NMSU Professor helps rewrite the dinosaurs final chapter

Fossils found in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin are reshaping what scientists know about the final days of the dinosaurs. A research team led by New Mexico State University’s Dr. Andrew Flynn discovered that these ancient creatures weren’t fading away slowly they were thriving right up until the asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

Flynn’s findings, published in the journal Science, show that the fossils date back to about 66.8 million years ago the very end of the Cretaceous period. That makes them among the last dinosaurs to walk the Earth. The research connects New Mexico to the same moment in time as other famous fossil sites in Montana and North Dakota, proving that these ecosystems were still alive and diverse before the sudden extinction event.

His team’s work challenges a long-standing theory that dinosaurs were already dying out before the asteroid hit.

The project took more than a decade, bringing together scientists from across the world. They combined geologic dating methods with fieldwork in northwestern New Mexico to confirm that these fossils belong to some of the last surviving dinosaur communities.

Flynn now hopes to find fossilized plants from the same period to reveal what New Mexico looked like before the asteroid struck. “I really want to find the fossil plants out there,” he said. “That would tie the whole story together—what life looked like just before the end.”

For Flynn, this discovery is more than research—it’s a personal connection to the land he studies. “I’m not from New Mexico, but I fell in love with this place,” he said. “I’ve never been so happy to work somewhere that has such an amazing natural history.”

Each fossil, Flynn says, is a reminder that extinction isn’t just an ending it’s a story still being uncovered in the rocks of New Mexico.