Expert: Ralph Salier - 3/30/2005

Question
Can you explain to me how similar dinosaur fossils are found on all the current continents?
Thanks, Mike

Answer
Mike,

The land masses of the earth ride on techtonic plates.  These are large bits of the Earth which are floating on the inner core's magma.  The movement of the magma inside of t he Earth moves these plates around.  So at one time, there was a land mass called Gonduanaland which consisted of North and South America, Europe, Parts of Asia and Africa.   India, Australia and Antarctica were also together as a land mass.  So during the time of the dinos they roamed freely over this huge land mass.  Some 200 million years ago, this land mass began to break up.  so North and South america began to drift West and Europe and Africa drifted east and the atlantic ocean began to fill in.  The Mid Atlantic ridge is where these land masses used to be stuck together.   So as these land masses drifted from each other, differentiation began to appear in the seperate populations of dinos which is why in the later dino periods there are differences between populations.

Does this answer your question?