Science

nitpicker

(7,153 posts) Mon Apr 1, 2019, 06:12 AM Apr 2019

Found: fossil 'mother lode' created by asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/01/found-fossil-mother-lode-created-by-asteroid-that-wiped-out-dinosaurs

Found: fossil 'mother lode' created by asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs

Agence France-Presse

Mon 1 Apr 2019 03.23 BST Last modified on Mon 1 Apr 2019 04.13 BST

Scientists in the US say they have discovered the fossilised remains of a mass of creatures that died minutes after a huge asteroid hit the Earth 66m years ago, sealing the fate of the dinosaurs.

In a paper to be published on Monday, a team of paleontologists at the University of Kansas say they found a “mother lode of exquisitely preserved animal and fish fossils” in what is now North Dakota.

The asteroid’s impact – creating the Chicxulub crater in what is now Mexico – was the most cataclysmic event in Earth’s history, eradicating 75% of the planet’s animal and plant species, extinguishing the dinosaurs and paving the way for the rise of humans.

Researchers believe the impact set off fast-moving, seismic surges that triggered a sudden, massive torrent of water and debris from an arm of an inland sea known as the Western Interior Seaway.

At the fossil site – called Tanis in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation – the surge left “a tangled mass of freshwater fish, terrestrial vertebrates, trees, branches, logs, marine ammonites and other marine creatures”, according to Robert DePalma, the report’s lead author.

Some of the fish fossils were found to have inhaled “ejecta” associated with the Chicxulub event, suggesting seismic surges reached North Dakota within “tens of minutes”, he said.
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