Oude massale uitstervingsstudie onthult dat dinosaurussen de aarde overnamen te midden van ijs, niet in warmte

Gedijen in een reeks plotselinge wereldwijde kippenvel die concurrenten doodde

Velen van ons zijn bekend met de populaire theorie over hoe dinosaurussen 66 miljoen jaar geleden stierven: in de gewelddadige botsing van de aarde met een meteoriet volgde een wereldwijde winter, veroorzaakt door stof en puin dat de atmosfeer verstikte. Maar er was een eerdere uitsterving die veel mysterieuzer en minder besproken is: een uitsterving 202 miljoen jaar geleden die de grote reptielen die tot dan toe over de planeet regeerden, wegvaagde en de weg vrijmaakte voor de dinosauriërs om het over te nemen. Wat veroorzaakte de zogenaamde[{” attribute=””>Triassic–Jurassic Extinction, and why did dinosaurs thrive when other creatures perished?

We know that the world was generally hot and steamy during the Triassic Period, which preceded the extinction, and there were similar conditions during the following Jurassic, which kicked off the age of dinosaurs. However, new research turns the idea of heat-loving dinosaurs on its head: It presents the first physical evidence that Triassic dinosaur species, which were a minor group largely relegated to the polar regions at the time, regularly endured freezing conditions there.

The telltale indicators are dinosaur footprints along with odd rock fragments that only could have been deposited by ice. The authors of the study explain that during the extinction, cold snaps already happening at the poles spread to lower latitudes, killing off the cold-blooded reptiles. Dinosaurs, which had already adapted, survived the evolutionary bottleneck and spread out. The rest is ancient history.

“Dinosaurs were there during the Triassic under the radar all the time,” said Paul Olsen, a geologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and lead author of the study. “The key to their eventual dominance was very simple. They were fundamentally cold-adapted animals. When it got cold everywhere, they were ready, and other animals weren’t.”

The study, based on recent excavations in the remote desert of northwest China’s Junggar Basin, was published today (July 1, 2022) in the journal Science Advances.

The supercontinent of Pangaea 202 million years ago, shortly before the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction. Evidence of early dinosaurs has been found in the indicated areas; most species were confined to the high latitudes, and those few nearer the tropics tended to be smaller. Red area at the top is the Junggar Basin, now in northwest China. Credit: Olsen et al., Science Advances, 2022

Dinosaurs are thought to have first appeared during the Triassic Period in temperate southerly latitudes about 231 million years ago, when most of the planet’s land was joined together in one giant continent geologists call Pangaea. They made it to the far north by about 214 million years ago. Until the mass extinction at 202 million years, the more expansive tropical and subtropical regions in between were dominated by reptiles including relatives of crocodiles and other fearsome creatures.

During the Triassic, and for most of the Jurassic, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide ranged at or above 2,000 parts per million—five times today’s levels—so temperatures must have been intense. There is no evidence of polar ice caps then, and excavations have shown that deciduous forests grew in polar regions. However, some climate models suggest that the high latitudes were chilly some of the time; even with all that CO2, they would have received little sunlight much of the year, and temperatures would decline at least seasonally. But until now, no one has produced any physical evidence that they froze.

At the end of the Triassic, a geologically brief period of perhaps a million years saw the extinction of more than three-quarters of all terrestrial and marine species on the planet, including shelled creatures, corals and all sizable reptiles. Some animals living in burrows, such as turtles, made it through, as did a few early mammals. It is unclear exactly what happened, but many scientists connect it to a series of massive volcanic eruptions that could have lasted hundreds of years at a stretch. At this time, Pangaea started to split apart, opening what is now the Atlantic Ocean, and separating what are now the Americas from Europe, Africa and Asia. Among other things, the eruptions would have caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to skyrocket beyond its already high levels, causing deadly temperatures spikes on land, and turning ocean waters too acid for many creatures to survive.

A shale cliff in the Junggar Basin in northwest China, where scientists found ice-rafted pebbles amid otherwise fine-grained sediments. Credit: Paul Olsen/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

The authors of the new study cite a third factor: During the eruptions’ fiercest phases, they would have belched sulfur aerosols that deflected so much sunlight, they caused repeated global volcanic winters that overpowered high greenhouse-gas levels. These winters might have lasted a decade or more; even the tropics may have seen sustained freezing conditions. This killed uninsulated reptiles, but cold-adapted, insulated dinosaurs were able to hang on, say the scientists.

The researchers’ evidence: fine-grained sandstone and siltstone formations left by sediments in shallow ancient lake bottoms in the Junggar Basin. The sediments formed 206 million years ago during the Late Triassic, through the mass extinction and beyond. At that time, before landmasses rearranged themselves, the basin lay at about 71 degrees north, well above the Arctic Circle. Footprints found by the authors and others show that dinosaurs were present along shorelines. Meanwhile, in the lakes themselves, the researchers found abundant pebbles up to about 1.5 centimeters across within the normally fine sediments. Far from any apparent shoreline, the pebbles had no business being there. The only plausible explanation for their presence: they were ice-rafted debris (IRD).

Briefly, IRD is created when ice forms against a coastal landmass and incorporates bits of underlying rock. At some point, the ice becomes unmoored and drifts away into the adjoining water body. When it melts, the rocks drop to the bottom, mixing with normal fine sediments. Geologists have extensively studied ancient IRD in the oceans, where it is delivered by glacial icebergs, but rarely in lake beds; the Junggar Basin discovery adds to the scant record. The authors say the pebbles were likely picked up during winter, when lake waters froze along pebbly shorelines. When warm weather returned, chunks of that ice floated off with samples of the pebbles in tow, and later dropped them.

“This shows that these areas froze regularly, and the dinosaurs did just fine,” said study co-author Dennis Kent, a geologist at Lamont-Doherty.

How did they do it? Evidence has been building since the 1990s that many if not all non-avian dinosaurs including tyrannosaurs had primitive feathers. If not for flight, some coverings could have used for mating display purposes, but the researchers say their main purpose was insulation. There is also good evidence that, unlike the cold-blooded reptiles, many dinosaurs possessed warm-blooded, high-metabolism systems. Both qualities would have helped dinosaurs in chilly conditions.

“Severe wintery episodes during volcanic eruptions may have brought freezing temperatures to the tropics, which is where many of the extinctions of big, naked, unfeathered vertebrates seem to have occurred,” said Kent. “Whereas our fine feathered friends acclimated to colder temperatures in higher latitudes did OK.”

The findings defy the conventional imagery of dinosaurs, but some prominent specialists say they are convinced. “There is a stereotype that dinosaurs always lived in lush tropical jungles, but this new research shows that the higher latitudes would have been freezing and even covered in ice during parts of the year,” said Stephen Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh. “Dinosaurs living at high latitudes just so happened to already have winter coats [while] Veel van hun rivalen stierven uit het Trias.”

Randall Ermes, conservator paleontologie van het Museum of Natural History in Utah, die gespecialiseerd is in vroege dinosaurussen, is het daarmee eens. “Dit is het eerste gedetailleerde bewijs uit de oudheid, het eerste bewijs van de afgelopen 10 miljoen jaar van het Trias en het eerste bewijs van echt glaciale omstandigheden,” zei hij. “Vroeger beschouwden mensen dit als een tijd waarin de hele wereld heet en vochtig was, maar dat was niet het geval.”

Olsen zegt dat de volgende stap om deze periode beter te begrijpen, is dat meer onderzoekers op zoek gaan naar fossielen in voormalige poolgebieden zoals het Jonggar-bekken. “Het fossielenbestand is zo slecht, niemand is aan het opgraven”, zei hij. Deze rotsen zijn grijs en zwart en het is erg moeilijk om ze op te graven [for fossils] in deze lagen. De meeste paleontologen voelen zich aangetrokken tot de late Jura-periode, wanneer er veel grote skeletten te verzamelen zijn. Het oude poolgebied wordt in principe genegeerd.”

Referentie: “Arctic Ice and the Ecological Rise of the Dinosaurs” door Paul Olsen, Jingjing Sha, Yan’an Fang, Clara Zhang, Jessica H. 2022, wetenschappelijke vooruitgang.
DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.abo6342

De studie was co-auteur van Jingeng Sha en Yanan Fang van het Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology. Clara Chang en Sean Kenny van Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Jessica Whiteside van de Universiteit van Southampton; Hans Dieter klaagt het Smithsonian Institution aan; Morgan Schaller van het Rensselaer Polytechnisch Instituut; en Vivi Vajda van het Zweedse natuurhistorisch museum.