An Antarctic Bone BedW. Zinsmeister was accustomed to scoff at the idea that the Age of Dinosaurs ended violently with the impact of a giant asteroid some 65 million years ago. He always asked: "Where's the layer of burnt and twisted dinosaur bones?" His certainty was shaken, however, when he began mapping fossil deposits on Seymour Island, Antarctica. He didn't find the dinosaur bones but rather a giant bed of fish bones at least 50 square kilometers in area. Some sort of catastrophe must have annihilated untold millions of fish. And guess what? This great bone bed was deposited directly on top of that layer of extraterrestrial iridium that marks the 65-million-year-old Cretaceous Tertiary boundary at many sites around the world.
William R. Corliss
Science Frontiers
No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996
"Some sort of catastrophe must have annihilated untold millions of fish."
In a book by (I think) the younger Alvarez, he describes visiting a 65mya site in Denmark (?) where there were also signs of of many dead fish. His impression was that something very catastrophic and nasty had happened there. He commented on the fact that this layer smelled bad, and I think there was also iridium found. I wish I could find the darn book in one of my piles.