Dinosaur sex, poisoned plants and volcanic eruptions were a few of many theories discussed by professor Natalie Bursztyn during the National Weather Association’s Kern County Chapter meeting at Cal State Bakersfield on Jan. 24.
Bursztyn is a professor of geology and earth science at Bakersfield College. The lecture discussed the extinction of dinosaurs in a perspective of a weather change.
“If only we had a time machine, we could know what happened to the dinosaurs,” Bursztyn said.
A brief history of the dinosaurs was given in order to get to the final conclusion.
“The Cretaceous Period (the final era that dinosaurs existed) was the strangest period that had the weirdest dinosaurs,” said Bursztyn.
When dinosaur bones were discovered in the 1800s, many things became rapidly known about these creatures that existed more than 400 million years ago.
“Syphilis was discovered in 1494, and in the year 1906 we had the first syphilis test,” said Bursztyn.
“In a small period, tons of things were discovered about these magnificent creatures before the first syphilis test,” Burstyn explained as the crowd chuckled.
According to Bursztyn, there was evidence that the sea level dropped dramatically during the Cretaceous Period.
Due to the dramatic change, the glaciers grew and caused a worldwide cold temperature. The cold weather resulted in a change of vegetation.
“Dinosaurs were not used to the cold environment. So, if there was little food, little water, what is left?” asked Bursztyn.
The crowd slowly murmured, “each other.”
Apparently, all dinosaurs began to compete for food and began to eat anything that was available, even dirt.
“This was a gradual demise while other scientists believed it was an instant death,” explained Bursztyn.
There are many theories on how dinosaurs went extinct. For example, some believe that it was a huge meteor in the Yucatan Peninsula that destroyed all the dinosaurs. Another popular theory is that huge volcanic eruptions around the world caused dinosaurs to die off due to large amounts of carbon dioxide. Yet another theory is that the increased number of mammals ate the majority of the dinosaur eggs, resulting in a decrease of dinosaur life.
Some suggest that a high amount of selenium caused dinosaurs to slowly die because selenium was inside the plants they ate, and carnivores ate some dinosaurs that were poisoned.
“Some Japanese scientist believed that dinosaurs were having loud sex and the sonic booms were too loud,” said Bursztyn, and she laughed. ” I cannot make stuff up like that.”
The NWA-Kern Chapter holds regular meetings and has lectures on a monthly basis regarding weather change in Kern County.