Debate!

What Causes
Mass Extinctions?
Agenda
• Do Now (5 min)
• Debate Prep (25 min)
• Debate (25 min)
• Debrief (10 min)
• Exit Ticket (5 min)

Endangered Species of the Day: California Condor

 Which of the following explanations best
matches your hypothesis why the dinosaurs
disappeared? (Note: this does not need to
match the side you are arguing for in today’s
debate)
• __The dinosaurs were killed as a result of a
massive asteroid impact and the resulting
ash cloud.
Do Now • __Volcanic eruptions caused significant
climate change which the dinosaurs could
not adapt to and were wiped out.
• __Both volcanoes and a large impact led to
the demise of the dinosaurs.
• __None of these explanations match my
idea. My idea is:
 Debate Prep!

As a team, your goal is to defend your position on how the

dinosaurs went extinct: Impact or Volcanoes. As a team,
use these 20 minutes to collect evidence to support your
argument to present in the first half of the debate. Five
different team members must present the opening
statement and four pieces of evidence.
Debate!
 Mid-Debate Break

Mid-debate break: Come up with at least four

counterarguments using your evidence from before. The
remaining four members of your group should share these
pieces of evidence.
Debate!
 Who is “right?”

Debrief How can we know?

Has science settled on an

answer?
 “There has been no settlement to the issue so far, and no clear
one is foreseeable. Both sides claim to hold the majority of
proponents in science; it seems that (greatly over-generalizing)
many paleontologists lean towards the intrinsic side, while many
astronomers and physicists favor the extrinsic side, and geologists
are probably evenly split between the two.
All of the evidence cited for the extrinsic catastrophist side is
claimed as evidence by the intrinsic gradualists for their side or
against the opposite side — volcanoes could create the iridium
layer, shocked quartz, soot, and impact ejecta; the makeup of the
Conclusions? iridium layer is not uniform in all areas, so it could be
meaningless; and so on.
The main problem with both hypotheses is the issue of
the selectivity of the mass extinction; as you saw before in
the background section, some organisms were wiped out, while
others were unaffected. Can climate change really explain the
differential selectivity of the K-T event? Our lack of understanding
of the physiology of dinosaurs makes the issue more complex; if
they were endothermic, why did they not survive like birds and
mammals? If they were ectothermic, why did small dinosaurs not
survive like small reptiles?” …
 … “Also, many studies have focused on the extinction of dinosaurs
alone, and have forgotten about the more substantial marine
ecosystem collapse. The fossil record suggests that some marine
reptiles died out several million years prior to the K-T boundary.
Other major problems with the issue are that it is not easy to
prove (test) causation (as noted before), and that most of the ages
of the rocks that different evidence comes from are questionable.
It is not certain whether there is a gradual decline in the global
fossil record, or if there was a sudden catastrophe; some studies
in some areas show evidence pointing to different answers.
Ultimately, we just don't know yet for sure. The two main schools
of thought are split fairly evenly among scientists familiar with
them. Either an intrinsic or extrinsic cause for the extinction
Conclusions? would have complex biotic effects on ecosystems which would
look confusing in the fossil record. There could well have been
different, even separate extinctions in the oceans and on land; the
Cont. marine fossil record does support a slightly rapid decline, while
the terrestrial record (especially in North America) strongly
suggests a more gradual decline (but again, has a fragmentary
fossil record). If an extraterrestrial impact occurred during a
gradual decline, that might explain the seemingly contradictory
evidence. If you are looking for an opinion here from a
paleontologist's point of view, it seems that the simplest
explanation is that the climatic changes induced by the shifting
continents and the regression of the continental seaways were
the ultimate cause (at least in North America), but this has not
been (and may not ever be) proven. There is much work to be
done, and much value to this work — understanding the K-T
extinction would help us to understand mass extinctions in
general, and might provide a glimpse into the fleeting, evanescent
nature of our own mortality.”
 Which of the following explanations now
best matches your hypothesis why the
dinosaurs disappeared?
• __The dinosaurs were killed as a result of a
massive asteroid impact and the resulting
ash cloud.
Exit Ticket • __Volcanic eruptions caused significant
climate change which the dinosaurs could
not adapt to and were wiped out.
• __Both volcanoes and a large impact led to
the demise of the dinosaurs.
• __None of these explanations match my
idea. My idea is: