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This photo, obtained on March 30, 2019 with the kind permission of the University of Kansas, shows a 66 million year old fish fossil, partially exposed and perfectly preserved, unearthed by Robert DePalma and his colleagues. – (Credit: ROBERT DEPALMA / AFP / Getty Images)
For some, it is the discovery of the century, but for others, it does not mix well. At least not yet.
An extraordinary site discovered in North Dakota, United States, would house a treasure of fossils showing the impact of a meteor 66 million years ago and which generated a wave similar to a tsunami in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur.
The devastating event created a fossilized cemetery that preserved ancient animals and debris from the space rock, giving insight into what was happening minutes and hours later, arguably the most important extinction event in the world. mass of the history of the Earth.
At least that's the theory.
A paleontologist by the name of Robert DePalma, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, has been working on the site with his team since 2013. Although simplified, the above theory shows how he understood the site that changed his life.
He believes that after finding a varied bed of fossils and tektites (gravel-sized bodies formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impact), he discovered a site that represents the very important boundary of KT (or K-Pg) – the terrestrial layer that separates the Cretaceous and the Paleogene.
"This is the first assembly of large organisms by mass death that we have found associated with the K-T limit," DePalma told Berkeley News.
"In no other section of the KT border on Earth, you will find such a collection including a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which are dead at the same time, the same day."
According to him, this includes a number of dinosaur remains. In other words, the almost irrefutable evidence of the disappearance of the dinosaurs because of the ecological fallout of an asteroidal impact.
One of the greatest stories of paleontology of the century, this has been prompted by an article widely shared by the New Yorker entitled "The day the dinosaurs are dead" and which contains an incredible number of claims. But it preceded a research paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which was not up to the hype launched by the magazine.
Excavations like this one are funded by museums, universities, and even governments, but because of the enormous sums of money that can be involved with fossil collections, there is also a private industry around excavations.
In this case, Mr. DePalma entered into an undisclosed trade agreement with a farmer owning the land on which the site is located and kept his discovery very close to his chest in the last five years.
The New Yorker article, which describes as much the profile of 37-year-old Mr. DePalma as that of the excavation site, portrays a site that is "the holy grail" and more of the site. world of paleontology. But few people have actually seen the blessed chalice, so to speak.
Dr. Jay Melosh, a geophysicist and Purdue University impact scientist, who was not part of the research but wrote the paper, calls it "the discovery of the century" for the field.
But many have wondered why such incredible claims have been made in the media, but not in academia.
Dr. Stephen Brusatte, paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and author of The Dinosaurs' Rise and Fall, is among those who question the extraordinary claims of the University of Edinburgh. team that has so far quietly chaired the site.
"It's a great site, but I do not see any evidence of a dinosaur graveyard! Something is weird, "he wrote on Twitter.
In an email to news.com.au, he said he was "very excited about this discovery" but noted that, apart from a partial dinosaur hip bone mentioned in the newspaper, the ideas of a cemetery Dinosaurs evoked in the media do not show real evidence so far.
"The New Yorker article reports a dinosaur graveyard with bones of many types of dinosaurs, as well as feathers, eggs and even embryos," he said. "I'm afraid there is no evidence, apart from a partial bone, to evaluate for me or other dinosaur paleontologists yet."
Dr. Brusatte, 35, is widely recognized as one of the leading paleontologists of his generation. During his ten years of research in the field, he has written more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He also named and described more than 10 new dinosaur species.
He found it odd that many of DePalma's statements in the media were not mentioned in the PNAS article.
The New Yorker article talks about long feathers found on the site of which DePalma is "convinced that it's about dinosaur feathers", bony remains of a mammal distantly related to primates and signs of what he believes to be a former burrowing mammal.
"Many articles in the New Yorker article are completely missing from the newspaper," added Dr. Brusatte. "Geology is very credible, but there is not enough evidence yet to assess the dinosaur aspect of history."
Brian Switek is a scientific writer specializing in paleontology and the author of My Beloved Brontosaurus: on the road with old bones, new science and our favorite dinosaurs.
He also finds it odd that such a high degree of confidentiality has been maintained around the site, while only a few details have been included in the peer-reviewed journal.
"I think it is strange if so much preliminary work has been done, and they are certain that the discoveries in the New York article are part of the same bed, that these fossils do not have have been mentioned, even by the way, "he told news.com.au.
This is a typical practice for paleontologists to compile "wildlife lists" of species found on a dig site, he explained, and he was surprised not to find one in the document .
DePalma and his team raised concerns about poaching to not open the site to many other researchers – which would happen in the field. But Switek said that such an argument "does not hold water" in professional paleontology.
"Information and details about the locality should be shared with other professionals who wish to investigate, assist or search the site in a manner consistent with the basic ethics of science," he said. declared.
The hype around the site, produced largely by the New Yorker article, has left "a lot of people scratching their heads, especially because of the imbalance between the statements in the story and the evidence in the newspaper, "he added.
Mr. DePalma could not be contacted for comments, but reportedly stated that other research papers related to the site were in progress.
At least one thing is certain, as Dr. DePalma's Ph.D. advisor told Kansas University, the site will occupy specialists for at least half a century.
And as Dr. Brusatte told news.com.au: "It would be great if everything were true."
This story originally appeared in news.com.au.
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