Jurassic dinosaurs migrated hundreds of kilometers across North America

How did researchers figure out that these giant beasts migrated? The fact is that one of the long-necked

dinosaurs swallowed pink stones on the territorypresent-day Wisconsin, USA, and then died in the Wyoming area, leaving the gastroliths in a new location. Let us recall that gastroliths or stomach stones are fragments of minerals and rocks swallowed by animals with a relatively weak dental system, mostly well polished after being in the digestive organs. Animals swallowed rock samples to grind food in the stomach.

Smooth pink quartzite "stomach stones" known as gastroliths were found in the Morrison Formation in Wyoming. (Image credit: Josh Malone)

The new discovery is one of the proofsmigrations of Nonavian dinosaurs. By the way, this is the first study of its kind to use gastroliths as an indicator of dinosaur migration.

Geologists already know that rose quartzite, likespecimens found in Wyoming are found in only a few locations throughout North America, including Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. Having determined the age of the zircons in the quartzite samples, the scientists compared the stones with the already dated pink quartzite all over the continent.

According to the researchers, there was no river connecting Wisconsin to Wyoming that flowed with enough energy to carry such large rocks such a distance. 

Recall that the Jurassic is the middle (second)period of the Mesozoic era. It began 201.3 ± 0.2 million years ago and ended 145.0 million years ago. Thus, it lasted for about 56 million years. The complex of sediments (rocks) corresponding to a given age is called the Jurassic system. In different regions of the planet, these deposits differ in composition, genesis, and appearance.

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