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What caused the world’s largest dinosaur graveyard?

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Thousands of dinosaurs, including the cow-sized, horned Centrosaurs, used to roam the coastal lowlands of Alberta 77 million years ago. But scientists think a massive event killed them all, resulting in a 2.4 square km bonebed.

According to senior research scientist David Eberth, a paleontologist and geologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, that massive event was a hurricane-strength storm which struck the then-coastal Alberta with a vengeance.

“The flooding could have reached more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the shoreline,” Eberth said. “The landscape basically just drowns.”

As would the dinosaurs, who lived in the lowlands and would’ve had nowhere to flee to avoid the 12-to-15-foot waves.

“It’s unlikely that these animals could tread water for very long, so the scale of the carnage must have been breathtaking,” Eberth said. “The evidence suggests that after the flood, dinosaur scavengers reentered the area, trampling and smashing bones in their attempt to feast on the rotting remains.”

(Via Live Science)

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