The hypothesis on dinosaurs' extinction was presented by scientists of the Far East Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Far East Federal University at the recent scientific conference in Vladivostok. Vladivostok scientists have put forward a new version assuming that the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by increased terristrial gravitation.
"There is an old-time paleontologic paradox, which is that numerous biological organisms that left indisputable evidences of their existence in the stone chronicle of the Earth just would not have been able to physically exist today", - one of the authors of the hypothesis, the chief researcher of the Sea Biology Institute, RAS, Anatoly Drozdov explained to TASS.
According to this hypothesis confirmed with modern mathematical calculations, the present-time gravity on the planet Earth would not make it possible to exist for the gigantic animals, such as pterosaurs with the wingspan of 12 to 15 meters or huge overland dinosaurs with the weight of dozens of tons.
Having analysed paleontologic data on the evolution of 11 largest overland animals over 150 million years, they came to the conclusion that huge dinosaurs developed in the conditions of lower gravity, which later increased by 2,079 times to its current state.
Scientists see the reason of such changes in the increased mass of the planet Earth due to a great number of small meteorites and space dust subsided on its surface. "Such process is hypothetically possible as a result of the Solar system going through a dense cloud of interstellar space dust around 150-200 million years ago. This process happened gradually, over dozens of millions of years, but in the period from 60 to 100 million years ago became very intensive, and thus caused drastic change of gravity and fast extinction of gigantic pangolins. Thus both the weight and the size of the Earth grew up at the same time", - Anatoly Drozdov said.
"On the assumption of our calculations, over these 150-200 million years the area of the Earth surface grew up by 4,32 times, i.e. by 76,81 per cent, and corresponds to the area of oceanic crust, and the volume of the Earth grew up 9 times approximately", - the scientist explained.
The authors of the hypothesis intend to look for its proofs by attracting experts from related fields for further research work. "A cosmological model, which could either validate or disprove such a change of the planet mass is required now" - Mr. Drozdov concluded.
Author: Vera Ivanova