Dinosaur graveyard reveals clues to mass extinction

Welcome to Lowe’s Home Improvement store in New Jersey, where you can find appliances, tools, electrical supplies… and apparently, a quarry pit that holds remnants of a 66-million-year-old tragedy.

A gigantic graveyard

Called a “mass death assemblage” by paleontologist Kenneth J. Lacovara, the quarry pit, located in the Mantua Township, holds what researchers have reason to believe is a collection of fossils that very closely dates back to the major extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs near the end of the Cretaceous period.

By analyzing the abundance of iridium (a common element in asteroids and comets) and the kinds of fossils from the pit, the researchers were able to date it back to the time when the Chixulub impactor landed and formed a crater that is now underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

Research and excavation efforts have also revealed the numerous prehistoric animals that lived in the shallow tropical sea around that time: sea turtles, crocodiles, fish and other sea creatures. They were even able to find remains of Mosasaurus, a large, dinosaur-like marine animal that lived in the same era.

An unexpected jackpot

For almost a century, the Inversand Company owned the quarry pit and used it to mine marl, a dark greenish mudstone used in water treatment plants and as a fertilizer. However, it was eventually bought from them by Rowan University, which has been holding excavation missions in it ever since.

“It sounds silly, but is it the case that this pit in South Jersey, behind Lowe’s, has the one window into this pivotal moment in time?” Dr. Lacovara said. Lacovara was also part of the research team that formally unveiled Dreadnoughtus, believed to be the largest creature to have ever walked the Earth, back in September 2014.

The research team working with Rowan University is still hard at work in identifying and cataloging the fossils they find in the quarry, as well as in trying to get a more accurate idea of what really happened at the extinction site millions of years ago. After they find answers, the university intends to rebuild the quarry and turn it into a learning center for younger generations to develop a deeper appreciation for science. “We really want to integrate this in the community,” says Dr. Lacovara. “It’s a living, changing place.” — TJD, GMA News