The sources state that while no one knows for certain why the last dinosaurs died, the available evidence suggests a two-stage process: a sudden mass destruction caused by the Global Flood, followed by the gradual extinction of the survivors due to environmental changes and human activity.
The Primary Cause: The Global Flood
The authors argue that the global Flood of Noah’s day provides the best explanation for the massive dinosaur fossil graveyards found worldwide.
- Water-Based Catastrophe: Even secular scientists admit that many major dinosaur repositories, such as those at Dinosaur National Monument, were caused by “fast-moving, muddy water”.
- Rapid Burial: During the year-long Flood, countless thousands of dinosaurs would have drowned and been buried quickly in muddy deposits, which is the necessary condition for fossilization.
Survival on the Ark
Because dinosaurs were land-dwelling animals created by God, the sources conclude they must have been represented on Noah’s Ark.
- Manageable Size: Contrary to the image of “enormous killing machines,” the average dinosaur was only about the size of a large cow, and many were as small as chickens.
- Young Specimens: Noah likely took baby or juvenile dinosaurs onto the ark to save space. Since even the largest dinosaurs hatched from eggs less than a foot in diameter, hatchlings would have required no more room than a common house pet.
Post-Flood Extinction
For the dinosaurs that survived the Flood and repopulated the Earth, several factors likely led to their ultimate demise:
- Climate Change: The post-Flood world was significantly different. The sources point to the drastic decrease in human life expectancy after the Flood (falling from 900 years to under 200) as evidence of a harsher environment that dinosaurs may have struggled to adapt to.
- Human Hunting: As the human population grew and spread across the planet, they likely hunted dinosaurs to extinction. The authors suggest that the ubiquity of “dragon slayer” legends in cultures globally reflects this historical reality.
Ultimately, the sources argue that dinosaurs did not die out 65 million years ago, but coexisted with humans until environmental pressures and hunting drove them to extinction in the relatively recent past.