Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, [a] also known as the K–T extinction, [b] was the mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth [2] [3] approximately 66 million years ago. The event caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.
The most recent and best-known, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which occurred approximately 66 Ma (million years ago), was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time. [72]
Artist's depiction of the end-Cretaceous impact eventSince the 19th century, a significant amount of research has been conducted on the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the mass extinction that ended the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era and set the stage for the Age of Mammals, or Cenozoic Era.
By the time the Cretaceous-Paleogene, or K/Pg, extinction event was over, about three-quarters of species alive at the time of impact had disappeared forever.
Paleogene: Eocene–Oligocene extinction event: 33.9 Ma: Multiple causes including global cooling, polar glaciation, falling sea levels, and the Popigai impactor [12] Cretaceous: Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event: 66 Ma Chicxulub impactor; the volcanism which resulted in the formation of the Deccan Traps may have contributed. [13]
Luis Walter Alvarez, left, and his son Walter, right, at the K–T Boundary in Gubbio, Italy, 1981. The Alvarez hypothesis posits that the mass extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs and many other living things during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Earth.
They suggested that this layer was evidence of an impact event that triggered worldwide climate disruption and caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth suddenly became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs. [8]
Birds were therefore the only dinosaur lineage to survive the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event approximately 66 million years ago. Dinosaurs can be divided into avian dinosaurs (birds) and non-avian dinosaurs, which are all dinosaurs other than birds.