The acid rain was probably an effect that only persisted for 5 to perhaps 10 years, while greenhouse warming may have persisted for thousands of years. This is an artistic rendering of those atmospheric processes by Jake Bailey.

Scientists calculate that it was blasted into Earth by a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid or comet traveling 30 kilometers per second — 150 times faster than a jet airliner. Scientists have concluded that the impact that created this crater occurred 65 million years ago.

The Chicxulub impact event was an ~100 million megaton blast that devastated the Gulf of Mexico region. The blast generated a core of superheated plasma in excess of 10,000 degrees. Although that thermal pulse would have been relatively short-lived, a handful of minutes, it would have been lethal for nearby life.

The Chicxulub crater is not visible at the Earth’s surface like the famous Meteor Crater of Arizona. There are, however, two surface expressions of the crater. A black circle outlines the ~180 kilometer diameter crater.

Yucatán Peninsula

The impact associated with the crater is thus implicated in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, including the worldwide extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. They concluded that the impact at Chicxulub triggered the mass extinctions at the K–Pg boundary.

Around 75% of Earth’s animals, including dinosaurs, suddenly died out at the same point in time.

From the amount and distribution of iridium present in the 65-million-year-old “iridium layer”, the Alvarez team later estimated that an asteroid of 10 to 14 km (6 to 9 mi) must have collided with Earth.

As originally proposed in 1980 by a team of scientists led by Luis Alvarez and his son Walter, it is now generally thought that the K–Pg extinction was caused by the impact of a massive comet or asteroid 10 to 15 km (6 to 9 mi) wide, 66 million years ago, which devastated the global environment, mainly through a …

For decades, the prevailing theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs was that an asteroid from the belt between Mars and Jupiter slammed into the planet, causing cataclysmic devastation that wiped out most life on the planet. The gravity from Jupiter pulled the comet into the solar system.

Dinosaurs lived on all of the continents. At the beginning of the age of dinosaurs (during the Triassic Period, about 230 million years ago), the continents were arranged together as a single supercontinent called Pangea. During the 165 million years of dinosaur existence this supercontinent slowly broke apart.

Where have the most Dinosaur fossils been found? Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent of Earth, including Antarctica but most of the dinosaur fossils and the greatest variety of species have been found high in the deserts and badlands of North America, China and Argentina.

Dinosaurs (TV series)

The first has dinosaurs, alongside Adam and Eve, living in harmony. The ferociously fanged T. rex is likely to be a vegetarian.

The theory gained even more steam when scientists were able to link the extinction event to a huge impact crater along the coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. At about 93 miles wide, the Chicxulub crater seems to be the right size and age to account for the dino die-off.

First Dinosaurs. Approximately 230 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, the dinosaurs appeared, evolved from the reptiles. Plateosaurus was one of the first large plant-eating dinosaurs, a relative of the much larger sauropods. It grew to about 9 meters in length.

about 65 million years ago

Eoraptor

Chilean paleontologists announced Monday the discovery of a new species of giant dinosaurs called Arackar licanantay. The dinosaur belongs to the titanosaur dinosaur family tree but is unique in the world due to features on its dorsal vertebrae.

Paleontologists have for about 150 years suggested dinosaurs existed in the Middle Triassic, as the oldest dinosaur fossils fit into the Late Triassic period.

They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago, although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research.

Sue is the nickname given to FMNH PR 2081, which is one of the largest, most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found, at over 90 percent recovered by bulk….Sue (dinosaur)

28

Chicago

Discovered in 1991, the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen known as Scotty weighed an estimated 19,500 pounds in life—making it the biggest T. rex ever found.