Faster food for dinosaurs, reports New Scientist 25 Oct, 2003, p 15. Herds of enormous plant eating dinosaurs once roamed the earth, so there must have been plentiful supply of plant food far more than most present environments can provide. Sara Decherd of North Carolina State University suggested that plants grew faster in the past because carbon dioxide and oxygen levels have been higher in the past. To test this theory Decherd grew gingko plants in an atmosphere with five times as much carbon dioxide and 1.5 as much oxygen levels believed to have existed in the Cretaceous era. The plants carried out photosynthesis at three times the rate they do in today’s atmosphere.
Editorial Comment: If carbon dioxide and oxygen levels were once as high as estimated by the scientists who did this study, the world would have been much lusher in the past. The plant growth results they obtained would help explain the enormous amounts of fossil plant material found all over the world, including many giant plants that would not grow in present day environments. All this fits the Biblical history of the world – it started out as a lush and beautiful place capable of supporting an abundance of animals and humans, who all lived on plants. Only after God cursed the ground and later sent the flood did the environment become the harsh and difficult one we experience today. (Ref. plants, atmosphere, dinosaurs)