Dinosaurs were surrounded by constant fires  Dinosaurs once
ruled the Earth — but now it appears they ruled in Hell. Ancient
charcoal deposits suggest wildfires ran rampant throughout the
Cretaceous period, meaning dinosaurs had to spend 80 million
years looking out for the next inferno.  So just why was the
Cretaceous so fiery? According to researchers from London's
Royal Holloway University and Chicago's Field Museum, there were
two major reasons. First, the greenhouse effect was actually
stronger back then than it is today, and this mean global
temperatures were hotter. In such a world, random lightning
strikes were much more likely to start fires than they are now.
It also didn't help that there was actually more oxygen in the
atmosphere in the Cretaceous than there is now, and that made
the air itself more combustible.  Unlike today, where you
generally need drought conditions to take hold before wildfires
become a serious problem, the Cretaceous — which lasted from
about 145 to 65 million years ago — wa