Dinosaurs.The.Final.Day.with.David.Attenborough.2022.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG Subtitles

00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:10,66 million years ago,

00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:14,Planet Earth was very different
from today.

00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:24,Back then, one of our closest
ancestors might have looked

00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:27,something like
this little furry creature.

00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:37,RUMBLING GROWL

00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,The rulers of the land
were giant reptiles.

00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:07,Dinosaurs.

00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:09,That's one of the most infamous,

00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:13,a carnivorous T-rex.

00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:16,And just behind are
the bison of their time,

00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:19,a common plant-eater,
Edmontosaurus.

00:01:19,960 --> 00:01:21,But what happened to them all?

00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:25,66 million years ago,

00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:28,an asteroid hit the Earth,

00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,and scientists think
that it was this collision

00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:34,that wiped out the dinosaurs.

00:01:34,320 --> 00:01:37,But no-one has ever found
direct evidence of that.

00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:42,In fact, no-one has ever found
the fossil of a dinosaur

00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,that died within
a thousand years of the impact.

00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:54,However, a remarkable dig site
promises to change that.

00:01:55,800 --> 00:01:58,It's in the Hell Creek formation

00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:01,in the American Midwest.

00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:07,These badlands are rich
in prehistoric remains...

00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,ROARS

00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,..from triceratops...

00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,SQUAWKS

00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,..to pterosaurs.

00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,And here, one patch of land

00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:22,about the size of a football pitch

00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:26,is yielding a collection
of astonishing fossils.

00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,The precise location is
a closely guarded secret,

00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:35,because this place
may hold evidence...

00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,..of one of the most dramatic events

00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:43,in all the four-and-a-half-
billion-year history

00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:44,of our planet.

00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:51,Right, let me get down here
between you.

00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:54,For ten years,
a palaeontologist and his team

00:02:54,640 --> 00:02:57,have been trying to find out
exactly what happened here.

00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:00,You're at the edge
of your seat every moment,

00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:01,trying to dig this stuff up.

00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:03,It's like trying to defuse
a nuclear weapon

00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:06,while you're in a rainstorm.

00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,He's named the site Tanis,

00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:10,and believes it could be
a mass graveyard

00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:12,of creatures that were killed

00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,in the catastrophic asteroid strike.

00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:25,A site that could reveal not only
how the last dinosaurs lived,

00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:26,but how they died.

00:03:28,440 --> 00:03:32,If the dig team is right,
Tanis could be a place

00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:35,where the remains
of a long-lost world

00:03:35,560 --> 00:03:37,are frozen in time.

00:03:39,400 --> 00:03:42,A place that gives us,
for the first time,

00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:44,an unprecedented window...

00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:45,SHRIEKS

00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:51,..into the lives
of the very last dinosaurs...

00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,..and a minute-by-minute
picture of what happened

00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:00,on the day the asteroid hit.

00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:23,This landscape is full of fossils

00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:26,dating from the Late Cretaceous,

00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:29,the period which began
around 100 million years ago

00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:33,and ended 66 million years ago,

00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:35,when the dinosaurs vanished.

00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:41,Palaeontologist Robert DePalma
wants to find out more.

00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:44,I think anybody
who's ever liked dinosaurs

00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:46,in the past, or still does,

00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:48,has thought at one point
or another,

00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:49,"Well, what happened to them?

00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:52,"Why are they not here
any more?"

00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:54,So many different theories
are out there,

00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:57,and nobody has a tight answer
to that question.

00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:04,Judging from fossil evidence,

00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:08,this is what Hell Creek looked
like in the Late Cretaceous.

00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:16,There were low-lying,
marshy flood plains,

00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:20,intercut by river channels
and covered with horsetails,

00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:22,ferns and trees.

00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:27,Back then, it was warm
and wet here all year round.

00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:33,Tanis lies
in the north-eastern corner

00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,of the Hell Creek formation.

00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,Instead of today's
dusty prairies,

00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:42,there were sandy river banks.

00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:48,Instead of rocky cliffs,
there were forests.

00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:52,And instead
of the life we know today...

00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:55,DEEP RUMBLING CALLS

00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:58,TRILLING

00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:01,..well, Robert is hoping
to find out more

00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:02,about what that was like.

00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:05,COOING

00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:12,A sandbank lying between
a river and a forest

00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:16,would one day become
what Robert now calls Tanis.

00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:24,He and his team have been
digging here since 2012.

00:06:24,840 --> 00:06:26,So somewhere from between there

00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:28,and down here
is where that came from.

00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:29,It's come from up above.
Hey, look at this.

00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:31,What? Look.

00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:32,Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.

00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,And what they found is unexpected.

00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:39,Here we've g***t
this freshwater environment

00:06:39,280 --> 00:06:40,of the Hell Creek formation,

00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:44,and these shocking
red, green colours

00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:47,coming from the shells of ammonites,
a marine organism,

00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:49,kind of like a coiled snail
in appearance.

00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:52,So we've g***t this marine organism
that's been thrown up

00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:55,into this freshwater environment,

00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:56,and they do not belong here.

00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,How they g***t here is a mystery.

00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:01,OK...

00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:03,And there's more.

00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:07,I'm just going to go ahead and
plane down some of this rock.

00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:09,Sitting just above the ammonites

00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:12,is something that
many dinosaur hunters

00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:14,are desperate to find.

00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:19,So this orange layer right here
is composed 100%

00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:23,of impact-related debris
that is enriched in iridium.

00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:27,Iridium is an element that's rare
in the Earth's crust,

00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:30,but it's common in asteroids.

00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:34,The layer it's in is called
the K-Pg boundary.

00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:37,Dear Momma...

00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:40,Oh, dear. Really?
Yeah.

00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:45,It's made up of dust and debris
from a huge asteroid impact.

00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:48,Look at that. That's amazing.

00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:50,Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what we want.

00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:52,OK. So it's coming
from this area here.

00:07:52,560 --> 00:07:55,So somewhere within that region is
where these pieces are coming from.

00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,The boundary separates
the age of the dinosaurs

00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:00,from the age of mammals,

00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:03,so the rocks here
come from about the time

00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:05,that the dinosaurs became extinct.

00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:07,No rattlesnakes.

00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:10,What makes the site even
more exciting

00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:13,is the rock layer
right beneath the boundary

00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:15,where Robert found the ammonites.

00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:17,The rock here
is really not quite rocky,

00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:20,as you would expect dinosaur bones
and things to be encased -

00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:23,you expect really, really hard
rocks and jackhammers

00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,and things like this,
but it's very, very crumbly

00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:29,and it just falls apart
in your hands.

00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:31,As well as being crumbly
throughout,

00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,this layer of rock is also
around a metre thick,

00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:38,which, along with
other...