What was before dinosaurs

[Great Big Sea]

Big cats! Big kitties with big wings, and they could fly! Sorry honestly I don't know who could have inhabitied the earth before us.

[Mutant Snake]

maybe there was a civilization before the dinosaurs, perhaps reptillian, and maybe they developed some super weapon like a nuke, they had a big war and killed most of them, then maybe the survivors were hit with radiation and mutated into the dinosaurs and reptiles we know of, and therefore the nukes burned all the bones and evidence of the civilization.

[KayEl]

I read somewhere that the first lifeforms on earth do not require oxygen. I believe these were forms of bacteria that absorbed the carbon dioxide and whatever the atmostphere was and released oxgyegn. Eventually, thanks to them, the Earth's atmosphere became "oxegenated".

[Void]

It is also believed that before these green algae started converting C02 to oxygen there was no ozone (O3) and therefore no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. Without the protection the ozone layer gives, life was unable to move onto land as the UV rays would have annihilated any living creature.

So next time you insult algae, remember mammals, reptiles and birds would not exist if it wasn't for them.

[ambyglam]

there were pods of some description (sorry i cant remember their exact name ill get back to you with it) which converted carbon into oxygen and guess what, they are still doing it, yes near australia you can witness prehistoric 'pods' which are still converting carbon into oxgen right now, during the time of the dinosaurs there was so much oxygen in the air that the dinos became really big and dragon flies measured a metre long. however the climate is constantly changing and thats y its so different now, going back to dino time there was no grass and moss measured about 75 ft long.

and to clarify the biblical matters devout christians do not believe in dinosaurs as there is no mention of them in the bible, they believe that the devil put the bones there to make man doubt the power of god and to believe in evolution rather than creation. (hello i think evolution seems to be slightly more plausable)

also animals have evolve from different sources too, not for food for us as some idiots would have us believe, if we were meant to continue to eat animal flesh we would not have thae digestive system of a virtual herbivore. man had a need for animal flesh to be consumed to expand our mind and make us evolve better however nowadays we have no real need to consume meat. our jaws are getting smaller (thus many people need their wisdom teeth removed) we are becoming less hairy and we are changing physical shape from our ancestors, the scary truth is that we are evolving further away from primates and more towards the typical alien greys whom we are all so familiar with.

also as a wee fact, established trees do not contribute to the oxygen level being raised in the air, as the oxygen that it produces during the day it uses up at night, however we do need to maintain the rain forests and woodland because of the other wild life which lives their.

and to answer the original question if i had a time machine id go back to say good bye to my dad before he died

[bathory]

also animals have evolve from different sources too, not for food for us as some idiots would have us believe, if we were meant to continue to eat animal flesh we would not have thae digestive system of a virtual herbivore. man had a need for animal flesh to be consumed to expand our mind and make us evolve better however nowadays we have no real need to consume meat. our jaws are getting smaller

actually this is because we cook our food. Our digestive system is that of an omnivore, except that our apendix is very short because we don't have to try and digest raw meat.

[sabretooth]

my 4th grade teacher????

[Celumnaz]

and to clarify the biblical matters devout christians do not believe in dinosaurs  as there is no mention of them in the bible, they believe that the devil put the bones there to make man doubt the power of god and to believe in evolution rather than creation. (hello i think evolution seems to be slightly more plausable)

also animals have evolve from different sources too, not for food for us as some idiots would have us believe, if we were meant to continue to eat animal flesh we would not have thae digestive system of a virtual herbivore. man had a need for animal flesh to be consumed to expand our mind and make us evolve better however nowadays we have no real need to consume meat.

Just because it's not in the bible doesn't mean it isn't a real thing... Bible doesn't mention CO2, doesn't mention cars, doesn't mention Hale-Bopp, doesn't mention Solar Flares, doesn't mention the aardvark... just because some christians come up with this don't be labling all of them. Isn't that how we're supposed to act in this day and age?

Expand our mind and make us evolve better... I like meat. I'm sick of people telling me it's bad for me. Dietary natzies. Who has the right to call anybody an idiot?

[sabretooth]

meat good!!!!!!!!

[ambyglam]

look im notting getting into a meat versus no meat debate here bou our omniverous digestive system can handle no more than 5% animal produce daily to function at its optimum, this is so that we can digest the insects and things we pick up while collecting our food from the wild, but unless your kitchen is really really bad (if so contact the how clean is your house ladies immediately) this is not going to happen nowadays.

anyway that was not the main point i was making actually!

[KayEl]

God gave us dinosaurs so that some of us can profit off their images! Imagine, people making money off a bunch of animals (through toys, books, and yes, MOVIES.....) that none of us have ever seen alive!

And for the meat and non meat debate...I am on the fence about it.

But I always believed that if people have to catch, kill and prepare their own meat, there would be a lot more vegetarians! Because it is NOT pleasant!

[Celumnaz]

Yeah... and vegitarians don't taste good...

Geez... I'm so off topic today I'm sorry guys.

[cynicaldreamer]

If I had a time machine.. I believe I would rather go 10 Million years into the future... just to see what was left of earth.

There won't be much nxt2hvn our sun will be going Nova around about then. Whatever happens the Earth won't be here.

That's what I figure too.. but it would be so neat to see what is left of our solar system.. and to see if there are any other planets formed or solar systems formed... or if even the sun still exists.

Yeah, I saw a special on TLC about how the Sun will eventually become too large and how we would prepare Mars to be our new home. First we would induce a Greenhouse Effect to warm up the planet. Then we would use plants to suck up a most of the hydrogen. Of course, when plants suck in hydrogen, they put out oxygen.

[bathory]

look im notting getting into a meat versus no meat debate here bou our omniverous digestive system can handle no more than 5% animal produce daily to function at its optimum, this is so that we can digest the insects and things we pick up while collecting our food from the wild, but unless your kitchen is really really bad (if so contact the how clean is your house ladies immediately) this is not going to happen nowadays

the key is that we cook our meat, because of this we didn't need our appendix to be as long as it is in purely carnivirous animals. Funnily enough, we aren't particulary well designed to tackle most forms of vegetation, we can barely digest cellulose, and as such are quite limited in the plants we can eat. We are omnivorous:)

[PsychicPenguin]

the key is that we cook our meat, because of this we didn't need our appendix to be as long as it is in purely carnivirous animals. Funnily enough, we aren't particulary well designed to tackle most forms of vegetation, we can barely digest cellulose, and as such are quite limited in the plants we can eat. We are omnivorous:)

Do apes have short or long appendix? And cellulose... well... it means if for some reason the whole world is turning into grassland.. we are going to extinct?

[bathory]

awww crap, i just realised i got my appendix thing wrong...trying to remember stuff from 2 years ago is hard:( the appendix is to do with the digestion of cellulose (if it were more developed), in which case it would be longer and refered to as a caecum. I feel silly now lol

well... it means if for some reason the whole world is turning into grassland.. we are going to extinct?

what do you mean? if nothing but grass existed? grass is a very very poor source of food, all you have to do is look at a cow to see that all it does is eat grass, as well as have four stomachs to cope with it. If absolutely nothing but grass existed and you could only eat the grass in its raw form, yes you would die quite quickly, if this applied to the rest of the human race (assuming noone gets lucky with a mutation or something) we can add our names to the big ole extinction list.

But I always believed that if people have to catch, kill and prepare their own meat, there would be a lot more vegetarians!

i dunno, we've been doing it for over 40000 years fairly well:)

[ambyglam]

getting back to the main topic, i found out what the pod things are, they are stromolites, and they are similar to coral and still exist off the coast of australia, hurrah for stromolites, they convert carbon to oxygen and they have been here the whole time, they are older than you, older than dinosaurs and older than god.

long live stromolites

(spelling may not be correct)

[KayEl]

Well, unlike our forebearers who were, in my opinion, tougher, stronger and physical more fit, most of us nowadays are very squeamish about cutting a cow's throat....

Then again, if we do go catch and kill our own meat, we wouldn't be so damn FAT!!!!!!

[hamellr]

I have my own opinions on the Gap Theory... I believe God created the Dinosaurs for a reason... he let them roam the earth for millions of years... to live and die.  And that is for us to have Oil for heat and other purposes.  Without the Dinosaurs we wouldn't have oil. 

Hmm... The oil was discovered in 1859 - until then men relied on wood, animal oil and coal and they perfectly survived. So I don't think that the purpose of dinosaurs is to give us oil for heat...

Um... oil was in use way before 1859. Early 1800's London used "gas" lights that were a mixture of Whale Oil and Petroleum byproducts ("Natural" gas and a keorsene like oil,) made by boiling and filtering the oil until a more concentrated oil came to the top, the resulting leftover product which we now call tar was used in quite a few products of the time, none to a great affect until vulcanization was discovered. Although Tar was used widely in "ancient" times, especially in England/Scotland/Ireland to weather proof huts of sticks.

Crude oil was used as a light source for hundreds of years before that. It was so common that in areas it was considered a nuisance, but wasn't fully accepted because it produced so much smoke. (But that made it useful for bee keepers.)

Further back (Europe - 1100 to 1300's or so,) it was considered to actually be black bile and therefore one of the "humors," talked about in Homepathy and other medical texts from that time period, and was used as what we would call an "herbal" remedy these days. Dr. Faust is offered Black Bile by Mephistophles (sorry I mangled the spelling there,) to add to his stock of ingrediants - it being fairly rare in Europe at the time.

Rick

[+joc]

QUOTE (Nxt2Hvn @ Dec 30 2003, 11:55 AM)

I have my own opinions on the Gap Theory... I believe God created the Dinosaurs for a reason... he let them roam the earth for millions of years... to live and die.  And that is for us to have Oil for heat and other purposes.  Without the Dinosaurs we wouldn't have oil.

It is certain that the Earth was not created in a period of 7 , 24 hour days.

The sun wasn't created until the 4th day.

I think the reason for the dinosaurs is evolutionary to the fertilization of the planet.

They were predominately large thereby capable of traversing large distances. When seeding a planet it would make sense to have larger creatures doing the cross pollination. In my humble opinion.

Before the Dinosaurs? Algae. Plankton. Cockroaches.

[PsychicPenguin]

Actually crude oil was formed by fossilized planktons rather than dinosaurs. And if God created oil for us then it is just another failed plan as now we are polluting the world and fighting for oil. Poor God

[geeohn]

before dinosaurs, there were bugs & rats & mice.

[man_in_mudboots]

if you want to know what was before dinosaurs, instead of asking us (which is pointless, whole volumes have been written on this subject) just reaserch. key words could be:

permian

carboniferous

devonian

siluran

ordovician

cambrian

precambrian

proterozoic

archean

premesozoic

its not like its an un-answerable question. just get off your fat ass and do some research if you actually want to know something enough to do a little work for it.

[Loque]

its not like its an un-answerable question. just get off your fat ass and do some research if you actually want to know something enough to do a little work for it.

Erm thats why people come to this site, to look and ask for information, if everyone did what you said this site would probably not exist anymore

Moving on I don't think anyone as mentioned different stuff creatures could have been made of

we are carbon based

Nitrogen based creatures are likely to be somewhere

Silicon based creatures aren't proven to live on earth but that doesn't mean they don't.

Moving on if I can remember my chemistary/Biology, (which I struggle with)

I can work out both what each of the above creature typres breath and what their main poison is.

Carbon based creatures breath Oxygen/Carbon

Nitrogen Based creatures breath Fluorine/Nitrogen

Silicon based creatures breath Sulpher/silicon

as for the poisons

Crabon based lifeforms is Arsenic

Nitrogen based Lifeforms is selenium

Silicon based Lifeforms is actually a transition metal, Antimony

I know for sure that the poisons are right and the breathing one should be somewhere in-between.

[wunarmdscissor]

didnt realise this topic was still goin.

Ok i got ma facts mixed up lol

Homer the sun will continue to burn for 5 billion years, you were right .

So nxt2hvn it would be interesting to see 10 million years into the future of earth.