Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil site

Around 80 million years ago, a stretch of tropical coastline in what is now north-eastern Italy was lashed by monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Those storms swept dinosaur carcasses, crocodiles, plants and river mud onto a tidal flat, where the tides and a film of microbes sealed everything away with extraordinary preservation. My colleagues and I have published a new study that reconstructs the violent tropical climate behind the Villaggio del Pescatore Lagerstätte near Trieste and reveals…