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A team of researchers discovered in the United States exceptionally well preserved fish fossils, which died 66 million years ago when the asteroid sealing the fate of dinosaurs was found. is crushed on Earth . ] These fossils of fish and other ancestral animals were discovered at a site in North Dakota, 3000 kilometers from Chicxulub crater in the Caribbean, where the asteroid's impact was product.
The study, which will be published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows how this episode has had a devastating and rapid impact on large areas, says lead author Robert dePalma, quoted by the specialized website. EurekAlert.
" It's like a museum of the late Cretaceous in a layer one and a half meters thick ," said Mark Richards, another author and professor emeritus of the University of California. Berkeley, in a statement of the institution.
The jolt caused by the impact of the asteroid generated giant waves in an inland sea that existed in present-day North Dakota, arriving near a river where they lived several times. The fish reversed the current, according to the statement.
Streams of rocks and debris hit the fish, which were buried by another wave and fossilized over time.
"terrestrial vertebrates, trees (…) and other marine creatures were compacted in this layer ", explained Robert dePalma.
According to the researchers, before dying, inhaled fish fragments, propelled by the impact of the asteroid, were found in their gills. Some fish died simply for ingesting these materials.
The biodiversity discovered on the site is remarkable. " At least several specimens are new species and others are the best of the genus ", congratulated DePalma.
" We are faced with an instant recording of one of the most important events in the history of the Earth, there is no other place that has any traces like these . "
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