The Doom of The Dinosaurs – Why?
Robert E. Gentet
© 2025
At the end of what geologists call the “Cretaceous Period,” dinosaur fossils no longer appear in the later rock record. Why? The answer to that question has been sought by earth scientists for two hundred years.
In 1978 a 112-mile buried meteor crater was found off the Yucatan peninsula. Geologists date the event near the end of the Cretaceous Period. In addition, a thin layer of Iridium is found in many areas worldwide near the top of the final Cretaceous strata. This rare earth element is found in asteroids and hence provides evidence that the demise of the dinosaurs and the disastrous impact of the asteroid were profoundly connected.
While the meteor impact theory dominates today as the cause of dinosaur extinction, not all scientists agree. Other factors must also be taken into consideration. The fossil record seems to show a decline of certain dinosaur types before the asteroid hit. For example, dinosaur fossils in earlier Cretaceous rocks reveal a decline of large-bodied herbivores. One theory of dinosaur decline suggests that many dinosaurs could not selectively avoid the new toxic angiosperm plants that were invading the former widespread gymnosperm and fern ecosystem highly favorable to the herbivore dinosaurs. This lack of ability to avoid consuming the new toxic plants would prove very harmful to them. Furthermore, the fossil record of plant life during the Cretaceous clearly shows a great transformation into the angiosperm dominated ecosystem that still dominates the world today.
In short, many factors were happening that doomed the dinosaur dynasty. The meteor disaster off the Yucatan peninsula, while important, seems not the primary cause of worldwide dinosaur extinction. It does not account for the fact that many other land based life-forms breezed through the event without becoming extinct.
The author’s CCC geologic model has from its beginning in 2000 postulated that the geologic “periods” are, in fact, a witness of successive ecosystems recorded by the fossil record around the world. Having an adequate food supply for each type of animal was and is vital for its survival. When, due to multiple factors, the ecosystem for the dinosaurs radically changed, their survival was doomed. The two links below provide more information for the basis of this biblical-based model of Earth history.
https://creationhistory.com/ccc-model/the-ccc-model-and-its-geologic-implications
https://creationhistory.com/research/when-dinosaurs-roamed-texas