WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A fossil site in New Mexico with numerous dinosaurs, including the gargantuan Alamosaurus, dates to shortly before the asteroid strike that abruptly ended the age of dinosaurs, according to research that underscores that these creatures were still thriving on the eve of destruction.

Paleontologists have debated the age of fossils found at the Naashoibito site in northwestern New Mexico. The new study used two dating methods to determine that the fossils date to roughly 340,000 years – a blink of the eye in geological time – before the asteroid hit off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

The calamity erased three-quarters of Earth’s species including all the dinosaurs, aside from their bird descendants.

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