Zoltan Csiki-Sava

Data collection concerning end-Cretaceous dinosaurs happened to start at about the same time in both Europe and North America – around the middle of the 19th century, it is only by chance (a combination between mainly better rock availability and more human effort poured into this line of research) that the North American fossil record grew more rapidly and soon become the best one in the world for that particular time period. As such, it captured attention and was used as a template to understand end-Cretaceous extinction. The data was harder to gather in other continents, including Europe, and the resolution of the European fossil record is still far from that coming from North America. But its growth is spectacular (we know probably twice as much about late Cretaceous fossil vertebrates from Europe then we knew like 20 years ago), and that is due to the activity of a large number of mainly young researchers working all across Europe.

Zoltan Csiki-Sava

Both effects would have lasted something at the order of at most hundred years, far below our capabilities to detect timescale of events, so the unfortunate answer (for the public, at least; I think most scientists can live with it) is that we will probably never know whether it was the heat or the cold, of a combination of these, or an even more complex combination. All we can see is that many of these species were wiped out rapidly – but you have to consider that this is geologically speaking ‘rapidly’, which can mean anything at the order of hundreds of thousands to about 1 million of years, as it is impossible to have a better accuracy time-wise.

Zoltan Csiki-Sava