Dinosaurs were minutes away from surviving extinction, says new research

Giant reptiles could have escaped demise had asteroid that slammed into earth reached planet moments earlier or later, argues BBC documentary

Peter Holley

Friday 19 May 2017 07:40 BST

Documentary suggests dinosaurs could have survived fatal asteroid's impact blast had it landed in deep sea Canadian Museum of Nature 

From our standpoint 66 million years later, it's easy to assume the demise of the dinosaurs was an inevitability.

But an international team of researchers is making a radical argument for why that may not be the case: Had the asteroid that likely wiped out the dinosaurs slammed into the planet a few minutes earlier or later, the scientists say, the fabled reptiles could still be walking the earth now.

That conclusion makes up one of the most intriguing revelations in The Day the Dinosaurs Died, a BBC Two documentary that was filmed across three continents during the past year before airing this week.

How is it possible dinosaurs could still be alive?

If the massive asteroid that smashed into present-day Yucatan hit the Atlantic Ocean or somewhere else, the scientists maintain, the rock would have avoided an area made up primarily of limestone and evaporated ocean sediments and rich in carbon dioxide, sulphur and deadly gypsum. Due to the earth's rotation, even a minute or two could have significantly changed the outcome of the impact.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a kill shot for the giant reptiles roaming the planet.

“When the asteroid hits with the force of something like 10 billion Hiroshima explosions, all of that gets pumped up in the atmosphere, and it may have been really critical for the mass extinction that followed as it blocked out the sun,” Sean Gulick, a University of Texas professor who studies catastrophism in the geologic record, told The Washington Post. “A few minutes earlier or later and the asteroid would've hit the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean and not slammed into a big, volatile platform that was then vaporised as it spread upward and out.”

Continued