Final answer:
For a dinosaur to be fossilized, rapid burial post-mortem is needed to protect it from erosion and decomposition. Preservation is favored in low-oxygen environments. Mass extinctions, like the meteorite impact that affected dinosaurs, had broad ecological effects.
Step-by-step explanation:
In order for a dinosaur to be fossilized, it must be buried quickly after death to be protected from both erosion and decomposition. The rapid burial helps to shield the remains from environmental factors and scavengers, which contributes to better preservation. If a dinosaur is not buried quickly enough, its remains would likely erode or decompose before they could be preserved as fossils.
Additionally, preservation of fossils occurs more readily in certain sedimentary environments that are low in oxygen, thereby hindering decay caused by bacteria. While soft tissue is hard to preserve due to its susceptibility to bacterial decay, skeletal material can remain well-preserved with little or no change under these conditions.
Mass extinctions, such as the one that ended the dinosaur era, dramatically change the conditions on Earth which can lead to the demise of species that survived the initial catastrophic events. Following the impact of a meteorite, the resulting debris cloud that blocked sunlight would have had long-term detrimental effects on plant and animal life.