** Recent discoveries are revealing that dinosaurs persisted in southern Africa long after the dramatic volcanic events that silenced the fossil record.
📍 ** South Africa, Western Cape (specifically near Knysna)
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Southern Africa has long been renowned for its incredible dinosaur fossil record, particularly within the Karoo Basin. However, around 182 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions dramatically reshaped the region, effectively ending much of the dinosaur activity evident in the fossil record during the Jurassic Period. This event created a significant “quiet” in the fossil evidence for millions of years.
Recent breakthroughs are fundamentally altering our understanding of this period. Scientists have unearthed dinosaur tracks dating back 140 million years along the Western Cape coastline, marking the first tracks from the Cretaceous Period (145 million to 66 million years ago) found in the region. Now, an ongoing research team is focusing on coastal aeolianites, offering new opportunities to uncover more evidence of dinosaur life.
A particularly exciting discovery occurred in early 2025 at a small outcrop near Knysna, revealing over two dozen possible dinosaur tracks estimated to be around 132 million years old. This makes them the youngest known dinosaur tracks in southern Africa and the second Cretaceous dinosaur track set discovered in South Africa, highlighting the continued presence of dinosaurs in the region long after the initial volcanic disruption.
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Original Source: Link
** #DinosaurTracks #SouthernAfrica #FossilDiscovery #CretaceousPeriod #JurassicEra #Paleontology #Ichnology #WesternCape