There are many different theories that try to explain the extinction of dinosaurs: meteorites, volcanic eruptions and even deadly bugs. On March 12, Bakersfield College geology, earth science and engineering professor Natalie Bursztyn gave a lecture about her theory. “Where did all the Dinosaurs Go?” took place at Cal State Bakersfield and was put on by the CSUB Geology Club. Bursztyn started the lecture by talking about her work in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. Hell Creek Formation is also where Barnum Brown discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex in 1902.
“Two years ago, I decided to follow my dream and become a paleontologist for a summer,” said Bursztyn. While there, she and her group found some triceratops bones, including rib bones and a brain case. Bursztyn said she thought she’d prefer the field work over the lab work, since that is why she got into geology, but the “Bakersfield-like heat” made it less enjoyable. She explained that they made plaster jackets of the bones they found.
“It’s how we get the dinosaurs out of the ground and into the lab,” she said. “It was like arts and crafts.” Bursztyn said the part she thought she would hate the most but ended up liking the most was putting the resin-made models of the bones together.
Bursztyn said she was skeptical of the meteorite explanation of extinction and has her own theory.
Before she got to her own theory and the other theories, she gave a brief history of dinosaurs and science. She told the audience about the first dinosaurs discovered, like the megalosaurus in 1824 and the iguanodon in 1825. She explained that dinosaurs did not always have the “Godzilla” pose we are used to today. At first, dinosaurs were thought to look like a creature Bursztyn dubbed “crocodile-dog-bear.”
Bursztyn explained the common theories of extinction, like the meteorite theory, which was proposed in 1979, and the volcanic eruptions theory, which was proposed in the ’80s as a counter to the meteorite theory. Then she told the audience about a few rejected explanations, like dinosaurs grew so large and lethargic that they died of boredom, and egg-eating mammals ate the dinosaur eggs. But the best rejected theory, she said, was that dinosaur sex was so loud that sonic sex booms wiped them out. She confirmed that she did actually find this theory in a Japanese study.
Finally, Bursztyn told her own theory, that climate change was responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs. She explained that at the Hell Creek Formation there is a decrease in dinosaur diversity. The dinosaurs decreased from 19 genera at the base of the rocks to 7 genera at the top, to none at the upper three meters.
“That’s not immediate; that’s gradual,” Bursztyn said. “Every geologist knows it takes more than half a second, more than a year, to do that.”
She said that the dinosaurs were killed off over millions of years due to change in climate but joked that it was “not because they were all driving Hummers.”
“The media always favors the coolest explanations for the coolest of all the species. They favor the catastrophism,” Bursztyn said. “Something that takes place over a matter of time is boring to people.”
Audience members ranged from young to old, and Geology Club students to students there for extra credit.”I’m here for extra credit but also because of curiosity,” said BC geology major Kory Smith. “I thought it was great and put together well. She has tons of experience for being so young.”
“I’ve never taken a geology class, and I understood everything she was saying,” said Brittany Camirand, a physics major at CSUB. “She didn’t talk over your head.”