face lift :Geologists often

Geologists often study what scientists call the K-T boundary. That is a layer of soil and rock that marks major changes in the earth's history,  like when the asteroid hit. When dinosaur bones are found in the lower parts of the K-T boundary, it suggests to some scientists that those animals died a very long time ago. They say the dinosaurs died long before the asteroid struck the Earth.

The bone that the Yale researchers found was much higher in that layer of rock and dirt. The researchers believe the bone was from a Triceratops that died sixty-five million years ago. The discovery was made just a few centimeters  below what became the K-T boundary line. That means that this creature and probably fmdw110915 addjgvldo many others were alive until the asteroid hit the earth.

Dinosaurs did not slowly die out millions of years ago. The huge  asteroid, the scientists say, was the cause of their extinction. They were qweig0915 killed within a very short period of time when the violent explosion took place.

BOB DOUGHTY: Until now, geologists have been surprised by the lack of dinosaur bones and other fossils within three meters below  the K-T line. This area is known among scientists as the "three meter gap." In the words of Yale University researcher Tyler Lyson, "This discovery suggests that the ‘three meter gap' does not exist. At least some dinosaurs were doing just fine right up until the  impact." And that makes this Triceratops the youngest dinosaur ever found, and the closest in time to the big asteroid's crash. . . . . . .

The results of the latest research on Montana dinosaurs were published last month in "Biology Letters." . . . . .

FAITH LAPIDUS: Millions of people depend on the snowpack in North America's Rocky Mountains for water. But a new report says the amount of snow that stays on the ground there each spring has shrunk over the past eight hundred years. The report appeared last month in Science magazine.

The report says one cause of the thinning snowpack may be climate change, the warming of Earth's atmosphere. Gregory Pederson was a leader of the study. He works for the United States Geological Survey in Bozeman, Montana. He notes that during warmer weather, the northern Rocky Mountains usually receive rain instead of snow. The rain does not stay. And whatever snow that falls melts faster than normal.