The mystery of nearly identical dinosaur footprints separated by 6,000 kilometers

An international team of researchers has discovered footprints barely match Imprinted in clay and silt along ancient rivers and lakes on different continents. The scientists were led by Louis L. Jacobs, a paleontologist at the Museum of Paleontology. Southern Methodist University (SMU) from the United States, according to a press release.

More than 260 footprints have been found in Brazil and Cameroonshowing the last possible place where land dinosaurs were able to “freely cross” between Africa and South America, two continents that were once together.

Jacobs said his team concluded that “in terms of age,” the footprint groups were “similar,” as well as “in their geological and plate tectonics contexts,” while in shape they were “virtually identical.”

They were printed by dinosaurs who lived in the early Cretaceous period 120 million yearswhen Africa And South America was once completely together and was part of a supercontinent called Gondwana, which broke away from Pangaea, the paleontologist in charge of the research explained.

The “elbow” of northeastern Brazil is one of the “closest geological connections” between the two continents. “(Africa and South America) were connected along this narrow stretch, so animals on both sides of this connection probably moved across it,” Jacobs said.

Diana B. Vineyard, a researcher at SMU and co-author of the study, confirmed that the footprints belonged to a three-toed ungulate, although it is possible that some of them were imprinted by Sauropods or Hip birds.

Members of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in the United States published the study in honor of the late Martin Lockley, a paleontologist who devoted much of his career to studying dinosaur footprints and footsteps.

The experts point out in the statement that the separation of the two continents began about 140 million years ago, which caused the appearance of “cracks” or fissures in the Earth’s crust and along “pre-existing weak points.”

As the tectonic plates beneath the continents separated, magma rose to the surface, forming new “ocean crust.” The South Atlantic Ocean then filled the new land that formed after the continents separated.

In the Borborima region of northeastern Brazil, and in the Koum Basin of northern Cameroon, researchers found “signs of some” of the “important events” detailed above that were evident to them in the areas where they found the footprints.

Both areas where the footprints and tracks were found are geological formations formed during cracks in the Earth’s crust known as “semi-crater basins.” Both contain sediments from ancient rivers and lakes, which contain fossilized pollen grains, revealing an “age of 120 million years.”

Before the continents separated, Jacobs asserted, “rivers flowed and lakes formed in basins,” while plants fed herbivores and “maintained the food chain.”

“The muddy sediments left behind by rivers and lakes contain dinosaur footprints, including those of carnivores, documenting that these river valleys could have provided specific pathways for life to travel across continents 120 million years ago,” the study concluded.