Land Dinosaurs in Ireland?

Crann na Beatha

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Wibbs

I think there have been small scale finds, teeth and the like found up around lough neagh where there are cretaceous deposites AFAIR.

marco_polo

While not dinosaurs there have been some sea reptiles finds from the Jurassic era such as a partial ichtyosaur have been found along the Antrim coast as well as some bone fragments / teeth of plesiosaurs and other Ichthyosaurs.

I am pretty sure there have been a couple of therapod bones (possible mentioned in another thread here at some point) found as well in N.I also from the Jurassic era, will have a proper investigation when I get home.

marco_polo

It is worth bearing mind also that Ireland was a part of Pangea during the Triassic period, so it seems beyond doubt that there were land dinosaurs running around the place, but it is believed that at this time the land that would become Ireland was in semi arid if not dessert conditions, which are not condusive to fossilization (or new rock formation in general.

By the early jurassic period we had split off to become an Island. The discovery I mentioned previously that I was going to try find was of a few therapod and scelidosaurus bones from the early Jurassic this suggest that at least some of them came along for the ride after the split. Apart from that find it is a mystery really and I don't know enough about the geological history of Ireland from that point on to speculate further.

This topic also briefly came up in this thread (where I got scelidosaurus from, thanks Galvasean)

2 Espressi

What about the tetrapod tracks in Valentia?

marco_polo

2 Espressi wrote: »

What about the tetrapod tracks in Valentia?

They are tracks from a Devonian period amphibian, and at least 350 million years old or thereabouts. So they are from a time over 100 million years before the Dinosaurs appeared.

Kess73

Funnily enough I was mulling over starting a similar thread after reading through a dino book earlier in the week.

I caught my eye the amount of dino fossils that were found in the UK, both of the land and marine variety, and how so little has been found in Ireland.

I was putting it down to there being very little research done in this country and even less by way of digs.

marco_polo

Kess73 wrote: »

Funnily enough I was mulling over starting a similar thread after reading through a dino book earlier in the week.

I caught my eye the amount of dino fossils that were found in the UK, both of the land and marine variety, and how so little has been found in Ireland.

I was putting it down to there being very little research done in this country and even less by way of digs.

This mini guide to the Geology of Ireland confirms something I wanted to add earlier but I wasn't completely sure about, it strongly implies that for long periods during the Jurassic and Cretacous periods Ireland would have been completely submerged by water, which would surely have spelt the end of any land Dinosaurs that sailed on the good ship Ireland at the end of the Triassic.

It also shows I was right about the Triassic dessert bit as well. :pac:

Kess73

marco_polo wrote: »

This mini guide to the Geology of Ireland confirms something I wanted to add earlier but I wasn't completely sure about, it strongly implies that for long periods during the Jurassic and Cretacous periods Ireland would have been completely submerged by water, which would surely have spelt the end of any land Dinosaurs that sailed on the good ship Ireland at the end of the Triassic.

It also shows I was right about the Triassic dessert bit as well. :pac:

It has also been implied that what is now the UK
was also submerged for long periods, yet they have had many findings of different species of land dinosaurs there, which flies in the face of the UK being submerged.

Galvasean

In Walking With Dinosaurs they depict the British Isles as being a chain of small islands. This would go some way to explaining how we manage to find such a diversity of aquatic and land based animals living in the same time/place.

marco_polo

Kess73 wrote: »

It has also been implied that what is now the UK
was also submerged for long periods, yet they have had many findings of different species of land dinosaurs there, which flies in the face of the UK being submerged.

It is not clear that Britain had a continuous inhabitation of dinosaurs though. It became a land bridge during the Early Cretaceous which is why there are so many species from that period found in Britain that are common to both America and Europe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3339321/Teeming-with-dinosaurs-how-Britain-was-real-Jurassic-Park.html

EDIT: The geology of these Islands is obscenely complicated, likely it spend much of that period of time bobbing up and down

marco_polo

Found this GSI page, the most correct answer seems to be that there is very very few places to look (Also mentions that much of Ireland was land during the time in question but lets ignore that bit ).

Weidii

2 Espressi wrote: »

What about the tetrapod tracks in Valentia?

Yep, I'm fairly sure these are the oldest tetrapod ichnofacies ever to be found. (Mark me if I'm wrong on that!)

Wibbs

marco_polo wrote: »

Found this GSI page, the most correct answer seems to be that there is very very few places to look (Also mentions that much of Ireland was land during the time in question but lets ignore that bit ).

The geology of Britain, in particular southern britain has far far more deposits of the right age compared to here. Our diversity is much lower. Mostly paleozoic stuff. AFAIR the only dinosaur age stuff we have is around lough neagh.

I would reckon that important discoveries are there to be made in that paleozoic stuff though. It's just so few go fossil hunting it seems.

marco_polo

Wibbs wrote: »

The geology of Britain, in particular southern britain has far far more deposits of the right age compared to here. Our diversity is much lower. Mostly paleozoic stuff. AFAIR the only dinosaur age stuff we have is around lough neagh.

I would reckon that important discoveries are there to be made in that paleozoic stuff though. It's just so few go fossil hunting it seems.

I seem to recall learning years ago that most Ireland was overlain with Chalk from the late Cretaceous at one stage, and that that it has largely eroded away?

A few limited sandstone deposits also up north and a very small patch of Cretaceous chalk in Antrim and that seems to be about it all the way from the Permain - > Cretaceous.

In fact looking at the map again we are pretty much missing the entire last 300 million years. But you are right that there has to be some really interesting stuff as yet undiscovered in what paleozoic stuff do have.

marco_polo

Slightly off topic but while poking around the GSI website......

*Facepalm*

http://www.gsi.ie/Education/Geology+for+Everyone/Life+on+Earth+Dinosaurs.htm

The dinosaurs were present during the Jurassic period (See Age of the Earth) which lasted roughly 70 million years. At the time of the dinosaur the continents were all joined together thereby facilitating migration over the whole surface of the earth. Dinosaur fossils have been found in all continents including Antartica. There were 300 different species of dinosaur and about 2000 species of prehistoric animals altogether. The largest creatures to ever have walked the earth are the sauropods including Ultrasauros and Supersauros.

Extinction
Dinosaurs suddenly became extinct about 65 million years ago. It is not known why the dinosaurs disappeared in the Jurassic Period. It is thought that maybe the type of food they normally ate may have changed or that small mammals were eating their eggs. It is also thought that a meteorite hit the Earth causing a layer of dust to block the sun therefore gradually killing off dinosaurs and their food supply. However, no theory has ever been proven.

Galvasean

Well, I'll never take GSI's word for anything now.

Alvin T. Grey

marco_polo wrote: »

Slightly off topic but while poking around the GSI website......

*Facepalm*

Holy crap...

Galvasean

So now what, do we invade their forums or something?

Araban

Phoenix wrote: »

Have any fossils of dinosaurs who habited inland been found in Ireland?

Hi. A fue years ago I found a huge amount of dinosaur eggs ranging between the size of an apple to the size of a small car !

Galvasean

Pics or GTFO.