Dinosaur-killing Asteroid Created the Amazon Forest.

     The asteroid that had killed the dinosaurs off 66 million years ago also helped with the creation of the Amazon forest. After the asteroid had hit, it changed the type of vegetation drastically. Due to this impact, the plant declined to about 45%. There was a worldwide extinction for many seed-bearing plants. During the next 6 million years, forests were all recovering from this drastic event. During the regrowing of these forests, many trees developed a canopy and this allowed less light to hit the ground. The forest changed so drastically that many wondered why and how. Based on the researcher's analysis, they came up with some ideas like dinosaurs would have eaten the trees not allowing it to the canopy, another idea is that the ash enriched the soil allowing more variety and more growth, or it could be because the plants that became extinct allow flowering plants to grow.

    I think this is very interesting because I wouldn't put these two ideas together. Thinking that the Amazon forest has always been there and then learning that the asteroid that hit earth 66 million years ago could have helped create such a thick, vast forest is crazy. Knowing this makes me wonder what else it impacted so greatly that we still see today.

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56617409 

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 12, 2021 at 8:18 AM

    wow, this is a very interesting article! To think that an asteroid that semi wiped out the earth, created something amazing. When I think of asteroids I think of this big, ball of rock hitting a planet (Earth), and destroying it. Asteroids usually do not have great impacts, but the one that took out dinosaurs sure did! It's just so interesting to think that without that asteroid, the Amazon forest might not be as great and crazy as it is today!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 12, 2021 at 8:20 AM

    I think that putting these two ideas together was brilliant and very smart thinking. The facts that show that the dinosaurs would have eaten the tops of the trees, not allowing the trees to canopy was intelligent, I would never have thought of it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 12, 2021 at 8:29 AM

    Its interesting to think about how the society would change it the asteroid didn't hit. Could you imagine not having to worry about saving the trees because the dinosaurs would be eating them all, also imagine having more of a plain there without the thick forest. How would society change without as much wood. I think the entire economy would be different.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 17, 2021 at 9:22 AM

    This is crazy. We would have, normally, never thought about putting these two things together to connect to one another. I think that this could be entirely possible, considering we didn't have a human reference when the asteroid hit. It would be cool to learn more about this and find out what really did create the Amazon.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Current event

I am just doing a trial current event-  Are you supposed to put the link to your article in the summary?  Do you know how to do that?  My current event is an article from the magazine The Week.  It is titled   It's not just the germs — it's also the genes  The article discusses how a person's genes play a part in how viruses react within that body.  It talks about how some people may get a virus more seriously than another & how scientists can look at that information and develop therapies from.  Just so you know The Week pulls articles from other sources-  I did backtrack to check the source they got the original article from & it checks out. 
Read more
Law enforcement intercepted a ricen laced package and letter sent to Donald Trump that supposedly came from St. Hubert Quebec. A women has been arrested in the case but they are still investigating.  Ricin is a highly toxic compound extracted from castor beans that has been used in terror plots. It can be used in powder, pellet, mist or acid form. If ingested, it causes nausea, vomiting and internal bleeding of the stomach and intestines, followed by failure of the liver, spleen and kidneys, and death by collapse of the circulatory system .
Read more

Coral Genetic Diversity Relates to Distinct Lifestyles

 According to microbiologist, Rebecca Vega-Thurber, coral supports more species per square meter than any other habitat. Coral is a complex organism that is able to hide its diversity in plain sight and while scientists always thought there was one distinct species, they have now been able to conclude that there are actually four. The coral's internal structures look almost identical which is what makes it so hard to decipher the difference between the four different kinds, which concludes that millions of years ago, the coral diverged together. Scientists also found that these different species of coral is found at different water depths of the ocean. They also have different amounts of photosynthetic algae and pigments. When this study was conducted, it allowed us to know cryptic reef corals are splitting up their shared ecological space. I think that this is important to know because now we are able to conduct more studies to find out why coral has different properties at differ...
Read more