Swim little dinos! Swim for your lives! Image: Michael Skrepnick / Royal Tyrrell Museum via MSNBC.
Fact: The Canadian province of Alberta is lousy with dinosaur fossils. Like, so many dino bones that it's embarrassing. This perplexes paleontologists.
At least it did until now. Looks like researchers have found the reason for the massive centrasaur graveyard in Western Canadia--a mega storm comparable to our hurricanes wiped them out in one fell swoop. They lived in what was once a large coastal area, which are now fossil beds. The beasts were roughly cattle-sized and when the storm came in, it brought massive flooding and the poor guys couldn't treat water. As if taking an asteroid the bread basket wasn't bad enough! From MSNBC:
Coastal floodplains such as those seen in modern Bangladesh can cover vast areas, with flooding killing hundreds of thousands of livestock, not to mention the human tragedies that occur. "Because of their size and the scale of the flooding, dinosaurs could not escape the coastal floodwaters and would have been killed in large numbers," Eberth explained. "In contrast, fish, small reptiles, mammals, and birds may have been able to escape such seasonal catastrophes by retreating to quiet water areas, the safety of trees and burrows, or simply by flying away."
So what can we take away from this? Take swimming lessons? Not sure. But the picture is a heartbreaker, isn't it?
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