What Really Killed The Dinosaurs?

Josh Welch

AsteroidA large asteroid slammed into the Earth around 65 million years ago and that is what killed the dinosaurs, right? Not exactly. 

It turns out that the asteroid event was only one factor contributing to the extinction of the dinosaurs and their demise was a lot slower than we had originally thought. 

In an interview with Discovery News, lead author Manabu Sakamoto of the University of Reading’s School of Biological Sciences said “Some dinosaurs definitely would have been instantly killed in the impact, those in the vicinity of the impact site for instance; others may have perished in the tsunami caused by the blast." He goes on to say "The majority of the remaining dinosaurs all over the rest of the world would have likely starved to death as vegetation died out owing to the layer of ash that blacked out the sky (nuclear winter).” 

Check out the following video by DNews to learn more about this fascinating discovery and how it changes the way we must think about the evolution of our planet.