Last Day of the Dinosaurs Page #4

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The Quetzalcoatlus hasn't

had a decent meal for days.

The asteroid has awakened

the ocean's most destructive force...

A Mega Tsunami.

A wall of water, 300 feet tall.

Within seconds,

the land is deluged.

And as quickly as it came,

The flood is gone.

But this is only one in an

amens army of mega-tsunami.

The asteroid impact

against

more than 13,000 miles of coast.

Huge wafts of shoreline

simply wash away into the sea.

The avalanche of water leaves

countless dead in its wake.

But as devastating as

the first wave of disasters is,

there's more to come...

In the days following

the asteroid's arrival,

a series of plagues

have been unleashed on the planet.

Firestorms...

Earthquakes...

Sandstorms...

and towering tsunamis.

But these are only the outward

signs of a catastrophe

that reaches much deeper.

Across all continents,

thousands of dinosaurs

may be walking,

but their species are already dead.

Because to survive

any species needs to maintain

a critical mass of population

Fall below

that threshold,

and there's no way to

climb back from certain extinction.

The final nail in the coffin

may take a while to develop,

but it's no less deadly,

and no less final.

The coup de grace

for the dinosaurs

comes from

inside the planet.

Because when a rock

slams into the Earth

at 45,000 miles/hour

it shoots 1,000,000

megaton of energy

straight into the ground.

Seismic shock waves

ripple through the planet.

The aftershocks

continue for months

As tectonic plates shear and tear.

Deep inside the planet,

they trigger molten rock to

force its way to the surface

through newly formed fractures...

until it explodes from

the earth's crust

in violent Volcanic Eruptions.

The seismic waves awaken

dormant Volcanoes

around the world,

adding to the debris clouds

of dust and toxic gases

that already surround the globe.

The shroud is already

many miles deep,

a thick blanket

stopping light

and warmth

reaching the earth surface.

The planet plunges further

into a nuclear winter.

In the days and weeks

that follow,

the only growth to

thrive is fungus

which lives off the rotting remains.

Here in Mongolia,

few signs of dinosaurs remain.

and for the starving Kronosauraus

the future looks bleak.

But it stays near the cave

that has saved it twice

in the past.

The watering hole that once

provided plenty.

But the last Kronosaurus

doesn't fall victim to starvation.

Bubbling to the surface

is one of nature's

most toxic gases...

Hydrogen Sulfide.

Released from deep underground

by Volcanic activity,

it collects invisibly

in low lying areas

like the waterhole's natural basin

the gas paralyzes the lungs,

making escape impossible.

Then it kills by suffocation.

What was once a refuge...

is transformed

into a death trap.

The last dinosaur in this part

of Mongolia is dead.

Mexico, too

is a graveyard.

Just 500 miles

from ground zero

It's been hit by wave after wave

of devastation

There would seem to be little

that nature could throw at it.

And yet, amidst

all this destruction,

beneath the thin layer

of charged soil,

a lone Alamosaurus egg

survives.

In the Pacific Northwest,

just a handful of dinosaurs

patrol the gray wasteland.

An Ankylosaurus,

severely weakened by hunger,

searches the charred terrain

for something to eat.

and weighing 4 tons,

this heavily armored herbivore

is used to getting nearly

All it can find now

is a small bush.

And even that won't come

without a fight.

But hunger is the least

of their worries.

It's two of this world's

best armored warriors

versus a hungry Carnivore

that won't take no for an answer.

The Ankylosaurus's main

defense weapon

is a heavy tail club.

But it's too weak

to get in a good shot.

Not so T-Rex.

With food sources

disappearing,

starving giants are forced

to fight for every calorie.

Even to the death.

So the dinosaurs that outlast

the ejecta,

firestorms,

and poison gas

ultimately fall victim to the demands

of their own massive bodies.

It took 160 million years

to bring the dinosaurs

to this point of their evolution.

It took just one rock

to bring them down.

The events

triggered by the impact

flashed by a breakneck speed.

Seismic shocks caused

massive earthquakes

boulders the size of buildings

raining down

followed by a brutal

blast wave

all within the first 3 minutes.

By the time the super heated

Ejecta Cloud hit Mongolia

just 44 minutes later,

the whole planet

was in shock.

In the coming days,

forest fires race the earth.

Violent dust storms destroy

entire ecosystems.

Titanic waves

wreck coastlines.

Put all these together,

it is hard to believe

that anything on Earth

could have survived.

But something has.

Mexico, 500 miles

from the point of impact

the very first landmass

to feel the force

of the asteroid's strike...

a region that has suffered wave

upon wave of violence...

yet even here, even now,

life remains.

a last surviving

Alamosaurus egg.

Buried safe within the soil,

a chick has survived

the barrage of destruction.

And he's not alone.

All around the world,

small handfuls of dinosaurs

try to start over.

But inbreeding and disease,

weaken their

tiny populations.

Eventually,

the huge numbers of dinosaurs

that had ruled the world

are reduced to a single,

solitary dinosaur.

And it too, is gone.

And with it,

a dynasty that had

ruled the Earth

for 160 million years.

But dinosaurs weren't

the only animals on the planet.

There were other, humbler

lifeforms that had lived

in the dinosaurs' shadow

for a very long time.

When floods and

fire storms hit,

they found shelter on the ground.

Some hid deep inside

trees and plants.

Others took refuge

beneath the soil.

And small mammals,

like Mesodma,

survived by scampering into burrows.

Down here they were protected

from the worst the asteroid

could throw at them.

The earth would be inherited by

animals that were good at hiding.

Fish were sheltered

beneath the water.

So are the aquatic reptiles.

Birds, especially waterfowl,

could survive by diving underwater

or hiding in burrows.

It will be years before

all the Sun's energy

could reach the land again.

But the heavy cloud

slowly begins to clear.

In the Gulf of Mexico

where the asteroid struck,

a shallow crater

can be seen.

A tiny scar for such

a fatal wound.

Out of the ruins,

nature starts over.

Simple organisms like

mold and fungus dominate

the burnt

and rotting landscape.

Then new growth emerges,

and one plant in

particular...

Ferns...

Tough and resilient, they soon

carpet the planet in green,

It takes thousands of years for

ferns to give way to forests.

Breathing Oxygen

and life into the planet again,

and setting the stage

for a new era...

because waiting in the wings

are creatures

whose development

had long been thwarted

by the dinosaurs...

The mammals.

Unlike the dinosaurs,

the mammals are fast breeders,

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