WHAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS?Hollywood has produced any number of recreations of the idyllic world in which dinosaurs once roamed the earth in vast numbers. What happened? Noted dinosaur authority Edwin Colbert wrote, "The great extinction...was an event that has defied all attempts at a satisfactory explanation" (The Age of Reptiles, 1997, p. 191). Evolutionary naturalists have proposed numerous divergent theories to explain what caused the demise of the dinosaurs. The implication of 2006 research by Niels Rattenborg, of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, is that the inability of dinosaurs to experience slow wave sleep may have been one of the reasons why they became extinct! Evolutionary naturalists have proposed numerous divergent theories to explain what caused the demise of the dinosaurs. Evolutionary naturalists have proposed various theories to explain what happened to the dinosaurs that once roamed the earth in vast numbers. The most popular theory today is that a giant asteroid hit the earth, causing dramatic climactic change. Some believe this resulted in a "deep freeze" with a blanket of dust darkening the globe for months or even years. While this certainly could have wiped out the dinosaurs; how come insects, flowering and freshwater plants, and other more susceptible organisms did not become extinct? Others suggest that the great reptiles were killed because the asteroid’s fiery embers ignited a worldwide firestorm that burned them up. But how could every dinosaur have been destroyed by this cataclysm and yet thin-skinned mammals, delicate birds, and turtles have survived? The primary evidence for this great collision comes from certain types of clay with metal called iridium in them. Asteroids have this element, as does the earth’s core. Could some of these deposits be evidence of large volcanic eruptions of iridium in the past? The Flood would have caused the greatest earthquakes and volcanic eruptions ever known. For the creationists, the answer is simple. The conditions of the early earth were ideal for dinosaurs to spread around the globe. After the Flood, the descendants of the representatives mating pairs that were preserved on the ark only survived in smaller populations. As other populations flourished, many dinosaur species would have succumbed to the harsher environment. Those kinds that did not become extinct in the centuries after the Flood were hunted down as a threat or were killed for food so that only a few still survive today in very remote areas.