Dinosaur remains were discovered in Alberta, Canada.
People have been fascinated throughout time by dinosaurs and the events that led to their extinction. Thanks to science developing accurate carbon-dating techniques, it is now possible to assess the age of relics and other surviving evidence from the eras when dinosaurs were a dominant species on Earth. The new discovery of dinosaur fossils and footprints continues today.
New Discovery
Recent discoveries of dinosaur fossils and footprints have indicated the reptilian creatures may have been walking the planet far earlier than previously thought by scientists and paleontologists, the people who study prehistoric life. In Poland as recently as 2010, a team of scientists from Germany, the United States and Poland, which included Stephen L Brusatte, Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki and Richard J Butler, found what they said were the "indisputably oldest fossils of the dinosaur lineage," and added that "the Polish footprints prompt a substantial extension of early dinosaur history." Their report was published in of the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
New Theory
The Polish find dated back to the early Triassic age, which stretched from around 250 million years ago to 200 million years ago. The scientists said the footprints led to them reassessing their understanding of the origins and evolution of dinosaurs. This is because the discovery suggested the animals had their origin soon after what is known as the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, and that they were very small creatures that walked on four legs and had feet only an inch or two long.
Oldest Fossils
Previously, in 2001, a research team headed by Andre Wyss, associate professor of geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, had reported in the publication Science to have found what were then the oldest dinosaur fossils in the north of Brazil. In that case, the fossils were dated to between 235 and 240 million years ago, but they differed from the footprints found in Poland. The Brazil find indicated a creature that was described as an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, though smaller. It was a carnivore of about 6 or 7 feet in length with sharp teeth.
Geographic Spread
Evidence of dinosaurs is found across the world. As well as the discoveries in Poland and Brazil, among the earliest fossils found were some in 1999 in Madagascar, a large island in the Indian Ocean. The remains dated from the mid to late Triassic period and were of plant-eating dinosaurs approximately the size of a large dog. They were thought, at the time of discovery, to be the oldest remains ever found.
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