Dinosaur on wrong continent according to reports in Bath University 5 November 2020, Science Alert 6 November 2020, SciTech Daily 7 November 2020, and Cretaceous Research, 2 November 2020; doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104678.
An international team of scientists have found fossil jaws and the teeth of a hadrosaur (a “duckbill dinosaur”) in a phosphate mine in Morocco. Using the fossils they estimate the dinosaur was about 3 metres (10ft) long – fairly small for a hadrosaur, but still a large animal. The rock layer it was found in is dated as 66 million years, putting it in the Cretaceous period.
The scientists were surprised to find it in Morocco as hadrosaurs are believed to have evolved in North America, a long way from Africa. According to current continental drift theory Africa was separated from other continents by deep oceans hundreds of kilometres wide during the Cretaceous, which would have made it almost impossible for hadrosaurs to migrate to Africa. Nicholas Longrich, of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath UK, who led the study said “It was completely out of place, like finding a kangaroo in Scotland. Africa was completely isolated by water – so how did they get there?”
According to Longrich “It was impossible to walk to Africa,” so the research team suggested it must have crossed the water by swimming, floating or rafting on debris. Present day ocean crossings by animals such as iguanas and tortoises by rafting are rare, but have been documented.
According to the Bath University Press Release, “Duckbills were probably powerful swimmers – they had large tails and powerful legs, and are often found in river deposits and marine rocks, so they may have simply swum the distance”.
Nour-Eddine Jalil, from the Natural History Museum of Sorbonne University (France) commented: “The succession of improbable events (crossing an ocean by a dinosaur, fossilization of a terrestrial animal in a marine environment) highlights the rarity of our find and therefore its importance”. (item in brackets in original)
Links: Bath University, Science Alert, SciTech daily
Editorial Comment: Finding hadrosaur remains in Africa is only a problem for those who believe the story about the evolution of dinosaurs made up by people who were not there to see it happen. But this finding is not a problem if you believe the history of the world as set out by the Creator and Judge who created dinosaurs and then judged the world with the world-wide Flood (see Genesis 1-9).
When God created the world there was one ocean and one land mass, so dinosaurs could have roamed anywhere in the time between their creation and Noah’s Flood. During that flood all air breathing, land dwelling animals outside the Ark were wiped out. Many dinosaurs were swept up by flood waters (both fresh and saltwater), along with masses of sediment, then dumped and buried. Added to the evidence they were drowned, that explains the finding of dinosaurs in “river deposits and marine rocks”. They did not live in rivers or the sea – they died in flood waters. Ipso facto, such fossils found on different continents are not the evidence of evolution – they are the remains of world-wide destruction.
Creation Research News 2 December 2020
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