Dinosaur Fossils - A Review
Dinosaur Fossils – A Review
From TwoGuysFossils.com
Copyright © 2005 TwoGuysFossils, All Rights Reserved
Did you know that dinosaurs dominated the planet for most of their 165-million year existence?
They became extinct 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. The information we have about them comes from fossilized bones and footprints.
Recently, in May 2005, Chinese archeologists have excavated fossils of a herbivorous dinosaur which lived 180 million years ago at the slope of a 1,840-meter high mountain in southwest Chinas Yunnan Province. The excavation site is in Chengjiang County, where a local villager found the fossil.
Scientists concluded that the dinosaur was more than 10 meters long, and 7 to 8 tons in weight when it was alive. The dinosaur had short forelegs and rather long hind ones, with a slim neck, very small head and a 5-meter long tail. All this indicates that it lived in a swamp area rich with water grass, and transferred to mountain slope after geological vicissitudes.
The scientists believe that within the 5,000-square-meter area where the dinosaur fossil excavation is taking place, at least three other dinosaur fossils are still underground. The paleontologists have already accelerated their "salvage excavation" activities, because the herbivore fossils bones are easily broken.
In another recent development, in June 2005, a dinosaur fossil was found in Argentina that suggests food competition in prehistoric times led to a dinosaur known as Brachytrachelopan mesai that evolved with a shorter neck. According to the reputed magazine, Nature, the short-necked dinosaur lived in Patagonia, Argentina, about 150 million years ago. It was a member of the sauropod group of dinosaurs, which includes the 100-foot-long Diplodocus. Sauropods typically had long necks, allowing them to reach into trees for food.
A chance discovery by a sheep grazier several years ago has led to Australias most significant find of dinosaur fossils. The Australian Queensland Museum dig near Winton unearthed more than 80 mostly complete bones. The dig has become Australias largest and has revealed smaller creatures such as flying pterosaurs, carnivorous dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and plants. The finding of sauropd - one of the largest creatures to walk the Earth - was a major discovery by Queensland Museum on an international scale. Its the single site with the most dinosaur bones found in Australia and the preservation of the material is the best.
Scientists derive conclusions about the existence and family of dinosaurs according to the structure and formation of bones. The limbs and the vertebrate of a dinosaur, for example, are indicators of overall body size and can show how a creature walked or ran. Joint size can be a clue to body weight. The skull is critical in determining brain size, while teeth, jaw size and chewing muscles can show what an animal ate. In some cases, limited information leads to mistakes. And, the debate over creation vs. evolution.
In recent years, dinosaur diggers also have uncovered detailed impressions in layered sediments of feathers, embryos, skin and internal organs from the era of dinosaurs 65 million to 250 million years ago.
The recent findings of dinosaur fossils in China and Argentina and in different regions and countries suggest that dinosaur paleontology is an increasingly global discipline. In recent years important dinosaur deposits have been unearthed in almost every corner of the world, some in places that were previously off the map altogether – Ethiopia, Yemen, Ecuador, Uzbekistan and Siberia to name just a few.
But, until recently, the best known fossil deposits, and consequently the best-studied dinosaurs, all came from parts of the northern hemisphere – Western Europe, the western half of North America and East Asia. The rest of the world, particularly the southern continents and high latitudes, was relatively uncharted territory. In recent years, paleontologists have worked hard to put that right. Since 1992, the number of known dinosaur locations has increased considerably. Bones, footprints or eggs have been found at more than 1000 locations worldwide, up from about 650 in 1992.
We must appreciate the efforts of paleontologists who push themselves to their limits to give us important findings about the existence of dinosaurs. They face extreme conditions to recover important findings. Dinosaur fossils have been found in the Antarctic, as well as the high northern latitudes of Alaska and Greenland. They have been dug out of remote deserts and even war zones. Nowhere, it seems, is too remote or dangerous for the paleontologists.
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