Higher oxygen levels have allowed dinosaurs to flourish and spread.



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Scientists have discovered that increasing levels of oxygen in the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago has allowed dinosaurs in North America to reach their peak. ; blossom.

Gas levels have risen by nearly a third in three million years, which, according to experts, is very fast in geological terms.

Presenting their results at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry conference in Barcelona, ​​the researchers said that this could have laid the foundation for the development of sauropods and chindesaurus in the tropical regions of North America and elsewhere.

The increase in oxygen also coincided with a drop in carbon dioxide.

Scientists tested rocks on the Colorado Plateau and Newark Basin that formed simultaneously about 600 miles apart on Pangea – a "supercontinent" encompassing all modern continents.

They found that oxygen levels in the atmosphere had increased from about 15% to about 19%. Today's atmosphere contains about 21% oxygen.

"We really do not know what may have caused this increase, but we also see a drop in CO2 levels at this time," said lead researcher Professor Morgan Schaller of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. "What is remarkable is that at the forefront of oxygen we see the first dinosaurs appear in the North American tropics, the Chindesaurus.

"The sauropods followed shortly thereafter."

He added, "What we can say is that it shows that the changing environment, 215 million years ago, was conducive to their evolutionary diversification, but of course, the level of oxygen may not have been the only factor. "

Chindesaurus was an erect carnivorous dinosaur measuring about 2 m long and almost a meter high. It has been found widely in North America, with origins in the tropics of North America.

The Sauropods, which appeared shortly after Chindesaurus, were the largest animals on the planet.

Professor Mike Benton, of Bristol University, said, "The first dinosaurs were quite small, but higher oxygen levels in the atmosphere are often associated with a tendency to a more big size. This new result is interesting because the timing of the rise in oxygen and the appearance of the dinosaurs is good, although the dinosaurs have become abundant in South America a little earlier, there are about 232 million dinosaurs. ; years.

Additional report by the press association

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