Sooo history -- the questions nobody answers

This post is about the Cretaceous meteor strike, which is fun to discuss, but about which too many discussions ignore fundamental questions. If you know of a video or paper that covers any one of them, I really want to know.

Here’s the video, and it’s charming with all its CGI, but it fills space by repeating things instead of answering the unanswered questions.

https://archive.org/details/dinosaurs-the-final-day-sub-ita

And here are the unanswered questions. Most of them come under the heading of, these things all developed before the meteor struck, so how did they survive if things were as bad as you say?

Water. If the meteor strike pumped huge amounts of sulfur into the air, the “meteoric winter” would have returned it to earth in acid rain. Every land-based life form requires sweet water to survive, and plants are the basis of the energy pyramid. If acid rain wiped them out, what was left to eat for the species that developed in the Cretaceous and evolved in the Tertiary Period?

Grasses. Developed during the Cretaceous. Modern seed is viable for at most 5 years. If the “meteoric winter” lasted ten years, how did they survive let alone come to dominate the planet and our food chain?

Birds. The DNA clocks for struthioformes (ostriches) and columbiforms (doves, pigeons) go back to the Cretaceous. Birds are famous for NOT burrowing and NOT hibernating or estivating. Some species migrate but it is seasonal and not tied to disasters. Birds must eat every day, whether they are omnivorous, frugivorous, or bug-iverous. They also need sweet water. Explain how these two branches survived the meteor.

Reptiles. Even those that hibernate would have been active, since the meteor strike seems to have happened in spring. What’s more, not all snakes burrow. How did they survive?

Mammals. A mammal that burrows at the site of the strike or within some short distance will not survive. What’s more, most mammals nowadays do not burrow at all, or hibernate – and that thing about spring applies here: most mammals would have been bearing young at this time. If the effects of the meteor engulfed the planet, how do we have mammals today?

Insects. Flowering plants developed in the Cretaceous and right along with them came pollinating insects starting almost at the very beginning of the Cretaceous. How did these coordinating species survive the meteoric winter?

Plankton. These nourishers of cetaceans descend from species that throve during the Cretaceous. How did 10% of phytoplankton survive the meteoric winter?

I’m not saying the strike didn’t produce death. I’m saying that you have to explain how life survived or you haven’t explained anything.