AHEAD OF HIS TIME

Several decades before scientists gave much attention to the subject, Oregon State’s M.W. deLaubenfels theorized that dinosaur extinction may have been caused by an object from outer space impacting the earth’s surface.

By George P. Edmonston Jr.

In early 1955, Oregon State professor Max Walker deLaubenfels allowed his thinking to go far beyond anything he had ever done or would do, beyond even that of the best scientific minds of his generation, to the subject of dinosaur extinction. Why he did so remains a mystery, even to family members such as his son Pete, who, at 81, lives today as a retired schoolteacher 12 miles south of Corvallis. “Scholarship was his life,” Pete said in a recent interview. “It’s the best reason I can give.”

The result was an article that appeared in January 1956 in the Journal of Paleontology. Titled “Dinosaur Extinction: One More Hyphothesis,” deLaubenfels postulated that “the survivals and extinctions at the close of the Cretaceous (65 million years ago) are such as might be expected to result from intensely hot winds such as would be generated by extra large meteoritic or planetesimal impacts.” He also wrote he had been thinking about this topic from as early as 1937.

	Max deLaubenfels at home in his study, Pasadena, Calif., c. 1937.
	Posing with “Jackie,” the MGM Lion, at the Selig Zoo.
	Son Pete deLaubenfels reflects on his father’s career.