AUSTIN (KXAN) — Researchers recently made a major discovery in Texas by finding the state’s first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils.
A team led by scientists from the University of Texas at Austin discovered the bones in the Malone Mountains of West Texas. The fossils are believed to have belonged to an underwater dinosaur called the plesiosaur.
The scientists said this discovery “filled a major gap in the state’s fossil record.”
According to a release from UT, the bone fragments are from the limbs and backbone of a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile that, around 150 million years ago, would have swum the sea that covered what is now northeastern Mexico and far western Texas.
The bones were discovered during two fossil hunting missions led by Steve May, a research associate at UT Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences Museum of Earth History, according to the school.
The UT release said before the discovery, the only fossils from the Jurassic that had been collected and described from outcrops in Texas were from marine invertebrates, such as ammonites and snails. May said the new fossil finds serve as solid proof that Jurassic bones are here.
“Folks, there are Jurassic vertebrates out there,” May said. “We found some of them, but there’s more to be discovered that can tell us the story of what this part of Texas was like during the Jurassic.”
A paper describing the bones and other fossils was published in Rocky Mountain Geology on June 23.
The Jurassic was an iconic prehistoric era when giant dinosaurs walked the Earth. UT’s release said the only reason we humans know about them and other Jurassic life is because of fossils they left behind.
In 2015, May learned while researching a book there were no Jurassic bones in the Texas fossil record. He then decided to go to the Malone Mountains to explore.
“You just don’t want to believe that there are no Jurassic bones in Texas,” May said. “Plus, there was a tantalizing clue.”
According to the release, that clue was a mention of large bone fragments in a 1938 paper on the geology of the Malone Mountains by Claude Albritton, who later became a geology professor at Southern Methodist University.
May and his collaborators followed the lead out to West Texas and found large bone fragments. Though the plesiosaur fossils are eroded and broken up, researchers believe it’s a start that could lead to more science.
Today, the Malone Mountains rise above the dry desert landscape. According to the study, during the Jurassic period, the sediments were deposited just below sea level probably within miles of the shoreline.
The study’s additional co-authors are Kenneth Bader, a laboratory manager at the Jackson School Museum of Earth History; Lisa Boucher, the director of the Non-Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory at the Jackson School Museum of Earth History; Joshua Lively, the curator of paleontology at Utah State University and a Jackson School alumnus; and Timothy Myers and Michael Polcyn, both researchers at Southern Methodist University.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Researchers recently made a major discovery in Texas by finding the state’s first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils.
A team led by scientists from the University of Texas at Austin discovered the bones in the Malone Mountains of West Texas. The fossils are believed to have belonged to an underwater dinosaur called the plesiosaur.
The scientists said this discovery “filled a major gap in the state’s fossil record.”
According to a release from UT, the bone fragments are from the limbs and backbone of a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile that, around 150 million years ago, would have swum the sea that covered what is now northeastern Mexico and far western Texas.
The bones were discovered during two fossil hunting missions led by Steve May, a research associate at UT Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences Museum of Earth History, according to the school.
The UT release said before the discovery, the only fossils from the Jurassic that had been collected and described from outcrops in Texas were from marine invertebrates, such as ammonites and snails. May said the new fossil finds serve as solid proof that Jurassic bones are here.
“Folks, there are Jurassic vertebrates out there,” May said. “We found some of them, but there’s more to be discovered that can tell us the story of what this part of Texas was like during the Jurassic.”
A paper describing the bones and other fossils was published in Rocky Mountain Geology on June 23.
The Jurassic was an iconic prehistoric era when giant dinosaurs walked the Earth. UT’s release said the only reason we humans know about them and other Jurassic life is because of fossils they left behind.
In 2015, May learned while researching a book there were no Jurassic bones in the Texas fossil record. He then decided to go to the Malone Mountains to explore.
“You just don’t want to believe that there are no Jurassic bones in Texas,” May said. “Plus, there was a tantalizing clue.”
According to the release, that clue was a mention of large bone fragments in a 1938 paper on the geology of the Malone Mountains by Claude Albritton, who later became a geology professor at Southern Methodist University.
May and his collaborators followed the lead out to West Texas and found large bone fragments. Though the plesiosaur fossils are eroded and broken up, researchers believe it’s a start that could lead to more science.
Today, the Malone Mountains rise above the dry desert landscape. According to the study, during the Jurassic period, the sediments were deposited just below sea level probably within miles of the shoreline.
The study’s additional co-authors are Kenneth Bader, a laboratory manager at the Jackson School Museum of Earth History; Lisa Boucher, the director of the Non-Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory at the Jackson School Museum of Earth History; Joshua Lively, the curator of paleontology at Utah State University and a Jackson School alumnus; and Timothy Myers and Michael Polcyn, both researchers at Southern Methodist University.