Why the Dinosaurs Disappeared

What this Spark covers

• A world full of dinosaurs
  🦕 Where did all the dinosaurs go? Dinosaurs ruled Earth for about 165 million years. Then, quite suddenly, almost all of them vanished. Let's be detectives and find out why. Earth about 66 million years ago — warm, green, and full of dinosaurs. Our big question: what could be powerful enough to wipe out animals as big as a bus — but small enough to let a tiny bird escape? Tap Next and let's look at the clues scientists found. 🔍
• Clue hunt in the rocks
  🪨 Clue 1: The story in the rocks Scientists dig down through layers of rock. Deeper layers are older, like the bottom pages of a very old book. In rock from exactly 66 million years ago, they found four surprising clues. Tap each rock card to uncover what the clue tells us. 🌫️ A layer of grey dust Tap to reveal It's found all over the world at the same depth — so whatever happened, it happened everywhere at once. ✨ A rare metal called iridium Tap to reveal Iridium is rare on Earth's surface but common in space rocks. That points to something arriving from outer space. 🖤 Burnt soot and charcoal
• The giant space rock
  ☄️ Clue 2: A space rock hits Earth About 66 million years ago an asteroid — a rock roughly 10 km wide, as wide as Sentosa is long — smashed into the sea near Mexico. It left a crater about 150 km across. Tap the button to launch it, then watch what the crash makes. ☄️ Launch the asteroid ↻ Rewind The asteroid is waiting up in space. What the crash made 🔥 A blast of heat that set forests on fire 🌊 Giant waves across the ocean 🌫️ Billions of tonnes of dust and soot thrown high into the sky The dust is the important part — and the next slide shows why.
• The sky goes dark
  🌑 Clue 3: Dust blocks the sunlight The dust and soot spread right around the planet, like drawing curtains across the whole sky. It stayed up there for months, maybe years. Drag the slider to add more dust and see what happens to the sunlight, the temperature, and the plants. Dust in the sky: 0% Sunlight reaching the ground Slide it all the way up to see the dinosaurs' problem. No sunlight means no plant food. Plants need light to make their own food (that's called photosynthesis). In the dark, plants stopped growing — and Earth got cold, like a very long winter.
• The food chain topples
  🔗 Clue 4: The food chain falls like dominoes Here's the key idea: the asteroid did not squash every dinosaur. Most starved, because their food chain broke from the bottom up. Tap a card, then tap an empty slot to build the food chain in the right order — from what comes first to what eats last. 🦖 Meat-eating dinosaur ☀️ Sunlight & plants 🦕 Plant-eating dinosaur 1st ➜ 2nd ➜ 3rd Which one has to come first of all? Now pull out the bottom card… No sunlight ➜ plants die ➜ plant-eaters have nothing to eat ➜ meat-eaters have nothing to hunt. One missing link takes the whole chain down. That is why b
• Who managed to survive?
  🐢 Clue 5: Not everybody died About 3 out of every 4 kinds of living things vanished — but some pulled through. The survivors were mostly small, could hide (in burrows or water), and could eat seeds, nuts or dead things instead of fresh leaves. Tap an animal, then tap a box — did it survive, or did it disappear? 🦖T. rex 🐢Turtle 🐁Tiny mammal 🦕Brachiosaurus 🐦Small bird 🐜Insect ✅ Survived small, hides, eats seeds ❌ Disappeared big, needs lots of fresh food 0 of 6 sorted. Pick an animal to begin. Wait — birds ARE dinosaurs! Small feathered dinosaurs survived and became today's birds. So the next ti
• Was the asteroid the only cause?
  🌋 Was the asteroid the whole story? Good scientists always ask, "what else was going on?" Around the same time, huge volcanoes in India (called the Deccan Traps) had been erupting for thousands of years, pumping out gas and ash. Earth was already having a hard time. The Deccan Traps volcanoes — trouble before the asteroid even arrived. What do you think? Tap the answer you believe is best. Only the asteroid Only the volcanoes Volcanoes weakened them, asteroid finished it There is one answer most scientists agree with today. Science tip: a good explanation must match all the clues, not just one
• How long ago was that?
  ⏳ 66 million years is a LONG time If the whole story of dinosaurs were a 100-metre running track, humans would appear in the last few centimetres — right at the finish line. 🦕 Dinosaurs: 165 million years Since then 🐦 The red line is the day the asteroid hit, 66 million years ago. 🦕 Dinosaurs appear: ~231 million years ago ☄️ Asteroid: 66 million years ago 🧍 Modern humans: ~0.3 million years ago So how do we even know? Nobody was there with a camera. Scientists work like detectives: they collect fossils (bones turned to stone), measure rock layers, test the chemicals inside them, and found the
• What you learned
  🏅 You solved the dinosaur mystery! Here is the whole story in five steps. The chain of events Before: giant volcanoes in India were already making Earth's air dusty and its climate wobbly. The hit: 66 million years ago a 10 km asteroid struck near Mexico, leaving a 150 km crater. The dark: dust and soot circled the planet and blocked the sunlight for months or years. Earth grew cold. The hunger: plants could not grow, so plant-eaters starved, and then meat-eaters starved too — the food chain fell like dominoes. The survivors: small animals that could hide and eat seeds or dead matter made it t

More Sparks like this