That's incredibly interesting.Arthur Dent wrote:This, on the discovery of a fossil bed believed to have been formed from the cataclysm dinosaur extinction causing meteor impact is phenomenal.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019 ... saurs-died
One thing that doesn't make much sense is how accurate of a map do they have of where bodies of water were and what the topography of the land looked like 66 million years ago. Obviously, you can't get on google earth and move the date button back to 9/1/-66,000,000. I'm sure they can see in soil conditions some evidence that there was a river, floodplain, etc. But, it seems like they would need to do a massive amount of digging and documenting to have even the slightest idea of where a river was.
The guy in the article says he calculated that a seiche could have reached the Tanis site in 6, 10, and 13 minutes. That seems incredibly precise. More concerning is the fact that they found the answer in search of an explanation. Not to say it's wrong.
Also, it seems the hypothesis is that the meteor hit, massive destruction, tons of fire, tons of water displaced causing tsunamis/waves/etc. Animals in north america died almost immediately likely due to the heat and or tons of other things. These dead animals and some fish that lived get swept up in one of these waves coming from somewhere, are deposited, the water recedes leaving the carcasses buried in a huge amount of sediment, and that's why they're so well preserved. With most living things now dead, nothing scavenges on them. Slowly they get buried further as the sediment settles.
But, even if no living things were around to scavenge, the hypothesis relies on this area being in low ground that even if it is not a river, would still act as a tributary to said river. Over the next, idk, million years, I'd venture a guess there was still rain that would wash this area pretty clean, not leave it prestine.
Can't wait for the paper to be published so those smarter than me have a chance to review it.