From a Bird’s Eye View -by Steve Nelson
Sixty-six million years ago, an event happened that created a mass extinction. The asteroid, “Chicxulub,” entered the earth’s atmosphere, where it became a meteor—or ‘shooting star’—and hit the land near the Yucatán area.
Back then, the American continent was divided by an inland seaway. The impact caused a tsunami, which shoved a wall of water north leaving bodies piled upon bodies of dinosaurs in the Dakotas and nearby areas. The rest of the world’s population of critters died from a blackened sky dropping sizzling rock debris on life below. The impact also snuffed out sunlight--needed for chlorophyll-- and left behind sulfurous gases.
But not all the dinosaurs died. Just as in forest fires today, where not all the forest is burned, the protected area becomes a staging area for life to “shake off the dust, pull its socks up and get on with it.” Alligators survived as did the precursor to the chicken, a third cousin to T-rex according to the website NewScientist, and other aviary amazements of feathered frolic. Many small mammals survived as well.
I think about this extinction event as we drive that vast area of Wyoming where one can envision seas that once were - a lot can happen in 66 million years. Somewhere in this caliche landscape of arroyos and cliffs and hues of reddish rust and grays and blacks and subtle layers, geologists continue to look for the K-T boundary. Below that line fossil records of dinosaurs exist; above it, none. It was first discovered in Italy in the late 1970s by Walter Alverez, who noticed a geologic line that held high levels of the metal iridium. This line of iridium can be found all over the world.
As I continue north, along Greasy Grass, the Lakota Sioux name for the Little Bighorn River, I think back to another catastrophic event. On June 25th, 1876, the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapahoe tribes took on the 7th Cavalry of General George Armstrong Custer. We drive along the river bottoms of grasses where tepees once stood, and people’s lives carried on and ponies grazed. But a quick glance is all it takes to see the bluffs above the river where mayhem struck. I scarce can take it in - the swirls of dust, the guns of battle, the yells of Native Americans in attack mode, the screams of horses and men, the cavalry knowing full well they are caught within a swarm that can end only one way.
It’s interesting to think that the morning of either the above examples could have started with a caw of a pterodactyl and, in the latter case, the cackling chuckle of magpies…and death and destruction is just hours away.
For more information on the Battle of the Greasy Grass, look up “Battle of Hundred-In-The Hands” also known as Fetterman Fight of December 1866. This was the harbinger of the war to come.
Steven Nelson is native of Colorado (Steamboat Springs) and very curious about how things work and how they begin. He is active and enjoys pickleball, bicycling, camping, cooking, and spending time with his wife!
