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Revisiting the Jurassic age |
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August 23, 2000
ROME (AP) - The discovery of as many as 60 dinosaurs footprints in the "spur" of the Italian peninsula has added new evidence to the theory that Italy was once part of a land mass attached to the African continent, geologists said Tuesday. The three-fingered footprints, some as long as 45 centimeters (18 inches), were found in a cave near San Giovanni Rotondo, in the southeastern region of Puglia, in June, said Alfonso Bosellini, a geology professor and the head of the group of researchers who made the recently-announced discovery. "It is not as if you can be 100 percent sure, but at this point it is highly probable that Italy was connected to Africa," Bosellini told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Bosellini said that the footprints attest to the presence here of at least four different types of huge dinosaurs, both meat-eating and plant-eating, believed to have lived 120 to 130 million years ago, at the end of the Jurassic era. Back then, the land that now makes up Italy was a single land mass with what is now the Balkans, all sharing the same geological composition. For some decades now, experts have debated with the question: was the mass connected to the African continent or did it stand alone? In order to survive, Bosellini explained, the dinosaurs needed huge lands and a lot of water -- things they would have found only if what is now Italy was attached to Africa. Shallow waters -- about 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) deep -- separated the Italian land from Africa when the dinosaurs were roaming around. But "with low tides, the water was easy to cross for animals which were as tall as five meters" (16.5 feet), said Bosellini, who lectures at the Ferrara University. The search is on for more prints. Marco Tongiorgi, a geology professor with the Pisa University, said the discovery bolsters previous theories on Italy's past. "It fits into what we've been knowing for the last 30 years." So far, the only other known dinosaurs prints were found in Altamura, farther south in Puglia. According to Bosellini, those prints belonged to relatively smaller and relatively more recent animals, which lived about 70 million years ago. Dinosaurs are believed to have disappeared 65 to 70 million years ago, while Europe and Africa are believed to have parted about 50 million years ago. |