How could mammals survive the asteroid

I understand that dinosaurs have probably been brought to extinction by an asteroid hitting the earth. Only the most tough creatures (like crocodiles, turtles, or insects) could persist.

It seems hard for me to imagine how mammals could survive that catastrophy - they have furs but shells, cannot stay underwater for hours, cannot fall into suspended animation as easily as cold-blooded animals can.

Yet they did. Any explanations?

Hibernation? What is the geographical distribution of earliest Paleocene

Small mammals are often very good burrowers, which may have been a factor. Also, extinction events typically affect the largest creatures, with the greatest food requirements, lowest reproduction rates and slowest maturation periods, to a greater extent than smaller animals, which can replenish lost populations more rapidly even in environments largely denuded by disasters.

Ultimately, though, no theory will ever satisfactorily explain all extinctions in a mass extinction event - for instance, crocodiles might survive the direct effects of the impact by sheltering underwater, but no one seriously believes that the asteroid's explosive impact would spread far enough to physically wipe out entire species, so this shelter effect is of limited use in explaining crocodiles' ability to survive in an environment with a contaminated atmosphere and drastically reduced food supplies when many similarly-sized animals didn't, including most of the marine reptiles (mosasaurs, icthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs). By the same token burrowing doesn't really explain mammal survival. Nor was the extinction confined to large animals - for instance, 85% of all lizard species were wiped out and I think nearly 50% of mammals. Groups that survived included those that may not have burrowed, such as early primates (genetic evidence suggests an origin for this group around 85 million years ago, 20 million years before the impact. Bats are similarly ancient but could have roosted in caves).

In the end, many groups probably survived for the very reason researchers looking for theoretical explanations least want to hear: they were lucky. Also, every major group of organisms (ie, at the class level or above) survived the extinction, including representatives from all five vertebrate classes, which suggests that the more widespread and diverse a group the greater its chances of survival - several reptilian orders, among them the Saurischia and Ornithschia, became extinct but the reptiles survived as a group, in all of the four orders remaining to this day (the tuataras were no more diverse in the late Cretaceous than they are today, but were just as isolated and this probably helped them survive the impact). Mammals and other animals outside North America would have been less affected by the impact than those on the continent - having emerged in the mid-Jurassic, true mammals had reached every part of the world by the end of the Cretaceous, so their survival somewhere is not too surprising.

Philip Bowles

Remember we're not talking about tigers or pandas or white rhinos - if another K-T scale impact happened today, those species would all die out. Cretaceous mammals were more similar to mice. Mice are widespread, numerous, adaptable and capable of sheltering in burrows, and no matter how bad things get, at least a few mice will find _something_ to eat, so it's not surprising at least some species of them survived.

Yep.

Right. However, it's possible to find a collection of explanations that between them account for most of the extinctions and survivors.

But crocodiles live in rivers, and rivers are wildly unstable environments even in good times, so crocodiles are evolved to survive dry seasons by burrowing into the mud and just sitting there doing nothing for months without food, waiting for conditions to improve. This is exactly the sort of talent you need to survive an event like an asteroid impact.

However, in groups that included a good number of species with small body size, at least _some_ species usually survived.

Species yes, at least in some cases, but not higher groups. The pattern of survival and extinction isn't even approximately random, nor should we expect it to be. If you could rerun the event many times you'd probably find a random variation in exactly which species made it through, but you'd never find a run in which the dinosaurs survived while the mammals and crocodiles became extinct.

What about any small, mouse-like dinosaurs? Shouln't some of these have survived, or didn't any small dinosaurs exist?

And what about the ancestor of the birds? If no dinosaurs survived the impact, I conclude that the birds already had evolved at that time. How could _they_ survive?

Your second question answers your first. There was indeed a branch of the dinosaurs that had mouse-sized members; they'd achieved it by evolving flight to avoid competition from mammals; and you can order a tissue sample from their descendants at any Kentucky Fried branch today ^.^

Just bringing you the light of True Geology in your mental and intellectual darkness

ALL Orogenesis are the result of Cosmic Impacts indeed ... and the Mechanism of it you may have to work out for yourself since Orogenesis in solid phase is completely impossible ! In that case the result would be unfortunately detrital material ! What would be the answer then ?

Further more, the Surrections are Synchronic to subductions and what would that means ? Simply that after all Orogenesis the MSL of the 7 seas would go down.

Interesting isn't to have some conclusions of a True Geology to guide you in your erring ways ? But of course, there is more to it, in fact the whole present so-called Geology, and fraudulously at that, Theories are completely false misleading and shamefully STUPID !

With kindest regards

Go and mind cattle, Ole Cowboy !

The True Geology is beyond your scope... indeed this is not anymore a matter of sectarian / religious beuuuuuuulief like in your Fraudulent Gogology, BUT of REAL & COHERENT Scientific Knowledge !

Dear Russell,

In the ' Valley Of The Blind' of H.G. Wells ' fame, the one who sees is considered as mentally ill !

Can you draw a parallel, my friend, with the present state of folly of the blinded sci000nce of Gogology & Paleongogology ? ... where a True Geologist alone is facing a mob of of sectarian blinded Universities brainwashed & mindprogrammed fools ... and without at that the least Industrial Engineering and Basic Physics knowledge / experience !

Can you or can't you ? That is the question !

In the Valley Of The Blind, Cosmogony and Understanding of the World cannot be questioned as you can guess. Please read it and you will understand in what predicament I 'm really. Still the outcome does not cast in my mind the shade of a doubt. Truth will prevail at the end !

With kindest regards

thank god your ancestors survived...cause you are hot!

well I see your not blind rockdog