What if it wasn’t a meteor?
Already years before the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the planet, Earth was going through some rough times. The Deccan Traps in India contain 500,000 square kilometers of ancient volcanic flows that are two kilometers thick. They were established several 100,000 years before the impact. An example that is showing us we live on an active planet.
What if there wasn’t a comet strike, but rather something else? If there is a link between an Earth warming up and the dinosaurs dying out, then there may be other ways to explain the outcome.
If a cosmic lightning strike occurred, and not a comet, would that have produced Iridium from material from our very own planet and then carpeted the planet with it? What if Iridium is not the resulting delivery by a comet, but produced on our planet itself by an interstellar lightning strike and this then poisoning the air that killed off many animals?
There can be a variety of explanations why the planet warmed up. In this article, a proposed alternative is discussed why the dinosaurs died off. If you don’t think it is possible, then I hope you’ll find the article entertaining.
The timeframe is 70 to 65 million years ago, and the Indian subcontinent was moving toward the equator all by itself as part of plate-tectonic movements. The landmasses were in somewhat different spots than they are today.
If we follow the principle of friction and electromagnetism, then having that continent sit along the section of Earth that spins the fastest on a daily basis would add drag to the equation. Drag transforms into heat, and Earth becomes warmer.
Naturally, this is entirely a relative phenomenon. The added heat is very likely negligible. Yet adding negligible heat for one million years represent 365,000,000 days of drag, of adding a tiny amount of heat. The worse part (because we are looking for a doomsday scenario) is that the heat was an addition. The planet warmed and warmed and there is no max to the warming.
