March 8, 2010
Asteroid Wiped Out Dinosaurs. Case Closed!?
Panel of experts evaluates alternative explanations and makes its decision.
Asteroid Wiped Out Dinosaurs. Case Closed!?
Panel of experts evaluates alternative explanations and makes its decision.
SUMMARY: A panel of 41 international experts has reviewed 20 years' worth
of research and has made a decision: a space impact was responsible for
killing off the dinosaurs. Writing in Science magazine, they ruled out
alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism.
The scientists sought to identify what they believe was a mass extinction of
more than half of all species that occurred around "65 million" years ago, an
event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction. They believe it
was caused by a massive asteroid or comet that smashed into the Earth at
Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The impact released energy that
was more than a billion times the explosive force of the atomic bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The object that created the huge crater, which is some 180 km (112 miles) in
diameter, is estimated to have been up to 15 km (9 miles) in diameter. It may
have been travelling faster than 20 times the speed of a bullet. "You can
actually trace debris right up to the rim of the crater from across the world,"
Co-author Dr David Kring, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston,
told BBC News.
After examining the work of paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists and
others, the panel concluded the Chicxulub space impact was the only plausible
explanation for the devastation seen in geological records. The impact would
have triggered large-scale fires, huge earthquakes, and continental landslides
generating tsunamis. Experts said the hot rock and gas would have grilled
living creatures in the area while material blasted into the atmosphere would
have caused a global winter, killing off species that couldn't adapt to the
changing environment. Large animals such as dinosaurs are thought to have
been more susceptible to the catastrophe than small animals.
The scientists were able to connect a unique layer of debris linked to the
Mexican crater with the K-T boundary. They also said the abundance of
quartz in rock layers across the world at the K-T boundary supported their
conclusion.
In addition, the panel concluded that active volcanism at the time was
responsible for only minor changes in marine and land ecosystems. The
experts also discounted studies that suggested the Chicxulub impact occurred
much earlier than the mass extinction event.
To read the entire article, click on this link to BBC NEWS
COMMENT: It will be interesting to see how much if any negative reaction to
this report will pop up in the media within the next few days or weeks. It didn't
take long last year for contrarians within the scientific community to shoot down
evidence that "proved" humans were descended from lemur-like animals. We'll
see if the same thing happens now.
As I read this article though, the evidence being presented was mainly to show
there once was a major impact from an asteroid or comet that struck Mexico.
What I didn't read about was evidence that this impact wiped out all the
dinosaurs and other large animals. Why do scientists think the large reptiles
known as dinosaurs (on their way to becoming birds?) were completely
eliminated by this event when we still have plenty of reptiles, birds and even
large mammals such as whales and elephants today?
There also is considerable evidence that dinosaurs did avoid extinction from
any asteroid collision with earth. The recent discoveries of dinosaur fossils still
having soft tissue attached, the legends of dragons that come to us from all
over the world, and old artifacts and pictographs that show dinosaur-like images
all seem to indicate that the large beasts may have survived, even into
relatively recent times.
It is also interesting to see that mainstream scientists do indeed accept
catastrophism, the idea that a catastrophe or catastrophes have in the past
greatly affected the planet and its living creatures. One thing is sure though.
If the Bible had mentioned a meteorite strike that killed off all or most of the
animals, the secular scientists wouldn't accept that idea for a second. They
don't buy into a global flood, do they? And I believe the evidence for that
catastrophe is so much more obvious. Could it be an asteroid collision may
have been the trigger that started Noah's Flood? We know something caused
"the springs of the great deep" to "burst forth."
Long before Noah's Flood there was another flood that affected the world, the
flood of sin that covered every creature. No ark or boat can rescue us from
this flood, but a Savior can and did. Those people who have repented of their
sins and come to faith in Jesus as their Savior can look forward to a life of bliss
in heaven, devoid of any catastrophes, major or minor.
****************************************************************************************************
Want to be automatically notified each time there is a new post? Just e-mail
your request to [admin@lutheranscience.org].
****************************************************************************************************
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Is the Great Wall of China the only man-made object on Earth visible
from our moon?
****************************************************************************************************
4 Comments
Dr. Bruce Holman wrote: There is much evidence to suggest that the meteorite
impact in Chicxulub was a major geologic event, but Warren you are exactly right, the
specific results of the event are only subjects for our imagination. There is little evidence
of a connection with Noah's flood, but still there could be some connection. The Bible
indicates that the atmospheric conditions were different before the flood. For example, it
did not rain. Could the meteorite or the debris from the impact disrupted the atmosphere
so as to cause precipitation to fall from the sky for the first time in earth's history?
Possible, but there really is no evidence of a link. Thanks for bringing this information to
our attention.
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: Guys -- You are only showing, once again, how at any
opportunity pseudoscience hangs itself. There is NO connection at all between the
physical details of the K-T impact and the history of Noah's Flood. And, YES, today's
hydrology was created as such, as any Christian should know from Job 28:25-28. Not
just a quiet rain, but "chaziz" thunderstorms. How unreal, to suppose that the Yucatan
impact could have initiated creationism's "Flood geology"! By this, you're agreeing that
all the Paleozoic and all the Mesozoic strata were already in place before the Flood
(which is what I have been telling your LSI for years)! "Comment" here ought to focus on
the big picture, that there are more extinction events associated with impacts throughout
the geologic record. These convince secular minds (the people that you want to reach)
that Deep Time was real time, so that they can ignore Bible History time. So they reject
Genesis, and Jesus. The burden of proof rests on YOU, to say how a chaotic Flood
buried every last trilobite before burying three separate sets of Mesozoic fossil
collections, and then, having buried every dinosaur, giving all the extinct elephant "kinds"
their turn to get buried in more "recent" strata. Pseudoscience fails you here. And you
should know that, ten years ago, John Morris of the ICR told me here in Iowa that the
Yucatan impact ending dinosaur times happened "very late in the Flood" (actually,
weeks after the Ark ran aground, when I try to make sense of his father's 1976 book,
"The Genesis Record"). So there were impacts happening every day of the Flood's 150
days, according to ICR pseudoscience. It's long past time that your LSI actually told
anybody WHAT you might disagree with in the beliefs of other groups. You could start
with their belief that most of the geology from the past 50,000,000 years of Deep Time
actually happened AFTER the Flood (which they date at 2349-2348 BC -- a total improba!
bility!). If this is true, then when were Egypt's greatest pyramids built? You want a more
credible apologetic to win "curious minds," starting with a "tranquil" worldwide Flood at
6000 BC, and all the geology created as such -- giving us a "virtual time" that would be in
line with God's own eternal being. After all, as an atheist friend reminds us: "With God,
all things are possible." And God tells us that his thoughts are not our own -- so how
can your LSI insist that God wouldn't deceive us with a created geology? Henry Morris II
denied the creation reality of Job 28:25-28. Could you at least correct the ICR on this?
If not, could you please tell us why God's great gift of rain (from water evaporated by the
sun's heat every day before the Flood) had to wait for human sin to bring down the rain
before we could benefit from it? Proper apologetic doing science & theology together
can have NO loose ends -- if you want credibility. "Test everything" (1 Thes. 5:21). I'm
at gllemke@hotmail.com, for more visiting, but let's have more comm!
ent here on your site. GLL
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: Dear Guys at LSI -- Please post a note (below) on how the
Dakota/Montana T. rex fossils ended up toward the very top of "Flood geology" here,
together with their specific prey species (chewed-on bone pieces widely scattered under
a hot sun) in ONE wide-spread stratum of Deep Time -- when a chaotic Flood should
have put the bones everywhere! The "Sue" fossil now in Chicago was found in the
company of a somewhat smaller adult and a big & and little youngester (a "family"), so
how did your chaotic Flood "sort by size" here? When you give "created thus" a fair shot
at giving informed people som,ething to think about, there's a world of good apologetic to
be done. Dinosaurs are actually a great embarrassment for your True Belief. In Alberta's
badlands, 100 different levels in 500 feet of strata have dino footprints, so how were they
still walking about when the Flood was "finishing up" all dinosaur "time," long months
after everything should have been drowned. -- You have to want to look past the religious
Yes/No fight here to ask, "What about the secular world laughing at our True Belief,
knowing that nothing having to do with Deep Time happened in creationism's real time of
just a few thousand years past?" Try to imagine one-on-one apologetic starting with
"YES, you're right, everything DOES appear to be very old, but can we be friends here
and try to figure out (together) some good reasons WHY God may have wanted to create
everything in such a way?" Then they're still there for you, to consider your witness to
Jesus, our only Savior.
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: I see where nobody else knows or cares to make further
needful comment here, so let me do the job for you. You haven't addressed the point
that the K-T impact (in "Deep Time") wiped out more than half the species flourishing at
that particular "time." If you are seriously suggesting that this impact was a trigger for
the Flood, then maybe at least 95% of all fossil species (from the whole Paleozoic and
the whole Mesozoic) were already set in place in "the fossil record." But, of course, your
LSI doesn't believe this. That's why (below) if anybody is reading this, you need to tell
them that you weren't paying attention here, and that this should be seen now as an
example of how, when people care enough to communicate, errors correct themselves
over time. So please go on then, if you can, and explain how God was NOT a Deceiver,
if a chaotic Flood gave us a geologic record telling a "story" of everything happening in
what a-p-p-e-a-r-s to have happened in real time. -- But maybe: Do you want to make the
earlier Permian extinction your Flood-triggering event? Then the K-T impact happened
when the Flood was at full surge, months later, and you're left with the impossible task of
"depositing" a unique, thin layer of shocked quartz, iridium, soot, etc. way down at the
bottom of your mix-it-up Delugism. This isn't where "God can do anything." At a time
when God saw the future "imagination" of human hearts willing to put him out of the
picture, God could not have let his Flood "create" what could only be perfect evidence
witnessing to Deep Time, thus fooling today's evolutionists into unbelief. Is this
important to think about, or not? GLL
NOTE ON VISITOR COMMENTS: Visitor comments are invited including
those containing alternate views. However, comments containing profanity
or advertisements will not be published. After posting a comment, please
allow several hours for it to appear on the blog.
of research and has made a decision: a space impact was responsible for
killing off the dinosaurs. Writing in Science magazine, they ruled out
alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism.
The scientists sought to identify what they believe was a mass extinction of
more than half of all species that occurred around "65 million" years ago, an
event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction. They believe it
was caused by a massive asteroid or comet that smashed into the Earth at
Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The impact released energy that
was more than a billion times the explosive force of the atomic bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The object that created the huge crater, which is some 180 km (112 miles) in
diameter, is estimated to have been up to 15 km (9 miles) in diameter. It may
have been travelling faster than 20 times the speed of a bullet. "You can
actually trace debris right up to the rim of the crater from across the world,"
Co-author Dr David Kring, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston,
told BBC News.
After examining the work of paleontologists, geophysicists, geochemists and
others, the panel concluded the Chicxulub space impact was the only plausible
explanation for the devastation seen in geological records. The impact would
have triggered large-scale fires, huge earthquakes, and continental landslides
generating tsunamis. Experts said the hot rock and gas would have grilled
living creatures in the area while material blasted into the atmosphere would
have caused a global winter, killing off species that couldn't adapt to the
changing environment. Large animals such as dinosaurs are thought to have
been more susceptible to the catastrophe than small animals.
The scientists were able to connect a unique layer of debris linked to the
Mexican crater with the K-T boundary. They also said the abundance of
quartz in rock layers across the world at the K-T boundary supported their
conclusion.
In addition, the panel concluded that active volcanism at the time was
responsible for only minor changes in marine and land ecosystems. The
experts also discounted studies that suggested the Chicxulub impact occurred
much earlier than the mass extinction event.
To read the entire article, click on this link to BBC NEWS
COMMENT: It will be interesting to see how much if any negative reaction to
this report will pop up in the media within the next few days or weeks. It didn't
take long last year for contrarians within the scientific community to shoot down
evidence that "proved" humans were descended from lemur-like animals. We'll
see if the same thing happens now.
As I read this article though, the evidence being presented was mainly to show
there once was a major impact from an asteroid or comet that struck Mexico.
What I didn't read about was evidence that this impact wiped out all the
dinosaurs and other large animals. Why do scientists think the large reptiles
known as dinosaurs (on their way to becoming birds?) were completely
eliminated by this event when we still have plenty of reptiles, birds and even
large mammals such as whales and elephants today?
There also is considerable evidence that dinosaurs did avoid extinction from
any asteroid collision with earth. The recent discoveries of dinosaur fossils still
having soft tissue attached, the legends of dragons that come to us from all
over the world, and old artifacts and pictographs that show dinosaur-like images
all seem to indicate that the large beasts may have survived, even into
relatively recent times.
It is also interesting to see that mainstream scientists do indeed accept
catastrophism, the idea that a catastrophe or catastrophes have in the past
greatly affected the planet and its living creatures. One thing is sure though.
If the Bible had mentioned a meteorite strike that killed off all or most of the
animals, the secular scientists wouldn't accept that idea for a second. They
don't buy into a global flood, do they? And I believe the evidence for that
catastrophe is so much more obvious. Could it be an asteroid collision may
have been the trigger that started Noah's Flood? We know something caused
"the springs of the great deep" to "burst forth."
Long before Noah's Flood there was another flood that affected the world, the
flood of sin that covered every creature. No ark or boat can rescue us from
this flood, but a Savior can and did. Those people who have repented of their
sins and come to faith in Jesus as their Savior can look forward to a life of bliss
in heaven, devoid of any catastrophes, major or minor.
****************************************************************************************************
Want to be automatically notified each time there is a new post? Just e-mail
your request to [admin@lutheranscience.org].
****************************************************************************************************
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Is the Great Wall of China the only man-made object on Earth visible
from our moon?
****************************************************************************************************
4 Comments
Dr. Bruce Holman wrote: There is much evidence to suggest that the meteorite
impact in Chicxulub was a major geologic event, but Warren you are exactly right, the
specific results of the event are only subjects for our imagination. There is little evidence
of a connection with Noah's flood, but still there could be some connection. The Bible
indicates that the atmospheric conditions were different before the flood. For example, it
did not rain. Could the meteorite or the debris from the impact disrupted the atmosphere
so as to cause precipitation to fall from the sky for the first time in earth's history?
Possible, but there really is no evidence of a link. Thanks for bringing this information to
our attention.
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: Guys -- You are only showing, once again, how at any
opportunity pseudoscience hangs itself. There is NO connection at all between the
physical details of the K-T impact and the history of Noah's Flood. And, YES, today's
hydrology was created as such, as any Christian should know from Job 28:25-28. Not
just a quiet rain, but "chaziz" thunderstorms. How unreal, to suppose that the Yucatan
impact could have initiated creationism's "Flood geology"! By this, you're agreeing that
all the Paleozoic and all the Mesozoic strata were already in place before the Flood
(which is what I have been telling your LSI for years)! "Comment" here ought to focus on
the big picture, that there are more extinction events associated with impacts throughout
the geologic record. These convince secular minds (the people that you want to reach)
that Deep Time was real time, so that they can ignore Bible History time. So they reject
Genesis, and Jesus. The burden of proof rests on YOU, to say how a chaotic Flood
buried every last trilobite before burying three separate sets of Mesozoic fossil
collections, and then, having buried every dinosaur, giving all the extinct elephant "kinds"
their turn to get buried in more "recent" strata. Pseudoscience fails you here. And you
should know that, ten years ago, John Morris of the ICR told me here in Iowa that the
Yucatan impact ending dinosaur times happened "very late in the Flood" (actually,
weeks after the Ark ran aground, when I try to make sense of his father's 1976 book,
"The Genesis Record"). So there were impacts happening every day of the Flood's 150
days, according to ICR pseudoscience. It's long past time that your LSI actually told
anybody WHAT you might disagree with in the beliefs of other groups. You could start
with their belief that most of the geology from the past 50,000,000 years of Deep Time
actually happened AFTER the Flood (which they date at 2349-2348 BC -- a total improba!
bility!). If this is true, then when were Egypt's greatest pyramids built? You want a more
credible apologetic to win "curious minds," starting with a "tranquil" worldwide Flood at
6000 BC, and all the geology created as such -- giving us a "virtual time" that would be in
line with God's own eternal being. After all, as an atheist friend reminds us: "With God,
all things are possible." And God tells us that his thoughts are not our own -- so how
can your LSI insist that God wouldn't deceive us with a created geology? Henry Morris II
denied the creation reality of Job 28:25-28. Could you at least correct the ICR on this?
If not, could you please tell us why God's great gift of rain (from water evaporated by the
sun's heat every day before the Flood) had to wait for human sin to bring down the rain
before we could benefit from it? Proper apologetic doing science & theology together
can have NO loose ends -- if you want credibility. "Test everything" (1 Thes. 5:21). I'm
at gllemke@hotmail.com, for more visiting, but let's have more comm!
ent here on your site. GLL
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: Dear Guys at LSI -- Please post a note (below) on how the
Dakota/Montana T. rex fossils ended up toward the very top of "Flood geology" here,
together with their specific prey species (chewed-on bone pieces widely scattered under
a hot sun) in ONE wide-spread stratum of Deep Time -- when a chaotic Flood should
have put the bones everywhere! The "Sue" fossil now in Chicago was found in the
company of a somewhat smaller adult and a big & and little youngester (a "family"), so
how did your chaotic Flood "sort by size" here? When you give "created thus" a fair shot
at giving informed people som,ething to think about, there's a world of good apologetic to
be done. Dinosaurs are actually a great embarrassment for your True Belief. In Alberta's
badlands, 100 different levels in 500 feet of strata have dino footprints, so how were they
still walking about when the Flood was "finishing up" all dinosaur "time," long months
after everything should have been drowned. -- You have to want to look past the religious
Yes/No fight here to ask, "What about the secular world laughing at our True Belief,
knowing that nothing having to do with Deep Time happened in creationism's real time of
just a few thousand years past?" Try to imagine one-on-one apologetic starting with
"YES, you're right, everything DOES appear to be very old, but can we be friends here
and try to figure out (together) some good reasons WHY God may have wanted to create
everything in such a way?" Then they're still there for you, to consider your witness to
Jesus, our only Savior.
Gerhold L. Lemke wrote: I see where nobody else knows or cares to make further
needful comment here, so let me do the job for you. You haven't addressed the point
that the K-T impact (in "Deep Time") wiped out more than half the species flourishing at
that particular "time." If you are seriously suggesting that this impact was a trigger for
the Flood, then maybe at least 95% of all fossil species (from the whole Paleozoic and
the whole Mesozoic) were already set in place in "the fossil record." But, of course, your
LSI doesn't believe this. That's why (below) if anybody is reading this, you need to tell
them that you weren't paying attention here, and that this should be seen now as an
example of how, when people care enough to communicate, errors correct themselves
over time. So please go on then, if you can, and explain how God was NOT a Deceiver,
if a chaotic Flood gave us a geologic record telling a "story" of everything happening in
what a-p-p-e-a-r-s to have happened in real time. -- But maybe: Do you want to make the
earlier Permian extinction your Flood-triggering event? Then the K-T impact happened
when the Flood was at full surge, months later, and you're left with the impossible task of
"depositing" a unique, thin layer of shocked quartz, iridium, soot, etc. way down at the
bottom of your mix-it-up Delugism. This isn't where "God can do anything." At a time
when God saw the future "imagination" of human hearts willing to put him out of the
picture, God could not have let his Flood "create" what could only be perfect evidence
witnessing to Deep Time, thus fooling today's evolutionists into unbelief. Is this
important to think about, or not? GLL
NOTE ON VISITOR COMMENTS: Visitor comments are invited including
those containing alternate views. However, comments containing profanity
or advertisements will not be published. After posting a comment, please
allow several hours for it to appear on the blog.
| LSI stands for the Lutheran Science Institute, an organization of WELS and ELS Lutherans interested in science and health issues with a special emphasis on the creation and evolution controversy. This blog's purpose is to search the Internet to find articles of interest to Christians. Views expressed are those of the author (Warren Krug) and are not necessarily those of the Lutheran Science Institute, Inc. |
Trick question! The truth is that no
man-made object on our planet is visible
from the moon. With binoculars, the Great
Wall (picture from Wikipedia) and the U.S.
Interstate Highway system are visible from
low orbit (about 200 miles up), but,
according to astronaut Alan Bean, from
only a few thousand miles up no sign of
civilization on Earth can be seen.
Source: Marilyn von Savant in Parade
(2/28/10)
man-made object on our planet is visible
from the moon. With binoculars, the Great
Wall (picture from Wikipedia) and the U.S.
Interstate Highway system are visible from
low orbit (about 200 miles up), but,
according to astronaut Alan Bean, from
only a few thousand miles up no sign of
civilization on Earth can be seen.
Source: Marilyn von Savant in Parade
(2/28/10)
