At the end of Cretaceous time, some of our great mountain ranges were formed. It was a time of earthquakes and of volcanoes that belched forth clouds of ash and rivers of molten rock. Some people would say these catastrophic events killed all the dinosaurs. The scientist shakes his head. If these events killed dinosaurs, why not the other animals that lived with the dinosaurs. And what of those parts of the world that had no volcanoes, what killed dinosaurs there?
Changes in environments, the drainage of lakes and swamps as young mountains rose, changes in vegetation as new plants replaced old, and sudden shifts of climate occurred. These conditions could explain local extinction, but there were places where these changes did not occur and yet all dinosaurs in all places died.
A one-time favorite theory suggested that increasing numbers of small mammals ate dinosaur eggs, but there were many mammals eating dinosaur eggs during all of Cretaceous time and the dinosaur hordes increased. Many more mammals during succeeding ages have not killed off the turtles, snakes, lizards, and crocodiles that lay eggs and exist in great numbers today.
Some disease or combination of plagues may have swept the dinosaurs into extinction. If so, no evidence has been found to date that confirms or denies. However, most paleontologists do not accept this theory.
These are some of the theories that have been advanced to explain the sudden extinction of dinosaurs throughout the world. Each theory will explain the death of some dinosaurs in some places but attempts to apply any of them, or combinations of them, to worldwide extinction have failed.
This dinosaur story is like a mystery thriller with the last pages torn out. A most important part is missing. That is true and the paleontologist knows it. He also knows the riddle will probably never be solved. He might point out, however, that no one has successfully explained the extinction of the passenger pigeon which occurred quite recently, nor do we know why some other species of wildlife are on the brink of extinction today. The paleontologist is not the only one who must say, “I don’t know.”
History and Development of the Quarry
DISCOVERY AND EARLY YEARS
No one knows how long the old bones had been weathering out of the hills of what is now Dinosaur National Monument before the first man saw them. Curious Indians, wandering between the upturned ridges of Mesozoic rocks, picked up fragments and carried them off to their camps where they are now found among the arrow points, ax heads, and corn-grinding stones. In 1776, the Spaniard, Father Escalante, passed within sight of today’s dinosaur quarry, not dreaming of the antiquity hidden there. Maj. John Wesley Powell, on his second voyage down the Green River in 1871, recorded the presence of “reptilian remains” in the area, but wrote nothing more about them. Sheepherders, cattlemen, and hunters observed them and were impressed in proportion to their understanding. But, through all the years, the nature of the bones remained a mystery.
