Dinosaurs Could Have Avoided Extinction

An international team of researchers is arguing that dinosaurs could have evaded extinction had the asteroid that likely wiped them out slammed into the planet a few minutes earlier or later. Their claim was revealed in The Day the Dinosaurs Died, a BBC documentary that was filmed across three continents during the past year, The Independent reported.  If the massive asteroid that smashed into present-day Yucatan hit the Atlantic Ocean or somewhere else, the scientists maintain, the rock would have avoided an area made up primarily of limestone and evaporated ocean sediments and rich in carbon dioxide, sulfur and deadly gypsum.  Due to the earth's rotation, even a minute or two could have significantly changed the outcome of the impact. It was, for all intents and purposes, a kill shot for the giant reptiles roaming the planet. Known as the Chicxulub crater, the impact zone lies 24 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The impact left in its wake a hole in the earth 20 miles deep and 120 miles across, scientists say, a site that is now covered completely by 66 million years worth of solid rock and sediments.