Uncovering the Jurassic Secrets of Texas: First Vertebrate Fossils Discovered in the State

2023-07-09 12:07:23
A research team led by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, USA, has filled a huge gap in the state’s fossil record – describing the first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils found in Texas. A discovery from 150 million years agoAccording to dailymail.co.uk, scientists have stumbled upon a discovery Amazing bone fragments from the limbs and backbone, much weathered over the years, of plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile that used to swim in the shallow sea that covered what is now northeastern Mexico and far western Texas. The discovery is a window into the shallow sea that once covered the deserts. arid regions of northeastern Mexico and western Texas 150 million years ago. Researchers and scientists unearthed the bones in the Malone Mountains of West Texas during two fossil-hunting missions led by Steve May, research associate at the Jackson Museum of Earth Sciences at the University of Austin in Austin. The fossil unearthed is among the first Jurassic vertebrates discovered and described in Texas. Prior to the discovery, the only Jurassic fossils collected and described from the Texas outcroppings were marine aquatic invertebrates, such as ammonites and snails. The new fossil finds are strong evidence that Jurassic bones are here, he says. Vertebrates from the Jurassic period have been found there,” he said, adding that scientists have found some, “but there is more to discover that can tell the story of what this part of Texas was like during the Jurassic period.” • The Jurassic is an iconic age of prehistory, according to news.utexas. .edu, a paper describing the bones and other fossils was published in the journal Rocky Mountain Geology on June 23. According to the paper, the Jurassic period was an iconic era of prehistory when giant dinosaurs walked the earth. However, the only reason we humans know regarding these organisms and other Jurassic life is to discover the fossils or remains that they left behind. But to find fossils that date back to the Jurassic period, scientists need rocks from the Jurassic period, and because of the geological history of Texas, the The state hardly has any outcrops from this time in Earth’s history. You can identify creatures from the Jurassic period by discovering a type of dinosaur that lived 201 million years ago How did the research begin? In 2015, when a researcher at the Jackson Museum of Earth Sciences at the University of Austin learned May, while researching that there are no Jurassic bones in the fossil record in Texas, decides to go to the Malone Mountains to explore them. “You just don’t want to believe there are no Jurassic bones in Texas,” May told the Daily Mail. The search began when May discovered a tantalizing piece of evidence, a reference to large bone fragments mentioned in a 1938 paper by Claude Albriton, who would later become Professor of Geology at Southern Methodist University (SMU). regarding the geology of the Malone Mountains, and this evidence was enough to lead May and his collaborators to West Texas to see for themselves. Large bone fragments, as plesiosaur fossils eroded and disintegrated. “It’s a start that might lead to more science,” co-author Louis Jacobs, a professor emeritus at SMU, told the Daily Mail. “Geologists will go out there looking for more bones.” “They will find them, and they will seek out other things of interest in their own ways.” The Malone Mountains rise above the parched desert landscape. During the Jurassic period, sediments were deposited just below sea level, most likely miles from the shoreline. The Malone Mountains are west of Texas where there are very few Jurassic outcroppings. Most of them are in Malones.
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