How the Earth System Explains Animal Extinction

How the Earth System Explains Animal Extinction

Objective

Students will be able to describe how interactions of the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere  contributed to dinosaur extinction

Asteroid

• No one knows exactly what caused their extinction

• One theory is that an asteroid kill all the dinosaurs

Multiple Choice

Do scientist know if 100% an asteroid kill the dinosaurs?

• Yes

• No

Asteroid Explained

• This explained through the earth systems interacting

• This theory is explained through evidence

EARTH SYSTEMS

• a change to one part of the system affects the other parts

• Systems: atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere

Multiple Select

What are the 4 earth systems?

• hydrosphere

• biosphere

• troposphere

• atmosphere

• geosphere

Atmosphere

• gases that surround planet

• The move because of weather and wind

Geosphere

• solid part like mountains and landforms

• lava is part of the geosphere

Hydrosphere

• ocean, lakes, rivers, ponds, groundwater, glaciers

Biosphere

• all living things

Multiple Choice

Which of the following makes up the geosphere?

• animals

• plants

• ocean water

• mountains

Extinction: Geosphere

• 1. A huge asteroid crashed 65 million years ago

• 2. The asteroid blasted a crater

• 3. Volcanoes erupted, lava covered thousand miles

Extinction

• 4. Volcanic eruption increased

• Geosphere: Volcanoes, and lava

Extinction: Atmosphere

• 6. the asteroid blasted lots of gases

• 7. Volcanic eruption set gases that had been trapped

• 8. gases spread and became part of the atmosphere

Multiple Choice

How did the volcano effect the atmosphere

• it blasted gases in the air

• it changed the ocean

• it caused animals to die

Extinction

• The geosphere can affect the atmosphere

• Air gases make changes to rock by changing color

• Asteroid--geosphere--Volcanic eruption

• Volcanic eruption---atmosphere---gases into air

Changes in biosphere

• gases in air affected what plants could grow

• Area that was a jungle became desert

• Animals depend on plants to live for food

• No plants= no food

Plants

• No plants= no habitat to live

• No plants= no food

• T rex had no habitat

• All the systems were affected because they all interact with each other

Multiple Choice

Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?

• the asteroid hit all the dinosaurs

• all the systems were interacting and created chaos for the dinosaurs

• the planet was surrounded by water and they all drowned

Hydrosphere Affects

• When the asteroid hit changes in the geo and atmosphere caused changes in the hydrosphere

• Ocean water and temperature, flow of ocean currents changed

• These changed killed off species and they became extinct

Systems interact

• Asteroid killing is one theory

• But all scientist agree that whatever caused it had to do with all the earth systems interacting

Conclusion

They all interact with each other, when the asteroid affected the geosphere and volcano erupted it caused the atmosphere to change, gases formed in the air. Then the plants biosphere changed and some habitats went from jungle to desert. Animals didn't have a place to live or food. Then the water in the ocean changed which is the hydrosphere and those animals died too.

Multiple Choice

What did all scientist agree contributed to dinosaur extinction?

• the asteroid hitting the earth

• the lava covering the earth

• all the earth systems interacting with each other

• the dinosaurs starving from no food