Almost West of Eden. Might the Dinosaurs have survived?

West of Eden, is a counter factual novel by Harry Harrison. I read West of Eden, in High School.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden  Harry Harrison was one of my favourite writers when I was a teenager. Imagine my joy when I discovered he had crossed Dinosaurs with Alternate History.

H/T Walking with Dinosaurs BBC...

If the asteroid hit 10 million years earlier, might dinosaurs have survived?

Steve Brusattepalaeontologist: Edinburgh University

Steve is a research fellow at Edinburgh University and the resident palaeontologist on Walking with Dinosaurs.

LAST WEEK I answered a question about the origin of dinosaurs, a topic that fascinates me. But just as interesting is the extinction of the dinosaurs: a mystery that has generated more research (and speculation) than any other issue in dinosaur palaeontology.

This question hints at a view that has emerged over the past three decades, as palaeontologists reassess the dinosaur extinction using a wealth of new data provided by recent fossil discoveries and modern techniques for studying evolution.

First, the basics. Dinosaurs (except for birds, of course) became extinct about 66 million years ago, at the same time that an enormous asteroid, about 10km wide, smacked into the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

We know there was an asteroid because there is a crater in Mexico that is 66 million years old. There is also a thin layer of clay that was formed at this time, all around the world, that is enriched in iridium (an element that is extremely rare on earth but very common in asteroids). In addition, there is clear evidence for global wildfires and huge tsunamis that were caused by the impact.

Furthermore, dinosaur fossils are not found in rocks that were formed after this asteroid impact – we simply never find dinosaurs in rocks deposited above the iridium-rich clay layer.

So it seems clear that the asteroid impact had something to do with the dinosaur extinction, a view that has been widely supported since the father-and-son team of Luis and Walter Alvarez first proposed it in 1980.

But one question has remained: were dinosaurs in decline prior to this asteroid impact? If so, perhaps the asteroid simply delivered a final crushing blow to dinosaurs, which were already heading towards extinction.

Recent studies have shown that certain dinosaur groups were in decline during the final 10 million years of the Cretaceous. A study published by my colleagues and I in 2012 showed that the large-bodied, bulk-feeding, plant-eating dinosaurs (ceratopsids and hadrosauroids) dramatically decreased in diversity during this time.

Another intriguing study, published by my colleague Jonathan Mitchell and his co-workers, asked an important question: what did this decline actually mean for dinosaurs?

They constructed food webs for several dinosaur ecosystems during the final 10 million years of the Cretaceous. These food webs are similar to what I used to draw out in grade school science classes: an interconnected network of species showing who eats who, that links together all members of an ecosystem.

Mitchell et al then used a computer to perform a calculation: what would happen to these food webs if various species became extinct?

They found that the ecosystems that existed when the asteroid hit were far more susceptible to devastating extinctions (where the extinctions of a few species has cascading consequences throughout the food web) than the ecosystems of 10 million years before. The asteroid impacted at a time when ecosystems were particularly vulnerable and weak.

So it does seem as if dinosaurs suffered some pretty bad luck, and would have had a better chance of surviving the asteroid apocalypse if it had occurred 10 million years earlier...

Scientists fix date for dinosaurs' extinction

Scientists fix date for dinosaurs' extinction

I see my fellow Alumni from the University of Glasgow are involved. Well done
That said I am curious, to what is meant that Dinosaurs were in decline. Without the KT event. Would birds have filled the niche? As Birds had edged out the flying reptiles?

Dinosaur named after President Obama

http://www.boston.com/news/science/blogs/science-in-mind/2012/12/10/yale-scientists-name-obamadon-slender-jawed-lizard-after-the-president/8VELtuwNDxWjbOciIsYphM/blog.html

A small insectivore named due to it's slender jaw. Discovered in Montana

Dinosaur news

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/13/fossil-last-dinosaur-supports-killer-asteroid-theory/

Thus ends the age of reptiles

Dinosaur news

The terrifying velociraptors that ripped apart everyone they could catch in Jurassic Park should have been given feathers by the director Steven Spielberg.

Researchers now say that the dinosaurs, which leapt into the public imagination when they were featured in the hit 1993 film, were misrepresented. After analysing fossilised bones they have discovered that the velociraptor was not the smooth-skinned creature portrayed in the film, but had feathers.

The discovery means that as well as being more decorative than the creatures that appeared in the film they could have been an even more terrifying predator because the feathers would probably have been improved their manoeuvrability.

Scientists have suspected for several years that velociraptors were feathered beasts, but only now have they been able to identify what they believe is conclusive proof. Close analysis of a velociraptor forelimb unearthed in Mongolia in 1998 reveals that quill knobs were present on the fossilised bone. Quill knobs, which are found on many modern bird species, are where the flight or wing feathers are anchored to the bone by ligaments.

“A lack of quill knobs does not necessarily mean that a dinosaur did not have feathers,” said Alan Turner, of the American Museum of Natural History, and the lead author of the study. “Finding quill knobs on velociraptor, though, means that it definitely had feathers. This is something we’d long suspected but no one had been able to prove.”

Velociraptors had short forelimbs compared with modern birds’ wings, which has led researchers to conclude that they were flight-less but had probably descended from an extinct creature that had been able to fly. That the velociraptors had retained at least some feathers suggests that they continued to have a role, even if not for flight.

The researchers said that one of the most likely functions of the feathers was to display to other velociraptors, perhaps in courtship rituals or as a show of strength against aggressors. Other functions could have included use as a shield to protect eggs, a temperature control to prevent the dinosaurs from getting too hot or cold, or to help them to manoeuvre while running.

Mark Norell, one of the researchers from the American Museum of Natural History, said: “The more that we learn about these animals the more we find that there is basically no difference between birds and their closely related dinosaur ancestors like velociraptor. Both have wishbones, brooded their nests, possess hollow bones and were covered in feathers. If animals like velociraptor were alive today our first impression would be that they were just very unusual looking birds.”

The fossil analysed for the study came from a velociraptor that was estimated to have been 5ft (1.5m) long, 3ft tall and weighing 33lb (15kg) when it died.

The research was a joint project of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the Field Museum, Chicago. In their report the authors say: “We present direct evidence of feathers in Velociraptor mongoliensis based on the presence of quill knobs on the posterior forearm. Their absence does not necessarily indicate a lack of feathers. Their presence, however, is a direct indicator of feathers.”

The six quill knobs were found spaced about 0.16 inches (4mm) apart and the researchers estimated that the limb would have had 14 secondary feathers on the forearm, similar to the 12 in Archaeopteryx, which is the earliest known bird.

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Of course as every schoolboy knows the Raptors in Jurassic park. They were not based upon the raptor. Rather the Denionyachus.