrow.

Obviously, I’m more for this model than any other. But, those others also include another asteroid impact in India, the Pangea break-up, and global warming.

And along with @AstroChuck, birds are the descendants dinos.

No such thing as dinosaurs. ;-)

Slowly and painfully like the rest of us.

Another theory is that an asteroid/meteor/volcano knocked a large amount of debris in to the atmosphere and blocked out the sun (something that has happened with large volcanoes before) and the cold-blooded dinosaurs (who were almost like warm blooded animals because with constant climate their internal body temp wouldn’t change too much and they’d be able to keep digesting regularly) weren’t able to process food and whatever was in their gut fermented and ultimately killed them (this happens occasionally in captivity with modern reptiles). The smaller reptiles were capable of surviving because they didn’t need anywhere near as much sun to heat to an optimal temperature.

This would have been fairly rapid and would have happened on a global scale.

~When they got off the Ark with Noah, they got stuck in the mud, and died of starvation.

@PandoraBoxx That reminds me of a cartoon I jsut saw. Two dinosaurs are sitting on a boulder with the waters rising. In the distance, the ark is sailing away. One of the dinosaurs is saying to the other, “Oh, you mean, that was today?

@janbb, LOL. I’m rather fond of this one myself.

ha ha

The main camps are: Death by not-a-nuclear winter, and death by massive flooding and/or subsequent climate change.

I’ve found your answer. Here is the real reason.

@AstroChuck Why does it look like they’re all trying to be “Billy Badass”?

with style.

Probably meteorite impact plus something else. Research is ongoing.

“But a single asteroid impact doesn’t tell the whole story, says a small but vocal group of geologists led by Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller in New Jersey.

Keller and her collaborators believe that the Chicxulub impact predated the K-T extinction by about 300,000 years.

The dinosaurs, they say, were killed not by a lone asteroid strike but by the quadruple whammy of global climate change, massive volcanism, and not one but two gigantic collisions.

Peeling Back the Layers
The complex scientific detective story involves tiny glass beads, the rare element iridium, and sediments that might be deposits from gigantic tsunamis kicked up by the Chicxulub impact.

Both sides of the debate agree that the glass was created when the Chicxulub event filled the atmosphere with vaporized rock that quickly condensed and rained to Earth as tiny spherules, about a tenth of an inch (1 to 4 millimeters) in diameter.

The opposing sides also agree that the iridium came from an iridium-rich asteroid. ”

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061030-dinosaur-killer.html