An image of death in dinosaur faces caught in a pyroclastic flow from a local sub-event of the Chicxulub impact

Abstract

The following paper builds on already observed dinosaur remains killed in a volcanic eruption linked to the Chicxulub in the area of Valbonne in south eastern France. The Chicxulub impact catapulted a number of sub-blocks from the crust around its impact area in the Yucatan far from it, their brutal landing triggered smaller tectonic waves. In Valbonne, which is a marginal area of the older Alpine volcanic arc, the dormant volcanism was waked up, as the block itself had been catapulted from the sea floor and was heavily hydrated, causing powerful and sudden pyroclastic flows with a mild temperature and catastrophic amounts of mud materials, intermediary to a lahar, which surprised a large number of dinosaurs. Their bodies were partly burned and aplasted and partly filled up with tephras mixed with hot materials from the impact, or andesitic mud-lava for farther away creatures.