Scientific news: Dinosaurs They followed a shared path in Africa and South America about 12 million years ago before those continents broke apart, research indicates.
Scientists have discovered more than 260 dinosaur footprints from the Early Cretaceous Period in what are now Brazil and Cameroon, two regions that are currently separated by more than 6,000 kilometers across the Atlantic, CNN reported.
According to paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, the footprints are of the same age, shape and geological origin. Jacobs led a study of the footprints that was recently published by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.
Most of the fossil The footprints were made by three-toed theropod dinosaurs, according to research associate Diana P. Vineyard.
A smaller number of footprints came from four-legged sauropods, or ornithischians, which had bird-like hip structures, the paper added.
These footprints provide insight into how shifting land masses created favorable conditions for dinosaurs before supercontinents broke up into today’s continents.
According to Jacobs, footprints have been preserved in mud and silt along ancient rivers and lakes of Gondwana, a supercontinent that broke away from Pangaea.
He also mentioned that northeastern Brazil and Cameroon once formed a close bond between Africa and South America, possibly allowing animals to travel between the two continents.
About 14 million years ago, the continents of Africa and South America began to move away from each other, causing cracks to form in the Earth’s crust.
As the tectonic plates shifted, the molten rock beneath formed new crust on the ocean floor, gradually leading to the creation of the South Atlantic Ocean between the two land masses.
Dinosaur footprints
Dinosaur fossils help scientists learn about ancient creatures, but footprints offer different clues about their lives. While fossils are more common, footprints are valuable because they show dinosaur behavior. According to Jacobs, they show how they moved, the groups they were with, their environment, their direction and their specific location, CNN added.
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