The Thescelosaurus was moving quietly along the seashore. The 12 feet long, 500 pound dinosaur was probably looking for food or trying to avoid becoming a meal.

Thescelosaurus had a long tail that stretched backward for balance and it had prominent bones. The calm was broken by a series of unnerving natural forces as the dinosaur lifted its head.

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The ground started shaking and the water in the sea reacted. The sky was filled with fire, which set fire to the forest.

Thescelosaurus panicked but it was too late. The seaway was swept away by a 30-foot high wave of mud and debris as it came from the south. The dinosaur's leg was ripped off by the devastating surge as it was caught in the destructive deluge.

The moment 66 million years ago when an asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs is frozen in time through a stunning fossil found last year at the Tanis dig site in North Dakota. The skin, muscle and bones of the three-toed Thescelosaurus can be seen in this perfectly preserved leg.

The details of the death scenario described above are embellished, but they are based on new findings and accounts by Robert DePalma, the lead paleontologist at Tanis.

The scientist said that they would never say with 100% certainty that the leg came from an animal that had died. When we look at the preservation of the leg and the skin around the articulated bones, we are talking about the day of impact. There was no advanced decay.

DePalma and the dinosaur leg will be featured in two episodes of "Dinosaur Apocalypse: The New Evidence" and "Dinosaur Apocalypse: The Last Day" on PBS on Wednesday.

The death and destruction that took place when a 10-mile-long space rock struck the Yucatn Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico are the first fossils found. The mass extinction of 75 percent of animal and plant life was caused by this impact event 66 million years ago.

The world was a lot cooler at that time. Water levels were higher. The Western Interior Seaway split the North American continent in two. The edge of the massive river became a conduit of carnage after the asteroid struck. The seaway erupted with a wave of epic proportions because of the shock waves from nearly 3,000 miles away.

Thescelosaurus never stood a chance.

He said that you would not want to be there. The glowing spherules are falling out of the sky. They are like beads of superheated glass reentering the Earth's atmosphere after being ejected from the crater. There was a lot of shaking. It was really bad.

A loss of a dinosaur is a gain for a paleontologist. Scientists realized after Tanis was discovered that the fossils there were probably created during a big impact. The embryo of a pterosaur still in its shell, the well-preserved skin of a triceratops, and a turtle pierced by a chunk of wood were some of the discoveries made. Many of the fossils are being presented to the public for the first time.

Many scientists were surprised by the fish that was unearthed at the site in 2019. The glass spheres that came raining down from the sky were embedded in the petrified remains.

The fish died because of the impact in their gills.

The glass spheres contain the signature chemical components of a major impact event. The molten glass was thrown into the atmosphere by the explosion caused by the asteroid striking the planet, which is estimated to be the equivalent of 10 billion atomic bombs. There is a tiny rock inside one of the fossils that may be from the killer asteroid.

Since 2012 DePalma has headed efforts at Tanis. Several major papers describing the discoveries and outlining the scientific methodology used to date the fossils have been published by him and other scientists.

What happened then is relevant to the world today according to DePalma.

I have been asked why we should care about this. Dinosaurs have been dead for a long time. This applies to today. Mass die-offs of animals and biomes are being put through very stressed situations worldwide. We can apply the lessons from the past to the present.

DePalma worked with one of his heroes - the 96-year-old Attenborough - to review the discoveries and discuss their importance.

DePalma said that he and Sir David consulted on everything. He can't stop his enthusiasm. You could not separate the two of us when we were looking at the fossils. We continued to talk about them. If no one had stopped us, we would have been there all day.

The show "Dinosaur Apocalypse" is on Wednesday at 9 p.m. On PBS.

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