Image:header-trans
Image:header-trans

Backpedalling Evolutionists
or
The Great Dinosaur Extinction Cover-up

For many years the main cause of the dinosaur extinction was thought to be volcanic activity.

massive volcanic eruptions, which may have released climate-changing gases in the Spain-sized region known as the Deccan Traps, played a significant role.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/16/world/dinosaur-extinction-volcanoes-asteroid-scn/index.html

The Deccan Traps is a large igneous province of west-central India (17–24°N, 73–74°E). It is one of the largest volcanic features on Earth, taking the form of a large shield volcano.

Because of its magnitude, scientists have speculated that the gases released during the formation of the Deccan Traps played a major role in the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary or K–T extinction). It has been theorized that sudden cooling due to sulfurous volcanic gases released by the formation of the traps and toxic gas emissions may have contributed significantly to the K–Pg mass extinction.
http://web.archive.org/web/20230318003137/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

But the late 1970s saw another theory being suggested for the demise of the dinosaurs. Destruction from space, or a meteor, was suggested by a couple of scientists who were investigating the K-Pg boundary layer. They noticed a high amount of iridium, an element that was common in meteors but not on Earth. So it was postulated that perhaps a large meteor had slammed into the Earth causing unbelievable destruction and bringing the dinosaurs to extinction.

The Meteor
The Meteor
The Meteor
Point of impact: The Chicxulub crater at the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

In 1980, a team of researchers led by Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, and chemists Frank Asaro and Helen Vaughn Michel discovered that sedimentary layers found all over the world at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary, formerly called Cretaceous–Tertiary or K–T boundary) contain a concentration of iridium hundreds of times greater than normal. Iridium is extremely rare in the Earth's crust because it is very dense and has the affinity for iron that characterizes the siderophile elements (see Goldschmidt classification), and therefore most of it sank into the Earth's core while the earth was still molten. The Alvarez team suggested that an asteroid struck the earth at the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.
http://web.archive.org/web/20201108005220/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvarez_hypothesis

For some years these two theories battled it out with many evolutionists taking sides. But through the intervening years more and more evidence has been forthcoming from the rocks and fossils supporting the meteor theory.

"The Alvarezes along with Asaro and Michel published their seminal 1980 paper" “Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction” about "the demise of the dinosaurs" but gave no information about a crater. This changed with "the discovery in 1991 of the scene of the crime – the Chicxulub crater, a 180-kilometer-wide, 20-kilometer-deep impact crater off the northern coast of the Yucatan peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico that is buried beneath a kilometer of Tertiary carbonates. The discovery of this impact site answered critics who’d been demanding to know: If an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs, where’s the crater?"
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2010/03/09/alvarez-theory-on-dinosaur/

And in the last few years most evolutionists have come into line and accepted the meteor theory.

"A lot of people have speculated that volcanoes mattered to K-Pg, and we're saying, 'no, they didn't," said Pincelli Hull, an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and lead author of the study, which published Thursday in Science.
"What our study does is take 40 years of research and adds a bunch of new research. It combines this in the most quantitative tests you can do and it really doesn't look like it (was the volcanoes)."

They found that at least 50% or more of the major outgassing from the Deccan Traps occurred well before the asteroid impact, and only the impact coincided with the mass extinction event.

"Volcanic activity in the late Cretaceous [period] caused a gradual global warming event of about two degrees, but not mass extinction," said Henehan
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/16/world/dinosaur-extinction-volcanoes-asteroid-scn/index.html

In the March 5, 2010 edition of the journal Science, an international panel of 41 experts in geology, paleontology and other related fields, after an exhaustive review of the data, declared an end to a 30 year controversy over what triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs – an asteroid or volcanoes. The panel ruled in favor of the asteroid, a theory first put forth in 1980 by one of Berkeley Lab’s greatest scientists, the late Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez, and his son Walter, a geologist with UC Berkeley.
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2010/03/09/alvarez-theory-on-dinosaur/

Since the impact hypothesis for the demise of the dinosaurs was first proposed more than 30 years ago, many scientists have come to believe the meteor caused the mass extinction and wiped out the dinosaurs
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110712211016.htm

Some evolutionists however are still considering volcanism and other things like climate change as being the main contributors to the extinction probably because of the seriousness of the predicted destruction from the meteor. When the meteor theory was being considered various studies were done using massive supercomputers to model the effect of the impact. The suggested scenarios were quite horrific.


Image:Sequoia supercomputer
Image:Sequoia supercomputer
Image:Sequoia supercomputer
Example supercomputer: Sequoia at National Nuclear Security Administration 2012.

The Chicxulub impactor had an estimated diameter of 11-81 kilometers (6.8-50.3 mi), and delivered an estimated energy of 21-921 billion Hiroshima A-bombs (between 1.3x1024 and 5.8x1025 joules, or 1.3-58 yottajoules).
http://web.archive.org/web/20211228051109/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
Note: See Ref 1.

Within two minutes of slamming into Earth, the asteroid, which was at least six miles wide, had gouged a crater about eighteen miles deep and lofted twenty-five trillion metric tons of debris into the atmosphere. Picture the splash of a pebble falling into pond water, but on a planetary scale. When Earth's crust rebounded, a peak higher than Mt. Everest briefly rose up. The energy released was more than that of a billion Hiroshima bombs, ...

Earth itself became toxic. When the asteroid struck, it vaporized layers of limestone, releasing into the atmosphere a trillion tons of carbon dioxide, ten billion tons of methane, and a billion tons of carbon monoxide; all three are powerful greenhouse gases. The impact also vaporized anhydrite rock, which blasted ten trillion tons of sulfur compounds aloft. The sulfur combined with water to form sulfuric acid, which then fell as an acid rain that may have been potent enough to strip the leaves from any surviving plants and to leach the nutrients from the soil.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

Then acid rain, formed from the nitrous oxide and sulfates clogging the atmosphere, began to hammer down on the surface, killing plants and animals and even dissolving rocks. This rain would have been as corrosive as battery acid and its most devastating effect would have been to destroy the shells of small marine organisms. p.165.
Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, John Pickrell, 2014.

A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected Earth’s oceans.

The researchers say it is the first direct evidence that the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago coincided with a sharp drop in the pH levels of the oceans — which indicates a rise in ocean acidity.

“The ocean acidification we observe could easily have been the trigger for mass extinction in the marine realm,” said senior author Pincelli Hull, assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale.
https://news.yale.edu/2019/10/21/mystery-solved-ocean-acidity-last-mass-extinction
Note: See Ref 2.

A study of boron isotopes in the tests of foraminifera that lived deep in the oceans and near their surface just after the K-Pg boundary event has revealed that ocean water suddenly became more acidic (Henehan, M.J. and 13 others 2019. Rapid ocean acidification and protracted Earth system recovery followed the end-Cretaceous Chicxulub impact. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Online; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1905989116).
https://earthlogs.org/2019/10/25/what-followed-the-k-pg-extinction-event/

The effects of the sulphuric acid on the climate was so severe that the computer simulations found it would have taken at least 30 years for the global climate to recover.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/dinosaurs-extinction-simulation

An enormous tactical blunder

Of course going public with all of this was an enormous tactical blunder. The calculated destruction was just too large. Some evolutionists even spoke out against it:

What do we do with these impact scenarios? Naturally, we compare them with the evidence from the geological record. Birds, tortoises, and mammals live on land and breathe air: the evidence from the K-T boundary shows that they survived the K-T boundary event. Therefore they and the air they breathed weren't set on broil for several hours. To put it simply, these scenarios did not happen.
History of Life, Richard Cowen, 2000, p.290.
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen2b.html


Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes
Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes Image:Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes

Birds, Tortoises, Mammals: example 2 extant monotremes.

The survival of birds is the strangest of all the K-T boundary events, if we are to accept the catastrophic scenarios. Smaller dinosaurs overlapped with larger birds in size and in ecological roles as terrestrial bipeds. How did birds survive while dinosaurs did not? Birds seek food in the open, by sight; they are small and warm-blooded, with high metabolic rates and small energy stores. Even a sudden storm or a slightly severe winter can cause high mortality among bird populations. Yet an impact scenario, according to its enthusiasts, includes "a nightmare of environmental disasters, including storms, tsunamis, cold and darkness, greenhouse warming, acid rains and global fires." There must be some explanation for the survival of birds, turtles, and crocodiles through any catastrophe of this scale, or else the catastrophe models are wrong.
History of Life, Richard Cowen, 2000, p.295.
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen3b.html


Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles
Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles Image:Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles

Birds, Turtles, Crocodiles.

Some critics, including paleontologist Robert Bakker, argue that such an impact would have killed frogs as well as dinosaurs, yet the frogs survived the extinction event.
http://web.archive.org/web/20211228051109/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater


Image:Frogs

Frogs

Image:Frogs

Frogs

Image:Frogs

Frogs

there was no extinction in the insects, a group that should have been the most sensitive to a global catastrophe predicted by the impact advocates. ... Nor do the birds show much extinction, even though they too should have been vulnerable (Chiappe 1995). ...
some extreme impact scenarios postulate extensive acid rain bathing the earth for a long time after the impact. However, the survival of amphibians shows that this is simply a fantasy (Weil 1984). Amphibians breathe through their porous skins and are sensitive to slight changes in the acidity of their watery habitat. Even now, the slightly more acidic conditions of lakes and ponds due to human-induced acid rain are causing frogs and salamanders to die out rapidly. If the entire earth had been subjected to a huge acid bath, there simply would not be a frog or salamander alive on the earth today. p.38.
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero, 2006.


Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

Image:Frogs, Salamanders Image:Frogs, Salamanders

Frogs, Salamanders

Since then evolutionists have been furiously running in backpedalling mode, trying to dig themselves out of a hole larger than the one made by the supposed meteor impact at 66 Ma.

Backpedalling Evolutionists
Image:Backpedalling
Image:Backpedalling
Image:Backpedalling
Man at front: "Hey, you at the end! You're facing the wrong way!"
Biker at other end: "I'm an evolutionist!"

But how can they do it? One of the earlier voices who spoke out against the impact scenarios, realising that support for the theory was steadily growing, suggested one possible way out:

the hellish scenarios of the impact and its effects on the earth must be greatly exaggerated, because so many animals that could not survive such conditions (such as amphibians, crocodiles, insects, and freshwater fish) did survive. pp38, 39.
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero, 2006.

In other words, tone it down, the destruction which was caused by the meteor just wasn't as bad as we thought. And I did recently run across the following quotation which does suggest this is indeed the direction they may be taking:

The impact may also have produced acid rain, depending on what type of rock the asteroid struck. However, recent research suggests this effect was relatively minor. Chemical buffers would have limited the changes, and the survival of animals vulnerable to acid rain effects (such as frogs) indicate this was not a major contributor to extinction.
http://web.archive.org/web/20201108005220/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvarez_hypothesis

To be fair, this comment has since been removed*. But if this is a possible direction they are trying to move in we need to consider the following. The comment does sound plausible, but it flies completely in the face of previous research and evidence from the fossils and the rocks. And as long as people don't investigate these things sure, the evolutionists may even get away with it.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alvarez_hypothesis&diff=998383523&oldid=997215876

Fossils:

A more recent discovery is believed to demonstrate evidence of the scope of the destruction from the impact. In a March 2019 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of twelve scientists revealed the contents of the Tanis fossil site discovered near Bowman, North Dakota that appeared to show the destruction of an ancient lake and its inhabitants at the time of the Chicxulub impact. In the paper, the group claims that the geology of the site is strewn with fossilized trees and remains of fish and other animals. The lead researcher, Robert A. DePalma of the University of Kansas, was quoted in the New York Times as stating that "you would be blind to miss the carcasses sticking out... It is impossible to miss when you see the outcrop." Evidence correlating this find to the Chicxulub impact included tektites bearing "the unique chemical signature of other tektites associated with the Chicxulub event" found in the gills of fish fossils and embedded in amber, an iridium-rich top layer that is considered another signature of the event, and an atypical lack of scavenging of the dead fish and animals that suggested few other species survived the event to feed off the mass death.
http://web.archive.org/web/20211228051109/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater

a block of stone three feet long by eighteen inches wide lay on a table under bright lights and a large magnifying lens. The block, DePalma said, contained a sturgeon and a paddlefish, along with dozens of smaller fossils and a single small, perfect crater with a tektite in it. The lower parts of the block consisted of debris, fragments of bone, and loose tektites that had been dislodged and caught up in the turbulence. The block told the story of the impact in microcosm. "It was a very bad day," DePalma said. "Look at these two fish." He showed me where the sturgeon's scutes-the sharp, bony plates on its back-had been forced into the body of the paddlefish. One fish was impaled on the other. The mouth of the paddlefish was agape, and jammed into its gill rakers were microtektites-sucked in by the fish as it tried to breathe. DePalma said, "This fish was likely alive for some time after being caught in the wave, long enough to gasp frenzied mouthfuls of water in a vain attempt to survive."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

And from the rocks:

as soon as DePalma started digging he noticed grayish-white specks in the layers which looked like grains of sand but which, under a hand lens, proved to be tiny spheres and elongated droplets. "I think, Holy sh*t, these look like microtektites!' DePalma recalled. Microtektites are the blobs of glass that form when molten rock is blasted into the air by an asteroid impact and falls back to Earth in a solidifying drizzle. The site appeared to contain microtektites by the million.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

The evidence for the Alvarez impact hypothesis is supported by chondritic meteorites and asteroids which contain a much higher iridium concentration than the Earth's crust. The isotopic ratio of iridium in meteorites is similar to that of the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary layer but significantly different from the ratio in the Earth's crust. Chromium isotopic anomalies found in Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary sediments are similar to that of an asteroid or a comet composed of carbonaceous chondrites. Shocked quartz granules, glass spherules and tektites, indicative of an impact event, are common in the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, especially in deposits from around the Caribbean. All of these constituents are embedded in a layer of clay, which the Alvarez team interpreted as the debris spread all over the world by the impact.
http://web.archive.org/web/20201108005220/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvarez_hypothesis

And even worse from the smoking gun itself, the 170 km wide[3] 20 km deep Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico:


Image:Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

Image:Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

Image:Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

Approximate location of the Chicxulub impact crater, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.

In 2010, the scientific community concluded, based on overwhelming evidence, that the Chicxulub Impact Crater was the cause of the mass extinction.
https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2012/09/18/the-recent-resolution-on-the-k-pg-boundary/

Supercomputer simulates the impact of the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs
A team of researchers has managed to run 3D models from the moment that the comet hit the surface of the Earth, until the 110-mile wide crater was fully formed.

a team of researchers equipped with a supercomputer has managed to simulate the entire event, shedding light on the reasons that the impact led to a mass extinction of life.

The simulations were carried out by scientists at Imperial College in London, using high performance computing (HPC) facilities by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Various impact angles and speeds were considered, and 3D simulations for each were fed into the supercomputer. These simulations were then compared with the geophysical features that have been observed in the 110-mile wide Chicxulub crater, located in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, where the impact happened.

The simulations that turned out to be the most consistent with the structure of the Chicxulub crater showed an impact angle of about 60 degrees. Such a strike had the strength of about ten billion Hiroshima bombs, and this particular angle meant that rocks and sediments were ejected almost symmetrically.

This, in turn, caused a greater amount of climate-changing gases to be released, including billions of tonnes of sulphur that blocked the sun. The rest is history: firestorms, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes rocked the planet, and most species disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/supercomputer-simulates-the-impact-of-the-asteroid-that-wiped-out-dinosaurs/

And incredibly, two scientists actually used the specs of the crater to calculate the size and power of the meteor [they suggest it was actually a comet]:

Because the interval of time that separates us from the formation of Chicxulub is so large, the evidence that could help to reconstruct impactor features are few. The most obvious is the diameter of the crater, which is between 180 and 200 km (Schulte et al., 2010). With these extreme values and equations (2.1.2), (2.2.2), (2.3.2), (2.4.10) we can estimate the energy of the impactor.

we concluded that the most probable impactor was a fast asteroid or a long-period comet with energy between 1.3x1024 J and 5.8x1025 J, mass between 1.0x1015 kg and 4.6x1017 kg, and diameter between 10.6 km and 80.9 km.
Assessments of the energy, mass and size of the Chicxulub Impactor
Hector Javier Durand-Manterola and Guadalupe Cordero-Tercero

And where does that take us? Right back to the old wikipedia quote:

The Chicxulub impactor had an estimated diameter of 11-81 kilometers (6.8-50.3 mi), and delivered an estimated energy of 21-921 billion Hiroshima A-bombs (between 1.3x1024 and 5.8x1025 joules, or 1.3-58 yottajoules).
http://web.archive.org/web/20211228051109/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
Note: See Ref 1.

And that takes us right back to square one with the original supercomputer modelling scenarios of unbelievable destruction like:

Earth itself became toxic. When the asteroid struck, it vaporized layers of limestone, releasing into the atmosphere a trillion tons of carbon dioxide, ten billion tons of methane, and a billion tons of carbon monoxide; all three are powerful greenhouse gases. The impact also vaporized anhydrite rock, which blasted ten trillion tons of sulfur compounds aloft. The sulfur combined with water to form sulfuric acid, which then fell as an acid rain that may have been potent enough to strip the leaves from any surviving plants and to leach the nutrients from the soil.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

Then acid rain, formed from the nitrous oxide and sulfates clogging the atmosphere, began to hammer down on the surface, killing plants and animals and even dissolving rocks. This rain would have been as corrosive as battery acid and its most devastating effect would have been to destroy the shells of small marine organisms. p.165.
Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, John Pickrell, 2014.

Yeah, mentioned previously, but now with an extremely awkward quote from the evolutionists themselves saying that we should accept these computer simulations!

Testable methods: engineering models

Another testable method in palaeobiology is the engineering analysis of digital models.
To assign material properties the skull is divided into pyramidal 'cells' or elements, and then a classic engineering method can be applied, finite element analysis (FEA). This is the method used by architects and civil engineers to stress-test their designs before beginning construction. Every skyscraper, bridge, or aircraft to which you entrust your life has been pre-tested using FEA.
The argument is that we know the method works. The digital model of a future skyscraper, bridge, or aircraft is stress-tested to see at what point of applied pressure it breaks. This is the basis of the engineering design of the structure before it is completed, and we live in skyscrapers and fly in aircraft designed this way, trusting that the calculations were correct. Therefore, if we use the same approach to study a dinosaur skull or leg, we should accept the results as true. pp.17,18.
MICHAEL J. BENTON, The Dinosaurs Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting History, 2019, Thames & Hudson

Note very carefully what the evolutionists are telling us about these numerical methods that would have been used in the computer simulations of the meteor impact:

"we know the method works"

"we should accept the results as true"

So here the evolutionists are telling us that the horrific scenarios that have been worked out using massive supercomputers modelling the impact of the meteor, we should accept the results as true!!

Yet an impact scenario, according to its enthusiasts, includes "a nightmare of environmental disasters, including storms, tsunamis, cold and darkness, greenhouse warming, acid rains and global fires." There must be some explanation for the survival of birds, turtles, and crocodiles through any catastrophe of this scale, or else the catastrophe models are wrong.
History of Life, Richard Cowen, 2000, p.295.
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen3b.html

If the entire earth had been subjected to a huge acid bath, there simply would not be a frog or salamander alive on the earth today. p.38.
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero, 2006.

But the catastrophe models are right!

And because the catastrophe models are right we should definitely have no birds, turtles, and crocodiles. Prothero's right too. We should also have no frogs or salamanders. In other words if the meteor extinction theory is correct, the computer simulations tell us that if the dinosaurs went extinct, so should have the birds, turtles, crocodiles, frogs, salamanders, and I would also add snakes and sharks to the list. And a whole lot of other species too. And we'd have no tortoises.

Since then the evolutionists have been furiously running in backpedalling mode, trying to dig themselves out of a hole larger than the one made by the supposed meteor impact at 66 Ma.

Apart from possibly trying to downplay the destructive nature of the meteor impact all sorts of crazy excuses are being put forward as to how the birds may have survived:

Avians may have been able to survive the extinction as a result of their abilities to dive, swim, or seek shelter in water and marshlands. Many species of avians can build burrows, or nest in tree holes, or termite nests, all of which provided shelter from the environmental effects at the K–Pg boundary.
http://web.archive.org/web/20220607181024/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinction_event

It is difficult to understand just how much protection would be given by water and marshlands, tree-holes and termite nests, in the face of a destructive force up to an estimated energy of 21-921 billion Hiroshima A-bombs! And that followed by storms, tsunamis, cold and darkness, greenhouse warming, global fires and extensive acid rain bathing the earth for a long long time after the impact.

And the evolutionists have written that they really don't know:

Of the many great dinosaurian lineages, only the birds made it through the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous - but nobody is quite sure why. p.162.
Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, John Pickrell, 2014.

Early members of the palaeognath lineage survived (the group that includes ostriches and emus), as did members of the wildfowl and gamebird lineage, as did members of the lineage that led to seabirds, hawks, perching birds, and so on.
Why these bird groups survived when other dinosaur groups didn't is a good question, and one that hasn't been answered satisfactorily. p.208.
Dinosaurs: How they lived and evolved. Darren Naish & Paul M. Barrett, CSIRO Publishing, 2018.

Of course there is no answer. Given the destructive force of the meteor impact not only would the dinosaurs have gone extinct, but so would have birds, turtles, crocodiles, frogs, salamanders, and most likely snakes and sharks.


Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles

Some species that should be extinct!

Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles

Some species that should be extinct!

Image:Species that should be extinct! Birds Image:Species that should be extinct! Frogs Image:Species that should be extinct! Salamanders
Image:Species that should be extinct! Crocodiles Image:Species that should be extinct! Tortoises Image:Species that should be extinct! Turtles
Image:Species that should be extinct! Mammals

Some species that should be extinct!

Simply a Fantasy

And just how do we make any sense of this? One evolutionists said it so succinctly:

some extreme impact scenarios postulate extensive acid rain bathing the earth for a long time after the impact. However, the survival of amphibians shows that this is simply a fantasy (Weil 1984).
After the Dinosaurs, Donald R. Prothero, 2006.

And this does give us the correct answer.

If the scenarios are a fantasy this means that the meteor extinction theory is a fantasy as this is where the scenarios were constructed from.

Very simply, since we do have birds, frogs, salamanders, and a lot of other susceptible species, the meteor extinction theory is indeed a fantasy. But if the meteor extinction theory is a fantasy, then so is the evidence for it. And this includes fossils, rock layers, and even the smoking gun itself, the 170 km wide* 20 km deep Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico!
* See Ref 3.

All Sorts of Junk, A Complete Fabrication

Because of this I no longer believe the fossil record is a reliable record of the past life of this planet. Neither are the rock layers a reliable record of the past of this planet. This also means that the 170 km wide* 20 km deep Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula is not a reliable record of a meteor impact that supposedly happened 66 million years ago.
* See Ref 3.

The rock layers are no longer a reliable record of the past of this planet. Neither is the fossil record a reliable record of the past life of this planet.

So just where did all this stuff come from? It would appear that when this world came into existence, someone or some thing added something like many thousands of feet of layers of rock full all sorts of junk: fossils, varying ages, magnetic reversals, ice ages, various extinctions, etc. And a very curious structure of life starting from some chemical soup and progressively getting more complex, until we eventually arrive at the very penultimate of supposedly 4 billion years of evolution, Man!

And it's all complete junk. A complete fabrication.

And just who or what would have done this? A far more interesting question is just who or what would have the actual power to be able to do this!

As a Christian I have absolutely no problem with these questions. None whatsoever.

But I think the evolutionists are in a real lot of trouble.

So if I was playing chess with these people my second last move would be the Alvarez Meteor Extinction hypothesis with evidence from the rocks and fossils. Check.

Then once the evolutionists realised the full destructive power of the impact and what this would mean to susceptible species like birds, frogs, salamanders etc, their move would be to go into backpedalling mode trying to dig themselves out of a hole larger than the one the meteor supposedly made. Suggesting the actual destruction was probably exaggerated they would also come up with all sorts of crazy excuses why the birds survived. For example burrowing and hiding in termite nests or holes in trees etc.

But no matter, I would then make my final move: the 170 km wide 20 km deep Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Mate.

And just what does all of this mean to the evolutionists?

It's like, Game Over

Checkmate!

Image:Game Over: Checkmate!
Image:Game Over: Checkmate!
Image:Game Over: Checkmate!

REFERENCES


Note: when I mention the extinction of the dinosaurs this is not making a clear distinction. By the extinction of the dinosaurs I mean in general the non-avian dinosaurs.

Ma - million years ago.
Ba - billion years ago.

K-T, K-Pg boundary, extinction event
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction) was a sudden mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66 million years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event

Chicxulub
pronounced [and my choice of a few]:
"Chik-shoo-loob"

Experts Reaffirm Asteroid Impact Caused Mass Extinction
MARCH 4, 2010
Some scientists have suggested that the Chicxulub (“chik-shoo-loob”) impact in Mexico ...
https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2010/03/experts-reaffirm-asteroid-impact-caused-mass-extinction/

Chicxulub impact site
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicxulub_impact_-_artist_impression.jpg
This painting by Donald E. Davis depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. The impact spewed hundreds of billions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere, producing a worldwide blackout and freezing temperatures which persisted for at least a decade. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds.
Author: Donald E. Davis
Public domain

Meteor Crater Location in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.
"North America laea location map"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:North_America_laea_location_map.svg
Attribution: Uwe Dedering
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

1. The two guys from Mexico:

Because the interval of time that separates us from the formation of Chicxulub is so large, the evidence that could help to reconstruct impactor features are few. The most obvious is the diameter of the crater, which is between 180 and 200 km (Schulte et al., 2010). With these extreme values and equations (2.1.2), (2.2.2), (2.3.2), (2.4.10) we can estimate the energy of the impactor.

We considered the density of the projectile as 1650 kg m-3 for comets (Greenberg, 1998), 3400 kg m-3 for stony asteroids (Wilkison and Robinson, 2000), and 8000 kg m-3 for iron asteroids (Hills and Goda, 1993). ... Steel (1998) obtained an estimation of the range of velocities for bodies that cross Earth's orbit. For asteroids the interval is between 12.6 km s-1 and 40.7 km s-1. This result is based on measurements of the velocities of the asteroids that cross Earth's orbit.

The range for comets is between 16 km s-1 and 73 km s-1.

we concluded that the most probable impactor was a fast asteroid or a long-period comet with energy between 1.3x1024 J and 5.8x1025 J, mass between 1.0x1015 kg and 4.6x1017 kg, and diameter between 10.6 km and 80.9 km.
Assessments of the energy, mass and size of the Chicxulub Impactor
Hector Javier Durand-Manterola and Guadalupe Cordero-Tercero
Departamento de Ciencias Espaciales, Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México
https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6391

Suggested dates to 2014 and have a reference dated 2013.

2.

Mystery solved: ocean acidity in the last mass extinction
By Jim Sheltonoctober 21, 2019
A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected Earth’s oceans. The findings may also answer questions about how marine life eventually recovered.

The researchers say it is the first direct evidence that the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago coincided with a sharp drop in the pH levels of the oceans — which indicates a rise in ocean acidity.

“The ocean acidification we observe could easily have been the trigger for mass extinction in the marine realm,” said senior author Pincelli Hull, assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale.

The new study also may have settled a question regarding ocean pH levels leading up to K-Pg. Some researchers have theorized that volcanic eruptions starting hundreds of thousands of years before K-Pg had progressively made Earth more prone to a mass extinction event. This should be reflected in a steady decline in ocean pH levels up until the extinction.

“What we can show is that there is no real signal of gradual pH decline in the ocean in the lead-up to K-Pg,” Henehan said. “Our results do not support any major role for volcanic activity in priming the world for extinction.”
https://news.yale.edu/2019/10/21/mystery-solved-ocean-acidity-last-mass-extinction


3. 170 km wide crater? There appears to be little unanimity on the actual diameter of the crater with some estimates up to 200 km or more. The reasons for choosing 170 km are given in more detail on my Chicxulub Impactor page. Also mentioned on my Meteor Theory page.
Note: the larger diameters are obviously what's more easy to see but after supposedly 66 million years of erosion etc. The true original diameter may no longer be obvious and only discernable using special technical methods.

Old Bicycles
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_bicycles1.jpg
Image by LoopZilla
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license.

Bird pics
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Frog
Temporal range:
Early Jurassic - Present, 200-0 Ma
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago.
They are also seen as environmental bellwethers, with declines in frog populations often viewed as early warning signs of environmental damage.
For the skin to serve as a respiratory organ, it must remain moist. This makes frogs susceptible to various substances they may encounter in the environment, some of which may be toxic and can dissolve in the water film and be passed into their bloodstream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Litoria_phyllochroa.JPG
Attribution: Froggydarb
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Crocodile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nile_croc_couple_690V1510_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg
Attribution: Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Platypus + Echidna pics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monotreme_collage.jpg
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right).
Constituent files:
File:Platypus BrokenRiver QLD Australia.jpg
File:Long-beakedEchidna.jpg
File:Echidna in the Karawatha Forest - Radford.jpg
File:Zaglossus bartoni - MUSE.JPG
Attribution: Ypna
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Monotremes
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous-Recent
[pic]
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right)
Monotremes (/ˈmɒnətriːmz/, from Greek μονός, monos ('single') and τρῆμα, trema ('hole'), referring to the cloaca) are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

The platypus is one of the few monotremes still in existence today. The egg-laying mammal was only recently discovered to have lived during the Jurassic period. After analyzing a Teinolophos jawbone in 2008, University of Texas paleontologist Tim Rowe discovered that platypuses dated back as far as 122 million years ago.
Platypuses are one of only two mammalian species that lay eggs, the other being echidnas, or spiny anteaters.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/animals-as-old-as-dinosaurs_n_6982300

Teinolophos
Temporal range: Aptian ~120-113 Ma Teinolophos is a prehistoric species of monotreme, or egg-laying mammal. It is known from four specimens, each consisting of a partial lower jawbone collected from the Wonthaggi Formation at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. It lived during the Aptian age of the Lower Cretaceous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teinolophos

Platypus
Evolution, paleontology, and classification
Aquatically adapted platypus-like monotremes probably evolved from a more-generalized terrestrial monotreme. The first occurrence in the fossil record of a platypus-like monotreme is from about 110 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous Period, when Australia was still connected to South America by Antarctica.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/platypus

Salamander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SpottedSalamander.jpg
Attribution: Camazine at English Wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Salamander
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Present, 160-0 Ma
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by a lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander

Tortoise
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Turtle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg
Florida Box Turtle
Attribution: Jonathan Zander (Digon3)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Supercomputer: Sequoia at National Nuclear Security Administration 2012
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sequoia6.1000pix.jpg
IBM Sequoia
Attribution: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Public domain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chess_piece_-_Black_king.JPG
Chess piece - Black king, Staunton design
Attribution: MichaelMaggs
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en
Remix: background removed and rotated.


"Chicxulub crater location"
constructed using
"North America laea location map" by Uwe Dedering, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Cropped and approximate crater location circled.

"Chicxulub crater location" is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Stephen Robert Buckley.


Creative Commons licenses

CC BY-SA 3.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

CC BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


Note: when I mention the extinction of the dinosaurs this is not making a clear distinction. By the extinction of the dinosaurs I mean in general the non-avian dinosaurs.

Ma - million years ago.
Ba - billion years ago.

K-T, K-Pg boundary, extinction event
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction) was a sudden mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66 million years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event

Chicxulub
pronounced [and my choice of a few]:
"Chik-shoo-loob"

Experts Reaffirm Asteroid Impact Caused Mass Extinction
MARCH 4, 2010
Some scientists have suggested that the Chicxulub (“chik-shoo-loob”) impact in Mexico ...
https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2010/03/experts-reaffirm-asteroid-impact-caused-mass-extinction/

Chicxulub impact site
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicxulub_impact_-_artist_impression.jpg
This painting by Donald E. Davis depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. The impact spewed hundreds of billions of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere, producing a worldwide blackout and freezing temperatures which persisted for at least a decade. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds.
Author: Donald E. Davis
Public domain

Meteor Crater Location in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, near the town of Chicxulub.
"North America laea location map"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:North_America_laea_location_map.svg
Attribution: Uwe Dedering
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

1. The two guys from Mexico:

Because the interval of time that separates us from the formation of Chicxulub is so large, the evidence that could help to reconstruct impactor features are few. The most obvious is the diameter of the crater, which is between 180 and 200 km (Schulte et al., 2010). With these extreme values and equations (2.1.2), (2.2.2), (2.3.2), (2.4.10) we can estimate the energy of the impactor.

We considered the density of the projectile as 1650 kg m-3 for comets (Greenberg, 1998), 3400 kg m-3 for stony asteroids (Wilkison and Robinson, 2000), and 8000 kg m-3 for iron asteroids (Hills and Goda, 1993). ... Steel (1998) obtained an estimation of the range of velocities for bodies that cross Earth's orbit. For asteroids the interval is between 12.6 km s-1 and 40.7 km s-1. This result is based on measurements of the velocities of the asteroids that cross Earth's orbit.

The range for comets is between 16 km s-1 and 73 km s-1.

we concluded that the most probable impactor was a fast asteroid or a long-period comet with energy between 1.3x1024 J and 5.8x1025 J, mass between 1.0x1015 kg and 4.6x1017 kg, and diameter between 10.6 km and 80.9 km.
Assessments of the energy, mass and size of the Chicxulub Impactor
Hector Javier Durand-Manterola and Guadalupe Cordero-Tercero
Departamento de Ciencias Espaciales, Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México
https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6391

Suggested dates to 2014 and have a reference dated 2013.

2.

Mystery solved: ocean acidity in the last mass extinction
By Jim Sheltonoctober 21, 2019
A new study led by Yale University confirms a long-held theory about the last great mass extinction event in history and how it affected Earth’s oceans. The findings may also answer questions about how marine life eventually recovered.

The researchers say it is the first direct evidence that the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago coincided with a sharp drop in the pH levels of the oceans — which indicates a rise in ocean acidity.

“The ocean acidification we observe could easily have been the trigger for mass extinction in the marine realm,” said senior author Pincelli Hull, assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale.

The new study also may have settled a question regarding ocean pH levels leading up to K-Pg. Some researchers have theorized that volcanic eruptions starting hundreds of thousands of years before K-Pg had progressively made Earth more prone to a mass extinction event. This should be reflected in a steady decline in ocean pH levels up until the extinction.

“What we can show is that there is no real signal of gradual pH decline in the ocean in the lead-up to K-Pg,” Henehan said. “Our results do not support any major role for volcanic activity in priming the world for extinction.”
https://news.yale.edu/2019/10/21/mystery-solved-ocean-acidity-last-mass-extinction


3. 170 km wide crater? There appears to be little unanimity on the actual diameter of the crater with some estimates up to 200 km or more. The reasons for choosing 170 km are given in more detail on my Chicxulub Impactor page. Also mentioned on my Meteor Theory page.
Note: the larger diameters are obviously what's more easy to see but after supposedly 66 million years of erosion etc. The true original diameter may no longer be obvious and only discernable using special technical methods.

Old Bicycles
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_bicycles1.jpg
Image by LoopZilla
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license.

Bird pics
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Frog
Temporal range:
Early Jurassic - Present, 200-0 Ma
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago.
They are also seen as environmental bellwethers, with declines in frog populations often viewed as early warning signs of environmental damage.
For the skin to serve as a respiratory organ, it must remain moist. This makes frogs susceptible to various substances they may encounter in the environment, some of which may be toxic and can dissolve in the water film and be passed into their bloodstream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Litoria_phyllochroa.JPG
Attribution: Froggydarb
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Crocodile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nile_croc_couple_690V1510_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg
Attribution: Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Platypus + Echidna pics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monotreme_collage.jpg
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right).
Constituent files:
File:Platypus BrokenRiver QLD Australia.jpg
File:Long-beakedEchidna.jpg
File:Echidna in the Karawatha Forest - Radford.jpg
File:Zaglossus bartoni - MUSE.JPG
Attribution: Ypna
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Monotremes
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous-Recent
[pic]
Four of the five extant monotreme species: platypus (top-left), short-beaked echidna (top-right), western long-beaked echidna (bottom-left), and replica eastern long-beaked echidna (bottom-right)
Monotremes (/ˈmɒnətriːmz/, from Greek μονός, monos ('single') and τρῆμα, trema ('hole'), referring to the cloaca) are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

The platypus is one of the few monotremes still in existence today. The egg-laying mammal was only recently discovered to have lived during the Jurassic period. After analyzing a Teinolophos jawbone in 2008, University of Texas paleontologist Tim Rowe discovered that platypuses dated back as far as 122 million years ago.
Platypuses are one of only two mammalian species that lay eggs, the other being echidnas, or spiny anteaters.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/animals-as-old-as-dinosaurs_n_6982300

Teinolophos
Temporal range: Aptian ~120-113 Ma Teinolophos is a prehistoric species of monotreme, or egg-laying mammal. It is known from four specimens, each consisting of a partial lower jawbone collected from the Wonthaggi Formation at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. It lived during the Aptian age of the Lower Cretaceous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teinolophos

Platypus
Evolution, paleontology, and classification
Aquatically adapted platypus-like monotremes probably evolved from a more-generalized terrestrial monotreme. The first occurrence in the fossil record of a platypus-like monotreme is from about 110 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous Period, when Australia was still connected to South America by Antarctica.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/platypus

Salamander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SpottedSalamander.jpg
Attribution: Camazine at English Wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Salamander
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Present, 160-0 Ma
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by a lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander

Tortoise
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Public domain

Turtle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_Box_Turtle_Digon3_re-edited.jpg
Florida Box Turtle
Attribution: Jonathan Zander (Digon3)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Supercomputer: Sequoia at National Nuclear Security Administration 2012
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sequoia6.1000pix.jpg
IBM Sequoia
Attribution: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Public domain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chess_piece_-_Black_king.JPG
Chess piece - Black king, Staunton design
Attribution: MichaelMaggs
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en
Remix: background removed and rotated.


"Chicxulub crater location"
constructed using
"North America laea location map" by Uwe Dedering, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Cropped and approximate crater location circled.

"Chicxulub crater location" is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Stephen Robert Buckley.


Creative Commons licenses

CC BY-SA 3.0
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

CC BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


Top of page
Stephen Buckley
E-mail: greatesthoax [at] duck.com
Last revised: 15 Apr 2023.
Construction started about 23 Oct 2020.


Page design/construction Stephen Buckley 2020.