Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Alcohol Licensing Template

deny that in the era of dinosaurs the climate was warm

Among the fossils found in Jehol biota specimens were found with feathers that could serve as a thermal insulator.

A team of paleontologists from France and China have shown that during part of the Lower Cretaceous were cooler temperatures of the alleged so far, which explains the abundance of dinosaurs with feathers "in the fossil beds that period.

The study released today, which involved the National Center Gallo for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, shows that despite the belief that in the era of the dinosaurs the climate was warmer globally, these animals do not always enjoyed temperatures "lenient."

The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), focused on a region of northeastern China where it developed Jehol biota makes between 125 and 110 million years.

of the fossils found at the site, according to experts, there are numerous dinosaurs covered with filamentous structures typical of birds with feathers, and on which many scientists had suggested, which played a thermal insulator.

Paleontologists study authors sought to determine the temperatures of the time from fossils of dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and fish in the region and contemporary sites in other parts of China, Japan and Thailand.

The team analyzed the oxygen isotope composition of each sample, which was preserved during fossilization, in order to reconstruct the air temperature of the living environment of Asian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous.

And the results show that average temperatures in that period were very similar to those found today equivalent latitudes, so Jehol fauna lived in a climate characterized by moderate cold "winters."

During this period, the statement said, cold blooded animals should hibernate, while warm-blooded like mammals, birds and dinosaurs profited from their hair and their feathers to maintain their activity in winter.

Scientists point out that this study helps to better understand a time over no more than was available geological record, but do not venture to draw hasty conclusions about the origin of feathers.

"These findings do not prove at all that feathers arose insulation for a role, but assume that the feathers should seek out the dinosaurs of Jehol a physiological advantage over his contemporaries with scales, "said Romain Amiot, a scientist at CNRS.

Source: EFE / CNRS.

0 comments:

Post a Comment