Megaraptors found in South America now have a "cousin" that was revealed living in Australia. Image Credit: fahad.comLack Of Drift Indicated In Forearm Fossil Find
A Dinosaur forearm bone fossil find in Australia has startled scientists in that it may shatter theories on how the Oblate Spheroid’s continent’s were formed.
As the theory goes, the Earth had only one very large land mass. This mass broke up and large chunks drifted apart over a one-hundred million year plus timeframe.
This bone puts this theory into question because of the type of bone that it is and the age at which the continent of Australia was to be formed and drift away from its suspected origin.
Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia - Image Credit: motelmarengo.com
This excerpted and edited from The Australian via AFP -
Australian dinosaur matches South American raptor
The Australian (AFP) June 11, 2008
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The 19cm bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago.
The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropods adds weight to a dissident view about the breakup of a super-continent, known as Gondwana, that formed the continents of the southern hemisphere, the authors say.
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The standard theory is that the first continents to go were South America and Africa, which pulled away from Gondwana around 120 million years ago.
Australia remained attached to Antarctica before the two entities drifted apart around 80 million years ago, according to this theory. Australia began an insular existence that incubated flora and fauna which remain unique to this day.
The forearm bone, found near Cape Otway in Victoria, is the first link ever found between a non-flying therapod - or two-footed dinosaur - in Australia and another component of Gondwana.
The investigators, led by Nathan Smith of the University of Chicago, say the two dinosaurs are so similar the two land masses of South America and Australia could not have been separated for so many millions of years beforehand.
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They speculate that land bridges must have persisted between southern South America and the Western Antarctic Archipelago "until at least the Late Eocene," a period that began some 40 million years ago.
Reference Here>>
A Dinosaur forearm bone fossil find in Australia has startled scientists in that it may shatter theories on how the Oblate Spheroid’s continent’s were formed.
As the theory goes, the Earth had only one very large land mass. This mass broke up and large chunks drifted apart over a one-hundred million year plus timeframe.
This bone puts this theory into question because of the type of bone that it is and the age at which the continent of Australia was to be formed and drift away from its suspected origin.
Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia - Image Credit: motelmarengo.comThis excerpted and edited from The Australian via AFP -
Australian dinosaur matches South American raptor
The Australian (AFP) June 11, 2008
----
The 19cm bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago.
The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropods adds weight to a dissident view about the breakup of a super-continent, known as Gondwana, that formed the continents of the southern hemisphere, the authors say.
----
The standard theory is that the first continents to go were South America and Africa, which pulled away from Gondwana around 120 million years ago.
Australia remained attached to Antarctica before the two entities drifted apart around 80 million years ago, according to this theory. Australia began an insular existence that incubated flora and fauna which remain unique to this day.
The forearm bone, found near Cape Otway in Victoria, is the first link ever found between a non-flying therapod - or two-footed dinosaur - in Australia and another component of Gondwana.
The investigators, led by Nathan Smith of the University of Chicago, say the two dinosaurs are so similar the two land masses of South America and Australia could not have been separated for so many millions of years beforehand.
----
They speculate that land bridges must have persisted between southern South America and the Western Antarctic Archipelago "until at least the Late Eocene," a period that began some 40 million years ago.
Reference Here>>
