‘Herd’ of opal dinosaurs found, according to reports in UNE News 30 May 2019 and National Geographic 3 June 2019, and Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology published online: 3 June 2019 doi: 10.1080/02724634.2019.1564757.
A team of scientists led by Phil Bell of University of New England, (UNE) Armidale, Australia, have found “remains from a herd of dinosaurs, among them a new dinosaur species and the world’s most complete opalised dinosaur.” Originally found by an opal miner in the 1980s, the fossils had not been seriously studied until now. Phil Bell told UNE News: “There are about 60 opalised bones from one adult dinosaur, including part of the braincase, and bones from at least another three animals”. The adult individual is estimated to be about 5 metres (16ft) in length.
The bones are preserved in opal, mostly a low-grade blue-grey opal labelled potch by miners, with some pieces of higher grade blue opal. Phil Bell described the find to National Geographic: “We have bones from all parts of the body, but not a complete skeleton. These include bones from the ribs, arms, skull, back, tail, hips, and legs. So, it’s one of the most completely known dinosaurs in Australia … [with] 15 to 20 percent of the skeleton of the species.”
The new dinosaur is a plant eating dinosaur similar to the previously found Australian dinosaur Muttaburrasaurus. It has been named Fostoria dhimbangunmal in honour of the opal miner who found the bones. It is dated as mid-Cretaceous, about 100 million years old and the scientists claim it lived on a floodplain dominated by lakes and rivers. Their report also refers to the presence of freshwater mussel shells, and a turtle vertebra in the deposit.
Phil Bell commented: “The floodplains were frequently wet and richly vegetated, meaning they were a good place for plant-eating dinosaurs.” He went on to say: “These dinosaurs were living in a really incredible greenhouse Earth. The globe would have potentially looked quite different, and these fossils can tell us how these dinosaurs were coping.”
Editorial Comment: Calling four individuals a “herd” might be stretching a point, but this find is evidence of a number of animals being in the same place when they were buried. Since the bones are not whole skeletons and the land creatures are mixed with many water creatures, these dino remains were washed in! They did not live there!
The comments about the environment are interesting as these days the term “greenhouse” is used by climate alarmists to scare people into thinking a world warmer than today’s climate is a catastrophe. However, the richly vegetated well-watered landscape described by the scientists is the kind of environment anyone would like to live in. But all who have been to Lightning Ridge know that it is nothing like this now. It’s a dry, often dusty place, where people live purely to mine opals, and apart from that, the surrounding landscape does not support much life. A herd of 5 metre long plant eating dinosaurs could not live there now.
Their comment about the earth’s climate being different in the past is correct, since the God who was there advises us that the original ‘very good created world, was a lush place where large creatures would have thrived. However, as we have so often said, after the world-wide flood of Noah’s time, the environment rapidly degenerated, and God warned Noah there would be periods of heat and cold. As the earth dried out, many large creatures could no longer survive. Australia has certainly dried out. Climate change is real, but it is the result of God’s judgement, not man-made industry or farming.
Evidence News vol. 19, No. 10
12 June 2019
Creation Research Australia
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