Dinosaur Extinction - Impact Hypothesis first proposed in Journalof Paleontology in 1956!!

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Sorry, but Otto Schindewolf had De Laubenfels beat by at least a year...

Schindewolf, O., 1955, Die Entfaltung des Lebens im Rahmen der geologischen
Zeit, Sondersbdr. "Studium Generale", v. 8, p. 489-497.

...and it could be argued that Whiston beat both of them to the gate by
over 2.5 centuries.

Whiston, W., 1696, A new Theory of the Earth from its original to the
consummation of all things, wherein the creation of the world in six days,
the universal deluge, and the general conflagration, as lain down in the
Holy Scriptures, are shewn to be prefectly agreeable to reason and
phliosophy: London. (see Gould 1991).

Schindewolf's preferred extraterrestrial cause was a nearby supernova,
while Whiston opted for a comet. The effects were the same. More to the
point, so was the evidence - which is to say that other than the fact of
the extinctions themselves there wasn't any evidence that pointed to these
particular meachnisms to the exclusion of all others. The lasting lesson of
the Alvarez et al. (1980) paper is that if you are going to propose a novel
mechanism to explain mass extinction, you're going to have to provide some
independent evidence that your mechanism was operating over the interval in
question. Neither Schindewolf nor De Laubenfels (nor McLaren after them,
nor Whiston before them) met that standard and their speculations remained
(approprinately) just speculations.

Norm MacLeod


>
>Alvarez et al. (1980) weren't the first to propose an extraterrestrial
>cause for
>the extinction of the dinosaurs. De Laubenfels (1956) beat them by 24
>years. The
>abstract, from page 207 of the Journal of Paleontology (January, 1956) states:
>
>"Attention is called to the great destruction that resulted from a meteorite
>impact in Siberia in 1908. A larger impact would cause more widespread
>destruction. Several larger impacts may have occurred in geologic time. The
>survivals and extinctions at the close of the Cretaceous are such as might be
>expected to result from intensely hot winds such as would be generated by
>extra
>large meteoric or planetesimal impacts. It is suggested that, when the various
>hypotheses as to dinosaur extinction are being considered, this one be
>added to
>the others."
>
>
>REFERENCE
>
>de Laubenfels, M.W.
>	1956: Dinosaur extinction: one more hypothesis. Journal of
>Paleontology,
>	Volume 30, pages 207-218.
>
>
>
>
>





___________________________________________________________________

Dr. Norman MacLeod
Micropalaeontological Research
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (E-mail)

Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX: 0171-938-9277
E-mail: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk
___________________________________________________________________