Rise of the Mammals

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios is a rarity in the film world — a nonprofit boutique film studio housed within the internationally recognized Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest private, nonprofit science philanthropies in the U.S. dedicated to advancing scientific research and science education.

The story of how life rebounded after the mass extinction of nonavian dinosaurs is told by fossils found in Colorado.

This year, scientists gleaned new insight into the day the dinosaur-killing asteroid crashed into Earth 66 million years ago, and the first million years after the impact.

Ever wondered how life on Earth evolved after a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago? In a special edition of PBS's NOVA, titled "Rise of the Mammals," scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science reveal findings from a major discovery of fossils that help provide a timeline for the first million years of mammal life.

For the first time, the researchers were able to establish animals, plants, temperatures and a timeline of when they occurred, providing an overview of the first million years after the mass extinction event to see how the entire ecosystem recovered.

In central Colorado, at a place called Corral Bluffs, there lies an unusual graveyard. The ranks of the dead aren’t filled with people, but animals that lived 66 million years ago. Preserved in hardened concretions of stone lie the remains of turtles, crocodiles, and most of all, mammals that lived in this place during the first million years after the terrible impact that triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs.
 

A remarkable trove of fossils from Colorado has revealed details of how mammals grew larger and plants evolved after the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs.

Rock formations called concretions hid the fossils inside, like chocolate tucked in a candy shell. Having cracked the code for cracking open fossils, the paleontologists found nearly 1,000 vertebrate remains, including mammal bones, turtle shells and crocodilian skulls. They found 6,000 petrified leaves and other plant parts. They also found 37,000 grains of fossilized pollen.

An unusually rich trove found in Colorado reveals the world in which our mammalian forebears evolved into larger creatures.

The science documentary Rise of the Mammals, a NOVA production by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, is now available worldwide from PBS International.

The discovery of fossils in Colorado Springs is helping scientists around the world find answers to one of life’s greatest mysteries. Scientists with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science discovered a large collection of fossils that provide details about the evolution of life as we know it.

Sixty-six million years ago, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs also ushered in the age of the mammals – an age that continues to this day. Scientists have known little about the mammals that survived and flourished in the years after the asteroid impact. Until now.

HUNDREDS OF FOSSILS found in Colorado offer a snapshot of how life was rebounding in the aftermath of the mass extinction that ended the age of dinosaurs, paleontologists report today.

The Corral Bluffs fossils are phenomenal, and what they have to tell us about the Paleocene is just starting to drip out into the published record, but the ancient ecosystem is only one small part of a global story.