Dinosaurs' Rise Was Slow, Not "Lucky Break," New Fossils Suggest

National Geographic News ^ | July 19, 2007 | Susan Brown

[indcons]

A new species of dinosaur ancestor is among a fossil trove recently uncovered in New Mexico that suggests the rise of the dinosaurs was a gradual process.

The find counters the theory that dinos came to dominate the landscape suddenly as the result of an evolutionary "lucky break."

Until now, fossils of dinosaur precursors had been found only in rocks more than 230 million years old. The first true dinosaurs were found in much younger deposits.

This lack of overlap led many experts to conclude that dinosaurs had burst onto the scene after intense competition or a dramatic extinction event wiped out their predecessors.

But the latest bounty of bones from late Triassic rocks—between 210 million and 220 million years old—includes fossils of several different kinds of dinosaur relatives alongside those of early true dinosaurs.

The mixed assembly led the paleontologists who found the fossils to conclude that the two groups lived side-by-side for 15 million to 20 million years.

[SlowBoat407]

Scientists are constantly looking for a single story that fits all of the evidence. Creationists are looking for all of the evidence that supports a single story.

[Alter Kaker]

This is part of the anti-impact / catastrophic extinction public relations offensive which has been going on for a while.

You think this fossil discovery is part of a public relations offensive? There have been a number of catastrophic extinction events in our planet's history. The emergence of the dinosaurs just doesn't seem to be linked to one.

[Fred Nerks]

http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/faculty/keller/chicxpage1.html

1. Chicxulub predates the KT boundary and is not the cause for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction: Evidence from NE Mexico

FYI

[SunkenCiv]

I believe there was an FR topic on Keller. The fact is, impacts do occur, they have disastrous and widespread (depending on the energy involved) or planetary effects, and Keller is just regurg’ing Dewey McLean’s claims that volcanism was involved, while denying that the impact did anything. I find it kind of sad.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/891257/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/983238/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/991929/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1088837/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1333931/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1707717/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1725888/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840136/posts

also mentioned in a post in the blog topic:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1607979/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Yes, there have been, and finding fossils from millions of years before a catastrophe which wiped out competition supports just such a link.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1725090/posts

“I’m very happy they have done the analysis based on the literature and come up with the same conclusions that palaeontologists have been preaching all along,” Keller says.

[Fred Nerks]

THANKS...