Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Dinosaur bones notify stories about northern Alaska

On a fine spring day about 70 million years before, a few dozen duck-billed Dinosaurs waded a channel of a great northern river. As they strode on two legs into the cloudy water, the man-size hadrosaurs had no thought how the sunshine was affecting the snowpack in the high mountains to the south.

A pulse of meltwater from the elevated country had swollen the river to much higher levels in the span of just a few hours. The dinosaurs ventured out too distant, lost their footing, struggled and drowned. The river carried the bodies of the beasts downstream, depositing them at what is at present a bend of the Colville River.

Researchers write that large floods in ancient Alaska may be in charge for the impressive deposits of Dinosaur bones they have found on Alaska's North Slope.

No comments: