crisscrossing Science Episode 036: Why There Are No More Dinosaurs

In this episode, Chris Gaiser (professor of biology at Linfield College) and Mike Crosser (professor of physics at Linfield College) discuss the mass extinction event that led to the dinosaurs becoming extinct and the mammals filling new niches. It is now known that an asteroid impacted the Earth about 65 million years ago, the results of which were to block out the sun across the globe for about a decade, leading to a cascade of death, from plants to herbivores to carnivores. Gaiser and Crosser discuss the evidence for the actual impact event and for the eventual transition of species.