A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.
hey, @bunjywunjy - this might be your jam (and any other dinosaur enthusiasts, it’s a heck of a read)
man that’s not just a heck of a read it’s fuckin GROUNDBREAKING is what it is!
this dude actually found a large fossil deposit that was created not just close to, but actually DURING THE K-PG EXTINCTION EVENT.
IT’S LITERALLY A WINDOW BACK IN TIME TO THE CHICXULUB IMPACT, AND TURNS OUT IT WAS WORSE THAN ANYTHING WE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED
it’s a geologic snapshot of the apocalypse.
reading the full article is certainly a trip, and to summarize for those who are intimidated by longer reads:
- chicxulub is the given name for the meteor that struck/initiated the event
- the paleontologist within is described as making groundbreaking discoveries of multiple species every day, but many of his peers discount him because they’re grouchy old dudes he accidentally had a fragment of a turtle bone involved in a larger reconstruction of a fossil this one time and they won’t let him live it down.
- the extinction event was so fast and so destructive, this guy describes this particular dig-site as being so densely layered with dead and dying creatures, there is a lot of organic tissues that have been preserved, and he is able to even discern that many of the marine and freshwater fish may have still been alive as they were buried due to molten glass being found in their gills, implying they were still attempting to breathe.
- they looked into exactly when and how this could have happened, having freshwater and marine animals stacked on top of mammals and larger dinosaurs (including an amazing deinonychus forearm discovery he was able to match to feather fossils he was finding atop the pile), and rather it being the initial tsunami, they are fairly sure that it was caused by a seiche of catastrophic proportions, which would have been set off within the first hour of the event. denser and larger creatures sunk to the bottom, leaving lighter debris like leaves, small fish, feathers, and molten glass on the surface.
summary: terrifying!
This is fucking incredible
