Study Refutes Dinosaur Decline Before Asteroid Impact
New research from University College London reveals that perceived declines in dinosaur diversity were due to fossil record biases, reaffirming the asteroid impact as the primary extinction cause.
- University College London researchers analyzed over 8,000 North American fossils from the final 18 million years of the Cretaceous period.
- The study found that the apparent decline in dinosaur diversity was caused by a patchy fossil record, not an actual population decrease.
- Occupancy modeling showed that the habitat area of major dinosaur clades remained stable until the asteroid impact 66 million years ago.
- Geological and environmental factors, such as reduced exposure of fossil-bearing rocks, were identified as key contributors to the fossil record biases.
- The findings challenge the notion of a gradual dinosaur decline and suggest that dinosaurs might have thrived longer if not for the catastrophic asteroid event.
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