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From: hazel@unm-la.UUCP (AIDE Hugh Hazelrigg)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: asteroid almost hits earth
Keywords: a thousand years?
Message-ID: <1128@unm-la.UUCP>
Date: 17 May 89 06:16:59 GMT
References: <256@ringwood.Morgan.COM> <3200009@hpindda.HP.COM> <4566@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM> <2635@ssc-vax.UUCP> <103026@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <6101@nfs4.rl.ac.uk>
Reply-To: hazel@unm-la.UUCP (Hugh Hazelrigg)
Organization: Univ. of New Mexico at Los Alamos
Lines: 25

In article <6101@nfs4.rl.ac.uk> kgd@inf.rl.ac.uk (Keith Dancey) writes:
>My understanding is that the demise of the dinosaurs extended over a period
>of order of magnitude of a thousand years.  Certainly long enough to place
>doubt upon the viability of a single catastrophy such as the one mentioned.

What prevents the effects of a "single catastrophy [sic]" from propagating over
a period of a thousand years?  On a geological scale of time, the events of a 
thousand years constitute less than a footnote in a billion-page volume.  

Life on this planet seems to be pretty durable, in spite of its perceived 
fragility.  We, the living, while certainly not immune from geological, 
meteorological, or cosmological influences, won't go away overnight unless the 
whole planet is blasted to smithereens in one swell foop!  

Look:  a thousand years (or even five or ten) really is just a one-nighter 
(what a party!).  The earth may have lost a host of magnificent species, but 
did life disappear?

I believe the metorite/asteroid collision theory to be the best put forward to
date to explain the demise of the dinosaurs and their ecosystem. Your objection,
Keith, is ill-considered.

Hugh Hazelrigg
hazel@unm-la.lanl.gov
Disclaimer:  None.  I don't work for anyone who doesn't trust me implicitly.