T. rex meets its End

T. rex before the Meteorite Strike

I imagine that this first T. rex drawing is from right before the meteorite hit,  in Late Cretaceous Period, Montana, USA.This first drawing shows how there was a lot of volcanic activity in the late Cretaceous Period.  The ash clouds and possible raising temperature from the eruptions.

T. rex runs from Pyroclastic Flow

Still, what really did T. rex in was a meteorite that hit the north end of the Yucatan Peninsula about 65 million years ago.  In the above second drawing the T. rex is fleeing from a pyroclastic flow or pyroclastic cloud OR blast front that you see behind him or her.  So the running T. rex is making a hopeless attempt to evade the pyroclastic flow and the blast front from the meteorite strike down south.  The trees in the background are being hit by the blast front.  The  T. rex, as far as we know, only lived in North America, but other Tyrannosaurs lived in Europe and Asia.  Earlier Tyrannosaurs that were somewhat smaller also lived in North America.  New theories place protofeathers on T. rex. . . maybe even a tuft of hair-like feathers like a crest on a bird. . . or a comb on a rooster.   And there may have been a tuft of feathers on the end of the tail. 

 The catastrophic eruption of a volcano is what we usually think of as causing a pyroclastic cloud.  But even though the meteorite hit over 2,000 miles or over 3,200 km away, in what is now Mexico...what is now Northern Montana would have probably still experienced a blast front or pyroclastic flow.  At least that is what many scientists have concluded, based on the crater size in Northern Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico.  That crater was discovered by satellites.  The idea was hypothesize by a father and son paleontologist team from Mexico.  Luis and Walter Alvarez found iridium in a layer of clay pretty much all over the world.  This layer is above any dinosaur fossils and after or above this layer there are no more large dinosaur fossils.  This was the smoking gun to indicate the coup d'etat  for the dinosaurs.  (But not for birds)

The pyroclastic cloud or pyroclastic flow can travel at hundreds of miles an hour or hundreds of kilometers per hour.   It consists of pulverized rock and other debris and it generally is very hot, like 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit... or over 1,093 degrees Celsius.  If an animal is hit by a pyroclastic flow or pyroclastic cloud that is traveling at full speed the animal would be killed instantly.  We saw the result of pyroclastic flow of volcanic ash when we traveled to see the town of ancient Pompeii , Italy.  People and animals were encased in hot volcanic ash that eventually became solid.  The ash was from the catastrophic eruption of the nearby Mt. Vesuvius.  That volcanic ash cools and fuses to become pumice.

Dog from Pompeii encased in Pumice from Mt. Vesuvius