‘River of Death' wiped out thousands of dinosaurs in one day

Telegraph

19-05-2025

An ancient riverbed in Canada has been dubbed the 'River of Death' after more than ten thousand dinosaur bones were found at the site.
Skulls, hips, ribs and femurs are often unearthed at the location of the dig on a hillside in Alberta, and studies show they all date back to a single moment 72 million years ago.
It is thought that more than 10,000 dinosaurs perished in one day as a consequence of freak weather, which probably flooded a popular migration route.
Every bone found at the site is from a species called pachyrhinosaurus, a smaller and older relative of the triceratops that has the trademark neck frill of its relative, but a large bony mass on its nose instead of a horn.
The site and dig is the focus of an episode of the BBC's new Walking With Dinosaurs television programme, which will use visual effects to retell the story of the prehistoric event.
Pachyrhinosaurus measured up to 20 feet in length and could weigh more than two tons when fully grown, but the specimens found at the River of Death are of all ages, including juveniles and infants.
Prof Emily Bamforth, a palaeontologist and curator at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Alberta, told Science Focus magazine: 'There are upwards of 10,000 individuals preserved here.
'It's one of the densest bone beds in North America – we're talking 100 to 300 bones per square metre, and the site stretches back into the hill for at least a square kilometre. It's a hugely dense bone bed that is very, very large – and that makes it tremendously significant.'
She added that the fossilised remains of the herd of dinosaurs revealed a tragic tale.
'We know they all died at once in some kind of catastrophic event, and we know that whatever killed them wiped out almost every member of the herd indiscriminately – big, little, old and young,' said Prof Bamforth.
The scientists at the site believe a flash flood, possibly caused by a monsoon or a hurricane, may have triggered a deluge that trapped the vast herd of animals which were on their way northwards for the summer.
The large, heavy animals would have been ill-equipped to survive such a rapid downpour.
'We believe that this was a herd on a seasonal migration that got tangled up in some catastrophic event that effectively wiped out, if not the entire herd, then a good proportion of it,' Prof Bamforth told BBC News.
'These animals are not able to move very fast because of their sheer numbers, and they're very top heavy – and really not very good at swimming at all.'
Stones at the site also captured evidence of turbulent water, indicating the power and destruction of the flood.
North America is a rich area for palaeontologists, and scientists working on fish fossils in North Dakota have recently found evidence that the Chicxulub meteorite which wiped out almost all dinosaurs 66 million years ago probably hit Earth in the springtime of the northern hemisphere.