This is the K-T boundary. And because it’s such a thin sharp line we know something dramatic must have happened here. Some catastrophe. And until recently we had no clue whatsoever here. And it remained a total mystery. So as soon as you find 10,000 times more iridium at the very moment when the dinosaurs disappeared, you know somewhere on Earth a very big impact must have happened by an asteroid or a comet ... You know something hot happened, and hot is associated with an impact. Professor Jan Smith
We found the impact site at the end of the Cretaceous by looking at the impact ejected that had been thrown out of the crater. The closer one gets to the impact site the thicker that debris should be. And we made a crucial discovery in the country of Haiti where the debris was half a metre thick. Dr David Kring, geologist University of Arizona
Large pieces of charcoal can’t be transported large distances. They can’t be picked up and lofted in smoke plumes or carried around the world. So therefore if we can find charcoal at each K-T boundary location we can be sure burning occurred at each site ... What we did find however was a lot of this non-charred plant material. And this was really surprising because it means that to have this amount of non-charred plant material in the K-T boundary rocks, there’s no way there could have been a globally extensive wildfire. Claire Belcher, Royal Holloway, University of London
We’re living through the golden age of dinosaur discoveries. From all over the world a whole new generation of dinosaurs has been revealed. From the biggest giants and the deadliest killers to the weird and wonderful. Planet Dinosaur 1/6: Lost World, BBC 2011
The Lost World of Africa: for almost a hundred years this was a forgotten land. Now new discoveries have revealed some of the most spectacular dinosaurs ever found. ibid.
The reign of the dinosaurs began almost two hundred and fifty million years ago. ibid.
The swamps are refuges for many large dinosaurs. ibid.
Spinosaurus – at seventeen metres the biggest killer ever to walk the Earth. An eleven-ton colossus. ibid.
Spinosaurus ... these dinosaurs spent a large part of their lives in water. ibid.
Pressure sensors ... It could strike without seeing its prey. ibid.
Fights over prime hunting territory will be commonplace. ibid.
Carcharodontosaurus were deadly killers. ibid.
Spinosaurus ... Small environmental changes can make it vulnerable. ibid.
Spinosaurus was the last and the largest of the fish-eating dinosaurs. But ultimately these specialists were doomed. ibid.
The new, bizarre and extraordinary feathered dinosaurs. Planet Dinosaur 2/6: Feathered Dragons
They are revolutionising our understanding of life on Earth. ibid.
China: in recent years spectacular fossils have been unearthed here. ibid.
Epidexipteryx ... perfectly designed for life in the trees. ibid.
Among the most birdlike of any dinosaur. ibid.
The first feathered dinosaur was discovered in 1996 but lots more would quickly follow. ibid.
A direct link between dinosaurs and birds. ibid.
Gigantoraptor was discovered in 2007 in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. ibid.
Microraptor ... At less than a metre long ... Microraptor is a four-winged dinosaur. ibid.
We can even work out the true colours. ibid.
The importance of feathers to a whole host of dinosaurs ... Dinosaurs still live amongst us today as birds. ibid.
We explore the last generation of killer dinosaurs. Planet Dinosaur 3/6: Last Killers
In the north it was the famous tyrannosaurs that dominated. ibid.
The biggest and heaviest was Daspletosaurus. ibid.
Smell – something that would give them a distinct hunting advantage. ibid.
They have the most powerful bite of any dinosaur. ibid.
The horns and frills of these dinosaurs acted as a visual deterrent, even if they offered little physical protection. ibid.
The Jurassic Period – a time when the first giant killers stalked the Earth. Planet Dinosaur 4/6: Fight for Life
An astonishing new hunter in the oceans ... It’s skull alone was twice as big as T-Rex ... More than fifteen metres long and weighing about forty-five tons this is the most powerful marine reptile ever discovered ... This is Predator X. ibid.
Stegosaurus v Allosaurus. ibid.
The heavyweights of the dinosaur world: it’s only in recent years that we have unearthed the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived. Planet Dinosaur 5/6: New Giants
At thirty-five metres it was as long as Diplodocus, yet this dinosaur was seven times as heavy ... Argentinosaurus, a plant-eating giant that dwarfs everything around it. ibid.
The nest site in Patagonia stretches for an astonishing fifteen kilometres. ibid.
Giant predators roamed South America. ibid.
Wherever giant plant-eaters have been discovered it appears a giant predator lived beside them. ibid.
Giant Sauropods roamed far and wide. ibid.
In all, eighteen animals were buried in a single step. ibid.
We explore the dinosaurs’ extraordinary ability to survive. And witness how they have transformed over millions of years into some of the most alien-looking animals the world has ever seen. Planet Dinosaur 6/6: The Great Survivors
5Dinosaurs lived on Earth for more than one hundred and sixty million years. ibid.
This is the largest flying vertebrate ever known: a Pterosaur with a ten-metre wingspan. ibid.
Bizarre-shaped dinosaurs continually evolved during their reign. ibid.
Those that changed their diets flourished. ibid.
It was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. An asteroid the size of a city smashes into Earth. The dinosaurs and 75% of all life on Earth are doomed. It happens in just twenty-four hours, and is one of the most important days in the history of Earth. Ancient Asteroid Apocalypse
Scientists call it the Cretaceous-Tertiary or K-T event – the apocalypse of the dinosaurs. ibid.
A black line in the layers of sediment. A geological marker scientists call the K-T boundary ... One of the KT boundary’s most distinctive features is the presence of unusually high concentrations of the element iridium. Iridium is signature of an asteroid impact. ibid.
When people in the past came across the fossilised bones of large vanished animals it begged any number of questions ... What did they mean? Tom Holland, Dinosaurs, Myths & Monsters, BBC 2011
Many of the dinosaurs in the Peabody [Museum] were dug up in the 1870s. ibid.
Tales told across the great plains not of thunder-horses but of thunderbirds. ibid.
Even before the time of Homer himself people were telling the story of one of the most celebrated monsters in all Greek mythology ... a Cyclops. ibid.
Samos ... The ancients who came across the bones here and explained them as the remains of elephants were blazing a trail that would be followed by eighteenth century, by nineteenth century palaeontologists. ibid.
Giant fossilised monsters back in classical times are now made for phenomenal box office. ibid.
In China the figure of the dragon ... reach as far back as 6 B.C. ibid.
So closely associated with the devil were footprints of prehistoric creatures that it was not unknown for attempts to be made to neutralise their malign power. ibid.
In 1788 a Scottish geologist named James Hutton ... proposed that the Earth was infinitely more ancient than humanity. Indeed, Hutton could find no evidence for there having been a creation at all. ibid.
Buckland was merely the first of many clergymen to wrestle with the implications. ibid.
Dinosaurs – the name reflected the two sides of Owen’s complex personality. ibid.
65 million years ago … This is a world ruled by dinosaurs. Giant reptiles like Tyrannosaurus, a five ton predator, stalk the landscape. Walking with Dinosaurs s1e1: New Blood, BBC 1999
152 million years ago … The world is dominated by reptiles. And by far the most common are dinosaurs. ibid.
220 million years ago … these are the first dinosaurs. ibid.
The sauropods that dominate this period of history – they are the largest animals that will ever walk the planet. Walking with Dinosaurs s1e2: Time of the Titans