Identical dinosaur footprints found on both sides of the Atlantic

TPO - According to new research, matching sets of footprints discovered in Africa and South America show that dinosaurs once traveled a long way 120 million years ago before the two continents separated.

Theropod dinosaur footprints found in the Sousa Basin in northeastern Brazil. (Photo: Ismar de Souza Carvalho)

Paleontologists have found more than 260 dinosaur footprints from the early Cretaceous period in Brazil and Cameroon, now more than 6,000 kilometers apart on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Louis L. Jacobs, a paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas, USA and lead author of a study just published by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science , said the footprints were similar in age, shape and geological context.

Most of the fossil footprints were made by three-toed theropod dinosaurs, while a few may have been made by slow-moving, four-legged sauropods with long necks and tails or ornithischians, which had pelvic structures similar to birds, said study co-author Diana P.

The trail tells the story of how the movement of giant land masses created ideal conditions for dinosaurs before the supercontinents split into the seven continents we know today.

Footprints in the mud and silt

Jacobs said the footprints were preserved in mud and silt along ancient rivers and lakes that once existed on the supercontinent Gondwana, which broke away from the larger land mass.

Africa and South America began to separate about 140 million years ago. This separation created cracks in the Earth's crust, and as the tectonic plates beneath South America and Africa moved apart, magma in the Earth's mantle created new oceanic crust. Over time, the South Atlantic Ocean filled the space between the two continents.

In both basins, researchers found dinosaur tracks, ancient river and lake sediments, and fossilized pollen. Muddy sediments left by rivers and lakes contained dinosaur footprints, including those of carnivores, proving that these river valleys may have provided specific pathways for life to move across continents 120 million years ago.

Footprints tell stories

While dinosaur fossils can provide unique insights into the animals that roamed the planet millions of years ago, their footprints provide other perspectives on the past.

“Dinosaur footprints are evidence of dinosaur behavior, how they walked or ran or who they were with, what environments they were traveling through, what direction they were traveling in and where they were when they did so,” Jacobs said.

It's difficult to pinpoint which specific dinosaurs roamed the Atlantic basin, but they represent a broader picture of ancient climates and how different animals thrived in the environment created by continental rifting.

Jacobs befriended study author Ismar de Souza Carvalho, now a professor of geology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Jacobs was studying dinosaur movements from the African side, while Carvalho was studying them from the Brazilian side.

As research on the African and South American basins continued in the decades that followed, Jacobs and Carvalho and their colleagues looked at existing and new field data to analyze the relevant aspects. The new study is published in memory of Lockley, who devoted his career to studying dinosaur footprints.

“We want to combine new and growing geological and paleontological evidence to tell a more specific story about where, why, and when intercontinental dispersal occurred,” says Jacobs.

Ha Thu

According to CNN

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