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Article: The Way of the Dinosaurs
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- February 4, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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In the old mansion that houses the Lunar and Planetary Institute,
next door to NASA, Buck Sharpton, a scientist in a tweed jacket and
blue jeans, spreads a map of the world marked with 116 small circles.
It tells a story of past excitements and denotes a current
controversy.
The hotly disputed hypothesis is that the evolution of life on
Earth has been marked by radical disjunctions, particularly one 65
million years ago, because of collisions of Earth with comets or
other extraterrestrial material. What is not disputed is that 65
million years ago there were mass extinctions that included
dinosaurs.
It is unclear how abrupt the disappearance of the dinosaurs was,
and in any case, they ...