Dennis R Redmond wrote:
>
> On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote concerning the
> demise of the dinos:
>
> > ...the current scientific
> > consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really
> > coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has
> > been the discovery of the remnants of the hit in the
> > neighborhood of the Yucatan peninsula. All the pieces seem
> > to fit.
>
> Weren't there still a few problems with this thesis, among which (1)
> the Yucatan geological evidence is still very, very sketchy, and different
> scientists have wildly different interpretations of the data; there are
> a couple basins in the region, which may or may not correspond to the Big
> Slamdunk, and (2) the fossil record shows a die-off stretching over a much
> longer period than a simple one or two year span?
A new answer to that little problem has to do with a very unusual
characteristic of the specific surface in the Yucatan that would have
released lots of CO-2 when it was vaporized by the asteroid -- creating
climate change that would have persisted over a stretch of time long
enough to have killed off so many species globally rather than only
locally. If correct, this theory implies the dinosaurs were doubly
unlucky: 1) that a big asteroid hit earth during their rein at all --
they usually miss. And 2) that it happened to hit in one of the few
places that would have released sufficiently large amounts of carbon
into the atmosphere to cause climate change sufficient to kill them off
globally.
I thought this was a list for economists. Well, OK, not exactly
economists but political economists. Is that what makes a political
economist different from a mainstream economist. We talk about asteroids
and dinosaurs?
