Can a New Egyptian Dinosaur Fossil Explain How the Continents Formed?

Scientists have figured out a lot about Earth's history, but there are still a few gaps. Learn how a dinosaur may help fill in one of those gaps in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
lorn bog Obama here. The finding of a new dinosaur
species is always cause for celebration. To dino enthusiasts, memorizing
new names is a favorite pastime. Just ask some parents,
including nine Sorry about that phase, guys. And on an
academic level, recently discovered species can help us better understand

(00:23):
the story of dinosaurian evolution. Occasionally, they provide clues to
other mysteries as well. On januaryeen, the scientific journal Nature
published a study announcing that the remains of a previously
unknown dinosaur had been found in Egypt, long necked herbivore.
The beast has been dubbed Mansurasaurus Shahine. Size Wise, it
wasn't too impressive, but the discovery still has a lot

(00:45):
of scientists very excited. That's because, by virtue of its
age and anatomy, Mansursaurus might settle a debate about where
the African continent was located on Earth when the non
avian dinosaurs died out. Alfred Wagner was a meteorologist who
in nine in fifteen made the case for a theory
he called continental drift. This is the idea that the
continents gradually move across Earth's surface as time goes by,

(01:08):
and he was right. We now know that, due to
plate tectonics, the continents are indeed moving along at a
steady pace, and a century is worth of research has
allowed geologists to piece together the travel histories of the
major land masses. For instance, scientists have figured out that
after having been separated for tens of millions of years,
South and North America were reconnected by the Central American

(01:28):
land Bridge around three point five million years ago. Still,
our knowledge does contain some gaps. Consider Africa. Roughly three
hundred million years ago, it was part of the super
continent Pangaea. This megaaland mass started to break apart about
a hundred million years later, but we don't know exactly
what Africa was doing during certain stages of this process.

(01:49):
The Cretaceous period lasted from a hundred and forty five
to sixty six million years ago. Famously, it ended with
a mass extinction that wiped out all dinosaurs excluding birds.
We've uncovered numerous African dinal fossils from the early Cretaceous period,
including bones that represent the weird fin backed carnivor Spinosaurus However,
late Cretaceous material from Africa is awfully scarce. One co

(02:11):
author of the Nature study is Ohio University paleontologist Patrick O'Connor.
He said via email, the Late Cretaceous fossil record is
quite robust in some parts of the world, like South America, Madagascar,
and North America, But by comparison, the Late Cretaceous fossil record,
and particularly that of the end of the Late Cretaceous
period eight two sixty six million years ago from continental

(02:31):
Africa is a virtual blank slate. That's a problem for
people who studied continental drift. Fossil evidence is critical when
it comes to theorizing about when, where, and how the
continents emerged or separated. If you find similar looking fossil
remains from the same geologic time on two separate continents,
there's a good chance that those land masses were linked
together at some point in the past. Historically, we haven't

(02:53):
been able to compare Africa's Late Cretaceous fossil record with
that of other continents. As O'Connor pointed out, they're simple.
Aren't many African fossils that date back to this time.
The information gap has sparked some debate. Without the Late
Cretaceous fossils to work with, paleontologists could only speculate about
whether Africa was still connected to South America or Eurasia
back then. Mansur Sourus offers a badly needed breakthrough. Its

(03:17):
remains were first spotted during a December expedition into western
Egypt Stahla Oasis. The campaign was spearheaded by Hashem Salem,
a paleontologist at Mansura University in Egypt's Nile Delta. We
spoke with study co author Eric Gorskak via email. He
said in early Feen the team came back and started
the excavation that would last the next three weeks. In total,

(03:39):
nineteen field jackets that's plaster coverings placed over and around fossils,
and many isolated bone fragments were collected. Named in honor
of Mansur University, Mansursaurus Shahine was a long necked dinosaur
or sapod. More specifically, it was a titanosaur, a group
of Cretaceous sauropods whose ranks included some of the biggest
animals to ever walk the Earth. One species, Argentinosaurus wink

(04:01):
A lensis, may have weighed over seventy seven tons or
seventy metric tons. Like many other titanosaurs, mens Oursaurus had
bony knobs embedded in its skin. However, unlike many of
its cousins, this creature was no true behemoth. A full
grown men's our Soaurus would have been around thirty three
feet that's ten meters long and weighed just five point
five tons or five metric tons. Because it was found

(04:23):
in late Cretaceous rock, mens our Soaurus is hugely important
knowing this salmonous. Team compared the animal's bones with those
of contemporary titanosaurs from South America and Eurasia. It turns
out that anatomically speaking, men's our soaurs bore a closer
resemblance to the Eurasian titanosaurs. In O'Connor's words, the finding
points to some geographical connection between Africa and Eurasia for

(04:45):
at least some point of the Latest Cretaceous. While the
existence of Man's our Soaurus does strongly indicate that large
animals like titanosaurs could travel from Eurasia to Africa back then,
O'Connor says scientists need more fossils to confirm this hypothesis. Also,
right now, it's impossible to say whether there was a
direct land bridge between the two continents. High sea levels
at the time flooded parts of Europe and northern Africa,

(05:07):
turning the region into a system of islands. So maybe
instead of walking from one continent to the other, soropods
like men's our soaurus made the journey via island hopping.
The timing and extent of islands and land bridges is
currently unknown, but scientists are on the case. O'Connor says
that Salam and his students have great ambitions for studying
other fossils from Africa's Late Cretaceous deposits. Furthermore, O'Connor himself has,

(05:29):
as he said, ongoing projects with other colleagues exploring similar
aged rocks in Tanzania, Madagascar, and Antarctica. There are many
more exciting discoveries on the horizon, and we can't wait
to read about them. Today's episode was written by Mark
Mancini and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this

(05:50):
and lots of other dynamite topics, visit our home planet,
how Stuff Works dot com.