The samples include a thin brownish section that the scientists call the fireball layer because it

The samples include a thin brownish section that the scientists call the “fireball layer” because it is thought to contain bits of the asteroid itself.Mr Norris said: “These neat layers of sediment bracketing the impact have never been found in the sea before.”Under the asteroid theory, the huge submerged crater at the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, was the impact point.The scientists believed the violence of the impact would have been unlikely to leave clear samples. However, the resulting waves would have washed across Florida and deposited debris in the Atlantic – which was what they found when they drilled 300 feet beneath the sea-bed.Mr Norris said the deepest – oldest – layers contained fossil remains of many animals which were living in a “happy-go-lucky ocean” just before the impact. Just above this was a layer with material from the bottom of the sea which was believed to have melted in the giant energy release of the impact.Next was a rusty brown layer which the scientists believe to be the vapourised remains of the asteroid itself. And above all these were two inches of grey clay with barely anything in it which the team believes shows the asteroid wiped life out.”It was not a completely dead ocean, but most of the species that are seen before (early in the core samples) are gone There are just some very minute fossils These were the survivors in the ocean,” Mr Norris said.

The dead zone lasted about 5,000 years and then there was evidence of renewed life.The asteroid which landed on the Yucatan Peninsula would have been 6 to 12 miles in diameter and smashed to Earth at thousands of miles an hour to gouge the crater 150 to 180 miles wide. Up to 70 per cent of all species, including the dinosaurs, perished. Among the survivors, scientists believe, were small mammals that over millions of years evolved into new species including humans.David Norman, director of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, said the new finds simply added to the significant geophysical evidence which already existed to support the idea of an asteroid strike But he said there was a problem with timing. Previous evidence from sediment suggested that the dinosaurs did not become extinct at exactly the same time as an impact occurred.. The asteroid theory might be closest to the truth about how the dinosaurs were wiped out but other hypotheses are far more entertaining.

The undisputed rulers of the planet lost their sex drive and failed to reproduce enough offspring to continue the family lines, some believe.
They were smitten by a plague of cataracts and went blind, say others.They were wiped out by fierce competition for food and water from other mammals or even armies of hungry caterpillars, who also started to devour their giant eggs.So successful and voracious were the carnivores that they massacred their vegetarian peers and then, presumably, ate each other.They may have become extinct after an enormous burst of radiation which hit the Earth after two neutron stars collided in our galaxy.One more recent theory was that they all dropped dead from a form of dinosaur Aids, spread by their uncontrollable promiscuity.Other theories put forward over the years have included intense volcanic activity, food poisoning, slipped discs in the dinosaurs’ backs and general stupidity.. John Major last night saw off a Labour attempt to destabilise his government, securing a Commons majority that gives him a free hand to stall an election until 1 May. A Labour motion of censure against the Minister of Agriculture, Douglas Hogg, was defeated by 320 votes to 307 – a Government majority of 13 – after Mr Hogg had delivered a blatant plea for Ulster Unionist support on the “mad cow” crisis.
In the event, all nine Ulster Unionists abstained, but another four Opposition party MPs were absent and the Prime Minister was left to fight another day. A full turn-out on both sides of the House would have resulted in a 320-320 tie.Labour now expects Mr Major to play his Orange card; delivering the Ulster Unionists a Northern Ireland Grand Committee, which will have special powers to call and question ministers. Because the Unionists will want that committee to be up and running before the election, and because that could take a month, the Prime Minister would then be free to call the election at a time of his own choosing.Secure in the knowledge that the Unionists would not back any Labour attempt to force an earlier election, Mr Major could even announce a May Day election when he addresses a Conservative conference to be held in Birmingham on Saturday.An election on 1 May would require the dissolution of Parliament on 8 April, leaving the Government five weeks to complete its legislative programme, followed by a one-week Easter break, and then dissolution.With Ulster Unionist support in the Commons, a Labour win in next week’s Wirral South by-election would have no practical impact on Mr Major’s election timing.Last night’s debate, on a technical censure motion to cut Mr Hogg’s salary by pounds 1,000, provided abundant evidence of the Prime Minister’s willingness to buy parliamentary support.With Mr Hogg in the firing line of Labour’s attack on government handling of BSE, it was left to him to plead for the votes, or abstentions, of David Trimble and his eight Ulster Unionist colleagues in the House.Openly bidding for Unionist support, Mr Hogg told MPs that he would be making a general application for a lifting of the European ban on United Kingdom beef exports, along with a particular plea for Ulster.