Cretaceous–
Palaeogene extinction event,
or K-T Boundary
.
Dinosaur fossils abound in layers of the Earth
formed in the Mesozoic, but are never found in layers formed after this K-T Boundary. Two main
camps exist in paleontology today, each having a different view of what killed the dinosaurs and other
organisms. Controversy has surrounded the topic since 1980, but luckily, the controversy has not
harmed the study of mass extinction causation, but rather has made it a dynamic and interesting
area. The major sides of the schism can be simply broken down into "intrinsic gradualists" and
"extrinsic catastrophists." Each group is here described in turn, but first, readers should know what
scientists generally agree about the K-T boundary.
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