Flash floods buried dozens of dinosaurs in a prison pond

Ancient flash floods caused 75 dinosaurs to be buried in a prison pond and became a large fossil mine in the United States.

For nearly 100 years, scientists have not been able to explain why the Cleveland-Lloyd dinosaur mines in Texas contain the fossils of more than 75 theropod dinosaurs living in the Jurassic period.

Allosaurus dinosaur fossils.(Artwork: Newsweek).

In a study published in the journal PeerJ, researchers at Indiana Pennsylvania University, the United States, said that the ancient flash floods were the main cause of the unusually high density of fossil theropod dinosaurs in the mine, Newsweek on 6/6 reported.

Analyzing the processes that affect dinosaur bodies in the formation of fossils and minerals in sediments, the researchers discovered this dinosaur mine once a prison. The dinosaurs from many places were swept away by flash floods.

Crocodile fossils and other fish species are not found here, indicating that they do not live in the pond due to the environment is too polluted because of rotting dinosaurs. On the dinosaur fossils found at the mine, there were no bites, indicating that other dinosaurs at the same time did not eat dead bodies.

The study also rejected previous hypotheses about unusually high dinosaur densities at the Cleveland-Lloyd mine, such as drought that tainted dinosaurs and died massively here or dinosaurs trapped in thick mud.