[meteorite-list] Fossils Offer Support for Meteor's RoleinDinosaur Extinc...

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Mark Fe wrote:
>Lack of a fossil means nothing.
>A charred bone  fossil will.
 
>Mark Fe "I've only driven through Missouri, but show me  anyway"

Hola Mark, List,
 
64.8 - 65.3 million years later and you expect to find a charred dinosaur  
bone?  Either the bone gets burnt or it fossilizes...and fossilizing is  very 
infrequent in the big scheme of things or everyone would have a dinosaur  
skeleton buried in their cellar...I think it would be asking to much to get an  
animal fossil of something that was burnt - would seem to me that whatever  was 
burnt would loose its integrity and no longer have the ability to fossilize  
very easily at all...Can you show me a fossilized piece of burnt petrified  wood 
... ? :)  Or was that just a fragment of petrified wood and who knows  why it 
wasn't twice as big...
 
With respect to the Forams, the theory is simple.  Foramifera are  plentiful 
in sediments containing even no macro-fossils as is too typical in the  KT 
sediments.  Changes species of 'Forams' are indicators of climatic  change in the 
opinion of most paleontologists.  Now the fossil record shows  that during 
that time period so long ago, many species of land animals simply  vanished 
geologically abruptly, though how abruptly is still an open question  for some: Is 
it 500,000 years or 500 years being the basic question.  And  the key 
assumption for Missourian's palate is if all but proving a big climate  change (read: 
Foram change) in conjunction with a huge iridium spike wasn't a  shock enough 
to blow away larger land animals.
 
Similar changes in microscopic creatures earmark other great dyings.   In the 
case of KT, for every 20 different species of Forams, only about 6  remained. 
 The black box that ties the dinosaur extinction is, if we are  sure the 
climate changed abruptly as:
1. this is reflected in a sudden change in Forams...because only the hot  
water species survived...or cold water species survived in a certain area of  
study we have an incredibly nice predictor of climate (temperature)  change.  Now 
furthermore, we can correlate that change, ie, dying, with a  spike of 
Iridium!
 
OK, you're from Missouri...No problem, a very nice place (Isn't their  motto, 
"Missouri is for Virginians?"  Or was it "Show me Virginia"?, or  "Missouri 
is for Lovers?"  I get them all mixed up.  But I think the  paleontologists are 
on to something when they turn up those wonderful clues to  what happened 
that fateful date of January 1, 64,997,995 B.C.  A person who  measures dinosaur 
bones and is typically a good prehistoric taxonomist to  describe new species, 
is unlikely to find a bone with a label 64,997,996 BC. I'm  all eyes for new 
evidence, but I think the Foram folk who are the experts in  
chronoestratigraphy are much more likely to deconvolute as best as any dino only  
paleontologist , after all they possibly like forams nbecause the dinos didn't  give up any 
smoking guns, which is worse than looking for a grain of sand on a  beach 
with 65,000,000 more grains... and it is not like these experts are not  all very 
interest paleontologists at heart and that many of the Foram folk of  course 
are dino experts as well as can be!
 
Three cheers for the efforts of the Foram folk ... though not loud enough  
cheer to give them big heads about it...the big head won't happen until the next 
 Nobel Prize is awarded on the subject...and I haven't seen any work in the 
field  yet coming near that yet...but who knows what they might dig up...would 
you take  an ammonite that looked like a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces 
gone and a  few spherules rolling around in it?  Ammonites can look like 
j8igsaw  puzzles...btw:-)
Saludos, Doug
PS :Lack of a fossil means something, though it proves decisively  nothing.  
Lucky scientists can waive the "beyond a reasonable doubt" clause  of the 
Constitution when they publish and speak of thingsbeing consistent or not  with 
the record...