Real World Ready · Layer 1: Authentic Experience

The Evidence: You've Been Let in on a Big Secret

Every Rock Tells a Story · Part 3 of 3 · Field-Based STEM · Julian Thomson & Chris Hollis · Years 5–13

In Part 1, students found the contradiction: deep sea mudstones containing rounded beach pebbles. In Part 2, a theory arrived: a mega-tsunami generated by an asteroid impact in Mexico, crossing the Pacific and sweeping material off the New Zealand coastline 66 million years ago. In Part 3, the rocks themselves confirm the theory. Preserved in the Cretaceous seafloor are the burrows of creatures that felt the earthquake coming and tried to escape. Above those burrows sit the pebbles from the tsunami that followed. This is the furthest known reach of that event anywhere on Earth. Very few people knew this site existed before this video was made. Students who have followed this series are now among them.

Part 1 — Complete The Puzzle

Part 2 — Complete The Theory

Part 3 — You are here The Evidence

The authentic experience — fossils as evidence

Collect fossils

Ask students to bring in any fossils they have found or can find. Shells, bones, impressions, anything. Collect whatever arrives.

Ask a different question

Before examining them, ask not: what is this? But: what was this creature doing when it was preserved? Was it moving? Was it hiding? Was it trying to escape?

Watch the video

The burrows in the Cretaceous seafloor are trace fossils — evidence of behaviour, not just of the creature itself. Ask students: could any of the fossils they brought in be trace fossils?

Assemble the conclusion

Return to the full sequence. Students now have three pieces of evidence: the rounded pebbles, the tsunami trajectory, and the escape burrows. Ask them to assemble those three pieces into a single conclusion in their own words.

Video — Part 3: The escape burrows, the furthest reach of the tsunami, and the closing revelation.
youtu.be/37D1HmocUP0 · Full series: youtu.be/3RI1QtF-Tuk

AI prompts — Years 5–10

Years 5–6

Trace fossilsAsk AI: "What is a trace fossil? How is it different from a regular fossil?" Then ask: "Can you give examples of trace fossils that show animals moving or escaping?" Compare what AI says with the burrows in the video.

Animal sensesAsk AI: "Do animals sense earthquakes before humans do? What animals have been observed doing this?" Ask students: does this make the escape burrows more believable?

Putting it togetherAsk AI to explain, in simple language, how scientists know the pebbles at Tora came from the asteroid tsunami. Then ask students: does AI's explanation match the three pieces of evidence from Parts 1, 2, and 3?

Years 7–10

Escape behaviourAsk AI: "What are escape burrows and what do they indicate about conditions at the time of preservation? How have they been identified in the fossil record at K-Pg boundary sites?" Compare to the Tora evidence.

Evidence assemblyAsk AI: "What three types of evidence would a geologist use to confirm a tsunami deposit at the K-Pg boundary?" Then check: does the Tora site provide all three? What is still missing or uncertain?

Geographic significanceAsk AI: "What other K-Pg tsunami deposits have been identified globally, and where are they located?" What does it mean that Tora is the furthest known reach of this event?

AI prompts — Years 11–13

Years 11–13

IchnologyAsk AI: "What is ichnology and how are trace fossils used to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental conditions? What specific ichnofacies would be consistent with the Tora deposit?" Evaluate AI's response against the video evidence.

Confirmation and uncertaintyAsk AI: "What would be required to confirm definitively that the Tora deposit is a distal K-Pg tsunami deposit? What geochemical markers might be sought?" Identify what evidence remains outstanding.

Scientific significanceAsk AI to assess the global significance of a confirmed distal K-Pg tsunami deposit at this distance from the Chicxulub crater. What would it contribute to the understanding of the impact event and its effects on the Southern Hemisphere?

A guided field trip with an expert geologist is the optimal version of this experience. Where that is not possible, student-collected fossils — however ordinary they appear — are a genuine starting point for the question this resource asks: not what something is, but what it was doing when it was preserved.

"Somewhere on the Tora coast is a patch of gravel that connects your classroom to one of the largest events in the history of life on Earth. Every rock tells a story."

Experience Trace Scale — Part 3 and full series

Level	Years 5–6	Years 7–10	Years 11–13
1	I can explain what trace fossils are and give one example from the video.	I can describe the escape burrows and explain what they tell us about conditions immediately before the tsunami arrived.	I can define ichnofacies and explain what the Tora trace fossils indicate about the palaeoenvironmental conditions at the K-Pg boundary.
2	I can say why the burrows make the tsunami theory more believable.	I can explain how the escape burrows, the rounded pebbles, and the tsunami trajectory together form a coherent body of evidence.	I can evaluate the evidentiary weight of each line of evidence and identify which is most and least conclusive.
3	I can put all three parts of the story together in my own words.	I can assemble the three pieces of evidence into a conclusion and identify what would strengthen or weaken it.	I can construct a formal argument from the three evidence types and identify what additional data would move the hypothesis toward confirmation.
4	I can say why this site in New Zealand is special compared to other places in the world.	I can explain the global significance of the Tora deposit and what it contributes to the understanding of the K-Pg event.	I can situate the Tora deposit within the global literature on K-Pg boundary sites and articulate its specific contribution to the field.
5	I can say one question I still have after all three parts — something the videos and AI haven't fully answered.	I can identify what remains genuinely uncertain about the Tora deposit and propose what investigation would resolve it.	I can propose a research question arising from the Tora deposit, identify appropriate methods, and explain what a definitive answer would contribute to planetary science.

The Evidence: You've Been Let in on a Big Secret

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