Tachira, Venezuela | A Team of Scientists Discovered 100 - Million - Year - Old Marine Fossils

 A team of Venezuelan scientists has made a groundbreaking discovery in the state of Tachira in western Venezuela, a land that’s crossed by the Andean Mountains and bounded on the west by Colombia, unearthing the fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, a species of an extinct aquatic reptiles, most of which were very similar to porpoises in appearance and habits, and a prehistoric fish estimated to be around 100 million years old. 

The find dating back to the Cretaceous period, the last and longest of the three periods of the Mesozoic Era, lasting from about 145 to 66 million years ago, is the first record of these marine species in the regions as reported by teleSur, a terrestrial and satellite news television network headquartered in the capital of the country, Caracas. 

The discovery marks as milestone in South American palaeontology with these fossils that were discovered in the area of La Grita, a centre in the north west of Tachira state located in an Andean Valley, a destination well known for its natural beauty and activities including hiking, camping, mountain climbing, as well as flora and fauna conservation,  and in proximity of Lobatera, a town located in the Lobatera Valley within the Tachira Andes, situated on a jagged plateau where the water currents of the Lobatera and La Molina ravines meet.

These areas are previously known for other discoveries such as the remains of a Tachiraptor, a genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur found in the early Jurassic period and those of a Laquintasaura, known for being one of the most primitive ornithischians in the fossil record, as well as the first remain of a dinosaur to have been identified from Venezuela.

The research project involved collaboration between the Ministry for Science and Technology, the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and the National Experimental University Francisco de Miranda.

According to geoscientist Rodolfo Sánchez, the new findings provide fresh insights into the prehistoric biodiversity of the area. 

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro welcomed the discovery as a milestone for Venezuelan science and he noted that the remains include a juvenile ichthyosaur that could have reached up to 25 metres in adulthood, “ancestors of modern dolphins” as he described them.
Link 

 

https://tvbrics.com/en/news/venezuelan-scientists-unearth-100-million-year-old-marine-fossils-in-tachira/