In between Mars and Jupiter lies an asteroid belt composed of different asteroids floating around, sometimes hitting one another. It was in one of these crashes that a 6-mile wide, 66,000 lb chunk of space rock was sent on a crash course toward Earth at 25,000 mph at what is now Yucatan Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico. In 24 hours after the meteorite was sent on its sojourn, it had hit on the ocean. The meteorite had hit upon rocks that contained sulphur. The force and heat of the crash had instanly vaporized the rocks. The rocks were vaporized into a cloud of smog, releasing the sulphur and covering the planet in toxic gases. The cloud of smog prevented the sun’s rays to reach the atmosphere, killing plants slowly. The herbivorous dinosaurs like Triceratops and Saurolophus were the first to die. With their main food sources gone, the carnivores such as T-rex and Dromaeosaurus starved to cannibalism and death. But the cloud and starvation was not enough.
The shockwave crossed the entire United States, but died out before it could reach Canada. The dinosaurs away from the shockwave were safe, or so it seemed. The shockwave triggered an earthquake with power of 13 average, earthquakes, that shook the ground and made the dinosaurs shake and fall to their death. The few survivors were lizards, birds, amphibians, insects, mammals, and small dinosaurs that could handle the falls because they were so lightweight. Our ancestors survived because they were adaptable. They dug burrows like modern rodents and stayed underground, coming outside only when it was safe. “It is not the strongest, or the powerful, but is the most adaptable that survives.” – Charles Darwin , 1809 – 1881. Our ancestor, Purgatorius survived because natural selection chose them to be adaptable to different environments, although slowly. After the mega earthquake was done, the survivors’ numbers were decreasing. But that’s not the end of it. The earthquake had triggered other dangers from under the earth’s crust.
Volcano’s erupted, causing the land to break apart. Lava streams formed, hardening into obsidian when cooled down. The Earth was becoming like Venus. Then starting from the Gulf of Mexico, a mega tsunami raged over the continent, flooding it. Other mega tsunamis were created by the shockwave and the earthquake and were spreading across the continent. When the tsunamis dried out, death from space arrived. The asteroid had shattered on impact, leaving a large piece in a crater and threw flaming balls of nearly-molten rock into space, and they were back again. The pterosaurs, a group of flying reptiles unrelated to dinosaurs could fly, so they escaped with the birds. But there was no way they could escape the fireballs. The pterosaurs were smothered with fire and were burned to death. The sea reptiles had died in the tsunami because they were thrown this way and that, sometimes hitting hard things and breaking their bones. They had died out. The crocodiles survived because they shut themselves down by stopping their hearts from beating quickly, only pumping blood where it is necessary for survival, such as the brain. Modern crocs and gators also have this technique, shutting down for a while. The mammals in their burrows dug underground to find groundwater, the water used in wells. Groundwater is formed when rainwater is seeped down by cracks in the soil and stored somewhere underground. After the flying reptiles had become extinct, the fireballs receded, bringing a freezing cold winter to take its place as the next danger. This winter was known as the Impact winter because of the reasons it had happened; The cloud of smog, as said earlier in the page, blocked the sun’s rays. Not only did this kill a lot of plants, the temperature dropped so low, it was enough to create an ice age if it had not been for the fireballs and lava coming from inside and outside the earth. This took care of the small surviving dinosaurs as well as the last sea and flying reptiles. The dinosaurs were long gone, but the winter lasted for 5 million years until it began to melt away at the beginning of the Paleocene period or the first half of the Tertiary period as most people call it. The Age of Mammals had arrived, or so it seemed. The Paleocene and the early Eocene epochs’ main predators were not mammals, but huge terror birds like Diatryma, Gastornis, and Titanis. The descentants of the dinosaurs would rule for a while.
Anay Ganesh 