Matching Dinosaur Footprints Connect Ancient Continents Across the Atlantic

“We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar,” Jacobs said. “In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical.”

The footprints, impressed into mud and silt along ancient rivers and lakes, were found more than 3,700 miles, or 6,000 kilometers, away from each other. Dinosaurs made the tracks 120 million years ago on a single supercontinent known as Gondwana – which broke off from the larger landmass of Pangea, Jacobs said.

Narrow Connection Facilitated Dinosaur Migration

“One of the youngest and narrowest geological connections between Africa and South America was the elbow of northeastern Brazil nestled against what is now the coast of Cameroon along the Gulf of Guinea,” Jacobs explained. “The two continents were continuous along that narrow stretch, so that animals on either side of that connection could potentially move across it.”

Most of the dinosaur fossils were created by three-toed theropod dinosaurs.. A few were also likely made by sauropods or ornithischians, said Diana P. Vineyard, who is a research associate at SMU and co-author of the study.

Other co-authors of the study were Lawrence J. Flynn in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Christopher R. Scotese in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at

Signs of some of those major events were evident between both locations where the dinosaur footprints were found – at the Borborema region in the northeast part of Brazil and the Koum Basin in northern Cameroon. Half-graben basins – geologic structures formed during rifting as the Earth’s crust pulls apart and faults form – are found in both areas and contain ancient river and lake sediments. Along with dinosaur tracks, these sediments contain fossil pollen that indicate an age of 120 million years.

Before the continental connection between Africa and South America was severed, “rivers flowed and lakes formed in the basins” Jacobs said. “Plants fed the herbivores and supported a food chain. Muddy sediments left by the rivers and lakes contain dinosaur footprints, including those of meat-eaters, documenting that these river valleys could provide specific avenues for life to travel across the continents 120 million years ago.”