There are dozens of theories to explain a probable cause or causes. Throughout the Mesozoic Era, individual dinosaur species were evolving and becoming extinct for various reasons. The unusually massive extinction at the end of the Cretaceous exterminated the last of the dinosaurs, the flying reptiles, and the large swimming reptiles, as well as many other marine animals.

There is now widespread evidence that a meteorite impact was at least the partial cause for this extinction. Impact craters are visible on most planets in our solar system. A spectacular example of this was witnessed in 1994, when Jupiter was struck by a series of cometary fragments. Some of these impact blasts were larger than the Earth's diameter.

Other factors such as extensive release of volcanic gases, climatic cooling (with related changes in ocean currents and weather patterns), sea-level change, low reproduction rates, poison gases from a comet, or changes in the Earth's orbit or magnetic field may have contributed to this extinction event.

I heard a theory that dinosuars did not actually become extinct - they simply evolved into other species such as birds.

The dinosaurs became extinct during one of the largest extinction events in the history of life on earth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous-Tertiary_extinction_event

The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event killed off a wide variety of different types animals - including plant life, and plankton.

It seems highly unlikely that dinosaurs survived this extinction event, then gradually morphed into birds.

This theory is falling out of favor - but there are still a few hardcore devotees

yes, and most of them have already staked their reputations/careers on this fiction - so there's no going back for them.

Many geologists and paleontologists now think that a large asteroid or comet impacting the Earth must have caused a global catastrophe that led to this extensive loss of life.

Can someone please explain to me what their thoughts are on many cultures having dragons and the like ingrained upon their societies ? China for example .
Also can some one explain too me why there are dinosaurs on a tomb in Carlisle cathedral .These brass dinosaurs (and others)can be found on the tomb of Bishop Bell in Carlisle Cathedral. He died in 1496 and going by other such engravings on his tomb these were there to represent things with which he was familiar during his life. Nobody doubts these engravings were made in 1496. Therefore dinosaurs must have been around in 1496! Dinosaur skeletons were not 'discovered' until the end of the 18th century. (For a fuller discussion on this go to the full study on evolution v creation
http://www.enlightened.org.uk/dinosaurs.html

I heard that they are still around somewhere just no one can figure out where they exist.

it is not possible for the existence of dinosaurs because their blueprint is totally different from that of the species living now. there are not the variations in the dinosuars as seen in the new species. now the existingspecies are also endangered so, dinnosuars aren't there.

There are a lot of theories and reasons why the dinosaurs died. All science is only just best guess!
We will never know exactly how the dinosaurs died unless we somehow invented a bloody time machine which according to scientists is impossible. So, what did kill the dinosaurs?

Walking dinosaurs got buried under silt following the deluge spokien about in the Hebrew bible.

Probably microbe.There is no indication yet of meteorical existance.Facts that nothing lasts for ever.
Facts too that three additions to are vitamins,infection and/or disease,inbred evolutionary hostility:A.K.A.self-annhilation.More to the point did dinosaurs have nuclear weapons?If so then a nucleic retard valve would self evaluate destruction and self detonate unsuccessfully.Things change.Less to the point didn't carbon dating also predict the time travel future.

It was most likely not a meteor shower because there isn't an even likely chance that there were that many flaming rocks falling from the sky to kill that many species. Besides, they aren't necessarily extinct; they gradually evolved into the birds, reptiles, and other animals that live in our world today. But to kill that many, I would say it was a sudden disease that was probably like the Black Plague, or like the Swine Flu that is just developing today. Otherwise, it was probably something that passed through the food that the herbivores ate, and then the omnivores and carnivores probably gained it through contact with the herbivores and omnivores that they ate, and that link probably killed them and caused them to suddenly adapt to the environment, which would have them evolve, just as we are still evolving as a species.

It is being said that dinosaurs are killed by a meteor crash in mexico, but scientist have reaserched and found out that may be due to the explosions of volcanoes in the deccan plateau of india created a very big cloud of ash and dust that suffocated the dinos till death. Till now, this is the latest theory, there were lots more!

Im not doubting the meteor theory in any way, Im just wondering. If a meteor large enough to impact life world-wide like that WERE to hit Earth, would it affect Earth's orbit? Possibly causing it to be more elliptical and thus taking it out of the habitable zone for long periods? That would suck, huh?

I do not think that a meteor large enough to impact life world-wide has to be large enough to affect Earth's orbit, but of course it may be possible...I don't think it ever has happened, though, in recorded times, at least. I think that the gravitational attraction between the Sun and Earth is too forceful to allow many meteors to 'knock' us.
Just like an extremely small virus can bring down the entire body, a meteor can hit and bring atmospheric changes, which can develop into weather changes, which can alter environments all over the earth.

Some people think the scales of their eggs got too thin, so that the youngs died in their eggs because they weren't protected enough. Other people say that the scales got too thick, and the youngs couldn't penetrate the scale anymore, and that they all died in the egg.
I don't believe that tough. according to Darwin's evolution theory if you got something good then it will carry on but this is not good so many might die but always some would survive because they didn't have the thin/thick scales

There are dozens of theories to explain a probable cause or causes. Throughout the Mesozoic Era, individual dinosaur species were evolving and becoming extinct for various reasons. The unusually massive extinction at the end of the Cretaceous exterminated the last of the dinosaurs, the flying reptiles, and the large swimming reptiles, as well as many other marine animals.

There is now widespread evidence that a meteorite impact was at least the partial cause for this extinction. Impact craters are visible on most planets in our solar system. A spectacular example of this was witnessed in 1994, when Jupiter was struck by a series of cometary fragments. Some of these impact blasts were larger than the Earth's diameter.

Other factors such as extensive release of volcanic gases, climatic cooling (with related changes in ocean currents and weather patterns), sea-level change, low reproduction rates, poison gases from a comet, or changes in the Earth's orbit or magnetic field may have contributed to this extinction event.

It was (if the scientists are right that is) such a massive meteor that when it crashed, so much dust and debris came into the atmosphere that the sunlight was blocked out for years. Many plants died, making many herbivores (that ate the plants) die, and then carnivores (that ate the herbivores). It's like a massive chain reaction, plants die animals die more animals die and so on. In the end about 70% of all life on earth was exterminated, and every animal bigger than a rabbit (i think could also have been another small animal) grew extinct except for crocodiles. Still all hypothetical but this is pretty much the most likely cause.

Simply we can tell, growth of genesis is the answer.
but not only that ,we know one thing that every living and non living bring the energy from sun for life cycle.
if the nature is destroyed the dinosaurs, then where is the nature, if the nature is a killer.
the answer is there is no nature, there is all of the things are stabilized by normalizing. which causes the genesis, which means DNA alterations. this alterations are made up step by step of million years.

one simple example: few thousands years ago a group of elephants had growth abnormally in there amount, they destroyed the large amount of forest trees in a certain period, it causes a big climate change, no rain ,no forest, no food. so the all elephants were died. it indicates nature killing nature.

The answer as to why dinosaurs are depicted as dragons is that man has always found fossils. It was not until people noticed the dodo was not about anymore that they became used to the idea of extinction - although some people like Robert Hooke were. Had dinosaurs been alive in 1496 we would be finding their bones not fossils which are merely rock casts.MAny Greek temples contained fossils but these were not noticed until recently due to the fact that archaeologists do not specialise in fossils (& probably get pissed off with people who think they do).

As to extinction theories, I understand that the meteor or comet has been located at the Chixxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico so it obviously happened but so did the eruption of the Deccan Traps so they are not mutually exclusive. What requires explanation is how some species survived and some did not. Size was a major factor, but not the only one. Crocodiles survived but ammonites did not.

The truth probably is that there were multiple factors involved. The meteor and increased volcanic activity probabely killed many but let's not forget that a lot of dinosaurs had already become birds. So really dinosaurs are NOT extinct.

I give another theory that I've never heard of before and probably no-one ever has, but with all the donkeys in the world believing in global warming to be a human cause, this one triggers enough imagination.
Meteors are bullshit, It's nice that a meteor hits austria.. or wherever it was, and spread a huge dust-cloud, but that doesn't explain mass extinction all over the world, since the dust-cloud didn't cover the whole world. This needs to be something for a longer period of time, thousands of years (who can tell one bone dates 10.000 more years then the other bone which is already millions of years old?) ESPECIALLY not the ocean creatures, the food chain in the ocean can survive a lot of things. Maybe the same dust-cloud triggered the ice age .. yeah right.
So, look at the sun people. THAT'S the thing that affects all live on earth (ow yeah.. also the enormous amounts of deathly poison I spit out from my car :| ), and this is also the thing that affects all death on earth. Like we had a big ice-age, we also had a big heat age, and whatever other age.
THIS is what killed all previous known life. Just image a big soup heating up. At one moment plants die, trees die, food dies (except the ones with strong roots, and sturdy branches), with the herbivores the carnivores die also. But we still have the micro organisms living on the sun light, where ever deep they can hide in the ocean to find confortable heat (oh right, that doesn't account for the HUGE creatures that can't stand the pressute), which might produce new life (although I'm not a strong believer of Darwins ideas, since normally differences are considered strange) since this makes sense.
Don't ask me any proof or resources, since I don't know of any. But this is the only explanation which makes sense to me.
Ah, the big flare hit one part of the earth first, so this is where the mass grave ended up :)

Oh, but a lot of people believe an ice age to be a "side effect" of the meteor crash. Large volcanic eruptions often cause global temperature drops, sometimes of even 2-4 degrees centigrade, so image what a massive meteor can do. In a large part of the world the sun was blocked by the dust clouds, causing an ice age. This, combined with mass plant starvation due to lack of sun, would have caused the extinction of all large animals. At least, that is the theory.

Well, I understand vulcanic eruptions can cause things to get extinct, like people living near the Vesuvius.
Also, I can live with the feeling, that this is the reason why people migrated ten thousands of years in the first place.
but this whole theory of mass extinction doesn't make sense. since so far, impacts and eruptions didn't cause mass extinct.
However, next to the sun, there's always the earhts core that plays an important role.
Thing is, this core is hugely influenced by the sun as well, due to the gravitational forces.
So my answer is still in the sun. Simple asteroid hits are not the answer for massive changes in the earths behaviour.
Look at the warm tempareture in Europe in the mediaval times.

I heard that dinosars are living in amazon forests.. Some researchers are telling like that..

I have a theory and I think it is so simple, nobody even thought of it or think it to be true. Say for instance you put a male and a female rat into a box appropriate for them to survive for 1 month or so, i.e. providing them with food and water to last that long. They go on living for the first month during which they mate like crazy and reproduce offsprings trice their number. Now as the offsprings begins to grow and feed, the resources begins to reduce in quantity, slowly but surely bringing about starvation. The rats now begin fighting for survival, getting rid of the weak ones for food, who by the way, are their own kind. finally after 2 months or so, the strongest survives, but not so strong now as he has nothing to keep him going. He gradually perishes. Now get the rats out and substitute the with the hugh reptiles who ever lived, placing them in a small green planet called earth for a box.

I think that Thomas Malthus has already thought of that one. The problem is that this would cause periodic fluctuation in numbers but unlikely to cause a global extinction. At the time of the KT extinction the continents had separated so in fact we have several boxes which all seem to be simultaneously affected.

According to my own understanding and interpretation of a very ancient Text, the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs seams to be the Moon.

It is only my understanding and the interpretation of an ancient Text. Could be wrong and most probably it is wrong.Throwing one more idea in the pot don't think will upset any body.

Sorry can not tell the proper name of that text, but it is a very well known text.

Cheers

I think that dinosaurs r still alive i think that when our world ends the earths creust will make a new crust and that the dinosauars are under that crust right now cause no one existed when dinosaurs romed the earth so now that we exist they died but they died cause of the ice age

I think, change in atmospher,weather,nature play important role to killed the dinosaurs...

I refer you to the discussion topic "Meteor kills Dinosaurs?". I had to break it up on account of its lengthy answer. Just keep reading on down. There are four sections. Don't be afraid!!

Is there any Evidence of what killed the dinosaurs

i personally feel it was the flood 5000 years ago , and one reason is that back in the 1800's they found some dinosaurs with meat still on the bone ! of couse the place was in the antarctic .

I'd say heat, they died of thirst and starvation caused by heat that killed plants and dried up water supply. without food and water anyone will die, that's a fact.

That has to be wrong a large rock from space hit earth caused crops and live stock to die

A meteor shower killed and wiped out all dinosaurs. Only fossils and some foot prints are found and known. We have no clue if their are any dinosaurs left other then common animals mostly amphibians like comoto drangons,alligators,crocodiles,...ect these animals and and some more were all from prehistoric ages and are still here now we can interpret that theses animals adapted to somewhere quick like the ocean or high mountains aome even deep inside the ground.we are still not sure if the meteor shower is the thing that wiped out all dinosaurs or if something eles did.

Er...I'll go for an ancient virus! Perhaps released by meteor impact...but still around, waiting to be awakened again.

The ice breaking away in Antarctica could be a vector. Lots of horrible things happening to Seabirds and Sealife in the southern oceans right now...

And which theory is that?/ evolution/creation???

I know my question is not related to our discussion, but i just want to ask, about Johannes Kepler why is it that he was not investigated by the church well infact he well known as believer of copernican theory.

Natural selection killed the dinosaur. It really doesn't matter in what order was a series of events, or what those methods was. It could have been a combination of many facters. The bottom line is, the dinosaurs exhausted thier necessity. They lived to kill, be killed, and die. Whatever the objective was in thier existance, it had nothing to do with thier being. Think of it as using the right machine for a specific job. Theoretically. In honesty, if God wanted to kill you, there is nothing much you can do about it, except die.

I must admit what i think will also involve how the Bermuda triangle was formed.I think that there was part of the atmosphere that was not formed yet and it might have not been over any piece of land ,so,this is an advantage for a star to crash on earth without going hot and ending up as a shooting star,that star might have died causing an explosion wiping out all life on earth and isn't it that a black hole is formed after a star dies,as a result a black hole formed on earth becoming known as the Bermuda triangle the only black hole on earth.

I think they were destoyed by the flood and became extinct,cos i believe the biblical word.God deroy them by floord, thats why their fossil still exist,not asteroid, cos they would have bournt to ashes.

No they are not extinct only for the small fact of... We still have alligators and crocodiles.

True, regular dinos have evolved into are animals we have today.But i have a theory and its disease i know scientists believe it was disease and i agree with them.

Phemosky your right about one thing the comets,asteroids,and meteorites.Exactly the reason why its not about space destruction theory of meteors and volcanoes is definetely out

If disease wiped out the dinos... Does anyone think that disease will wipe us (the human nation) out too???

Oh my question! it was either starvation, metior, or dinos killing each other! or too many dinosaurs!

Big Rock!
Dino AIDS
Da Deluge
Sun Puked
Vulcanism
Take your pick
God only knows
& he's not too sure.

I personally think they just got bored and moved on......
Jupiter...maybe Uranus
(they would have been bad neighbors anyway)
Good Riddance