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       考研英语阅读能力的进步，依靠的是长期不懈地努力与坚持!下面，北京文都考研网为助2020考研者一臂之力，分享了考研英语时事阅读:是什么杀死了恐龙? 供考生参考。

2020考研英语时事阅读:是什么杀死了恐龙?

Paleontologists have long searched for clues as to what caused the mass extinction of the large dinosaurs. How did hundreds of species vanish so abruptly, leaving us only their fossilized remains as clues that they ever existed? Such a devastating event would have required a sudden onset of dramatic changes in the Earth’s climate.

This event in time is known as the K-Pg boundary, or the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, a marker between an era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and a world more like today. We can trace the Earth’s history to study this time period by delving into deeper and deeper rock layers which each carry an imprint of the events that occurred when those rocks were once at the surface.

Believe it or not, we are still learning new things from these ancient rocks, both as scientists discover new sites and see technological improvements in the equipment used to study them. Already this year, two exciting results have weighed in on two possible causes for the abrupt climate change at the K-Pg boundary: volcanoes and asteroids. So, how did the dinosaurs meet their end?

文本选自：Scientific American(科学美国人)

 

【单词】

paleontologist

英 [pælɪɒn'tɒlədʒɪst] 美 [pælɪɒn'tɒlədʒɪst]

n. 古生物学者

vanish

英 [ˈvænɪʃ] 美 [ˈvænɪʃ]

v. (莫名其妙地)突然消失;不复存在;消亡;绝迹

roam

英 [rəʊm] 美 [roʊm]

v. 徜徉;闲逛;漫步;(缓慢地)扫遍，摸遍

imprint

英 [ɪmˈprɪnt , ˈɪmprɪnt] 美 [ɪmˈprɪnt , ˈɪmprɪnt]

v. 产生重大影响;铭刻;使铭记;印;压印

n. 印记;压印;痕迹;持久影响;出版商名称(通常印在第一页的书名下面)

【参考译文】

古生物学家长期以来一直在寻找导致大型恐龙大规模灭绝的线索。数以百计的物种是如何突然消失的，只留下它们的化石遗迹作为它们曾经存在过的线索?这样一个毁灭性的事件需要地球气候突然发生剧烈变化。

这一事件(恐龙灭绝事件)在时间上被称K-Pg边界，或白垩纪-古近纪边界，这是恐龙漫游地球的时代与恐龙灭绝后世界的标志。我们可以追溯地球的历史来研究这一时期，通过研究更深的岩层，每个岩层都带有这些岩石曾经在地表时所发生的事件的印记。

信不信由你，我们仍然不断的从这些古老的岩石中学习新的东西，因为科学家们发现了新的(古生物)地点，看到了用于研究它们的设备的技术进步。今年已经有两个令人兴奋的研究结果，即影响白垩纪-古近纪边界气候突变的两个可能原因：火山和小行星。那么，恐龙是如何灭绝的呢?

       以上是北京文都考研网给出的“2020考研英语时事阅读:是什么杀死了恐龙? ”，希望对考生在英语提升方面有所帮助!祝2020考研成功!

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