The day an asteroid hit the Earth, scientists claim to have found a fossil of a dinosaur.
The leg of a Thescelosaurus can be dated back to the mass extinction event because of the debris from the impact, according to the BBC.
All non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out when the 7.5 mile-wide asteroid hit the Gulf of Mexico.
There are a lot of fossils found at the Tanis site in North Dakota. It includes the Thescelosaurus leg and the skin of a triceratops.
The site is rich in well-preserved fossils, including fish, a turtle, and even the embryo of a flying pterosaur encased in an egg.
Scientists believe that tiny glass-like particles of molten rock lodged in the gills of fish fossils were kicked up by the asteroid.
We have a lot of information on this site that tells us what happened. Robert DePalma, a graduate student from the University of Manchester, UK, who leads the Tanis dig, said it was almost like watching a movie.
Prof Phil Manning told the Today program that the discovery was absolutely crazy and something he had never dreamt of.
The time resolution we can achieve at this site is beyond our imaginations. Manning said that this really should not exist, and it is absolutely beautiful.
The documentary will be released on April 15.
Robert DePalma, a relative of film director Brian De Palma, can be seen in the documentary wearing a fedora and tan shirt.
The last resting place of the Ark of the Covenant in the 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was christened Tanis.
The work of Tanis and DePalma have caused controversy over the years.
The New Yorker first wrote about the Tanis site in 2019.
DePalma, who had collected few academic laurels until the discovery of the site, insists on contractual clauses that give him oversight over the specimen. According to The New Yorker, he has control over how the fossils are presented.
Kate Wong, science editor of Scientific American, said that the findings from the site have met with a lot of skepticism from the paleontology community.
The dig team promised more after a few peer-reviewed papers were published.
Outside consultants have been called by the BBC to verify the specimen.
Prof Paul Barrett from London's Natural History Museum looked at the leg and said it was likely a Thescelosaurus that died instantly.
It is from a group that we didn't have any previous record of what its skin looked like, and it shows that these animals were very scaly like lizards. They were not like their meat-eating counterparts.
Prof Steve Brusatte, an outside consultant on the documentary from the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC he was skeptical about the dinosaurs findings and would like to see the hypotheses subjected to peer review.
Those fish with the spherules in their gills are an absolute calling card for the asteroid. He said they have a lot of circumstantial evidence that hasn't been presented to the jury.
Prof Brusatte said that it is possible that some of the animals died before the asteroid strike but could have been exhumed and buried again.
The quality of the fossils was more important than the timing of the event.
Does it matter if they died on the day or years before? There is nothing else like it in North America. It doesn't have to be about the asteroid.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
