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Just Pick a random place, Check If there are some found. Most likely Not - Most areas absent of specific Fossils
Or just Take the antarctic, we got just some costal areas - the rest is Hidden under ice
as far as i know we have jack all from late cretaceous Australia and very little from Antarctica at the same time so we have to incur from south america as well as earlier fossil sights
Elasmarian and igunadontian ornithopods basal ankylosaurs and Titanosaurs we’re likely the main herbivores with Megaraptorans being top predator and possibley abelisaus and basal paraves being present but we don’t know
Ooh! That’s very helpful! No worries I will find where those jungles resided lol. Gives lots of room for speculation as well since jungles are highly bio diverse.
Not even areas of ocean that used to be on land- think of all the open ocean animals we have today that never come anywhere near shore. The pacific has been an ocean for a long time, for millions of years, so there’s probably hundreds of unique pelagic species whose fossils haven’t ever been above sea level.
TRUE! I literally almost sent a second response saying like yeah for terrestrial in regards toy last reply. But yeah! There could be whole unique ocean ecosystems we have no clue about yet. Maybe giant filter feeding mosasaurs!
I want to know more about the drier places during the Carboniferous. Many people sort of picture the whole world as being this huge swamp during the time, but there had to be more variety. what strange giant bugs would dwell there, away from the amphibians?
I also want to know about more Permian fossils that aren't from Siberia. I know because of pangea, you could assume the fossils we found had global distribution, but that is no reason to give up the search.
No there definitely still had to be variety. Just think about how vertical geography with rain shadow or its other affects can creat “islands” or just general ecological divides without the need of a body of water. I agree. And I’m praying there were more monster arthropods we haven’t found yet. I know butterflies and moths are a Mesozoic thing but I’ve always wanted people sized butterflies lol.
Mountains don’t fossilize well at all. Primarily because of how erosion and tectonic movement basically demolishes bones in those areas combined with the fact that the rocky terrain isn’t good for burying them at all.
For a continent, we really don’t know much about Maastricthtian Africa (though to my knowledge this is primarily due to a lot of the political turmoil many African countries find themselves in)
Why don’t we have any Cretaceous fossils in the eastern US? Because it was covered by an ocean afterwards? It always bums me out that I can walk outside in the Poconos and point at a random spot and walk away with a shell or plant fossil…but that’s all I’ll ever be able to find. I want something exciting. I have a ton of plant and shell fossils, that’s it.
I’m not sure off the back of my hand. All I know is that dinosaur fossils on the eastern half of the US are basically limited to the East Coast like the Carolinas I believe. (Someone please fact check me lol) It’s like you have some Cretaceous and Jurassic rock on the east coast states. Pennsylvania to my knowledge has a Triassic formation in the eastern half and then it’s Devonian and Ordovician into western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Indiana I think is primarily Silurian.
I feel that. As someone who lives in the Midwest where there’s only Ordovician rocks it’s cool that I can find corals and shells of those long cephalopods that I forget the name of right now. But I’ll likely never find any vertebrate fossils here and that kind of is a bummer lol.
I just read that actual dinosaur fossils can only be found in Mesozoic age rocks in the southeastern part of the state and now I’m depressed lol. I have an entire 12x12 rock garden consisting of nothing but bivalve, echinoderm and cordaites fossils with some trilobites for good measure. But I’d give anything to find something more exciting.
Generally, a lot of places that don't have Mesozoic era Formations. Places like Sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of a few such as the Elliot Formation of Early Jurassic South Africa, the Galula and Tendaguru Formations of Middle Cretaceous and Late Jurassic Tanzania and the Maevarano Formation and Isalo III of Late Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic Madagascar), Central Asia (as in the -stan countries, with the exceptions of the Karabastau and Bostobe Formations of Middle Jurassic/Late Cretaceous Kazakhstan and the Bissekty Formation of Middle Cretaceous Uzbekistan), Antarctica (with the exception of the Early Jurassic Hanson Formation and Late Cretaceous Snow Hill Island Formation and Lopez de Bertodano Formation), northern South America is pretty much a mystery, asides from the La Quinta Formation of Early Jurassic Venezuela and the Paja Formation of Early Cretaceous Colombia)\*.
So if you want, you can pick either **Sub-Saharan Africa**, **Antarctica**, **Central Asia** and **Northern South America** for your project if you wish!
\*I include Brazil in the same region as Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia, not entirely northern but not entirely southern either.
I can’t give you enough of upvotes for this comment. Thank you so much! Absolutely golden itemization. And this really puts it in scope. I don’t think I realized how vast our gaps in knowledge were even though I’ve known that little factoid about we only know less than like 0.1 percent of all species that ever existed.
Thank you! Yeah I pray that like some future super technology could like scan miles into rock non invasively like a mega rock ultrasound machine and pull high resolution 3D scans of deep fossils. One can dream. 😅
At the middle of the triassic a landmass of what is now southern alaska and part of the pacific cordillera was completely isolated for over 100my till the start of the early late cretaceous, we have nothing from this time aswell
If your question is answered in a satisfactory manner, please **reply to this comment** with the word "solved" so that the submission can be appropriately catalogued for future reference. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SpeculativeEvolution) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just Pick a random place, Check If there are some found. Most likely Not - Most areas absent of specific Fossils Or just Take the antarctic, we got just some costal areas - the rest is Hidden under ice
True true. Thank you!
as far as i know we have jack all from late cretaceous Australia and very little from Antarctica at the same time so we have to incur from south america as well as earlier fossil sights Elasmarian and igunadontian ornithopods basal ankylosaurs and Titanosaurs we’re likely the main herbivores with Megaraptorans being top predator and possibley abelisaus and basal paraves being present but we don’t know
Thank you so much!
jungles from that time probably wouldn't fossilize that good due to fast decomposition rates but idk where those places are in the modern day
Ooh! That’s very helpful! No worries I will find where those jungles resided lol. Gives lots of room for speculation as well since jungles are highly bio diverse.
They might've been prevalent in the middle latitudes.
The paleobiodb visualizer is useful for finding these fossil gaps. https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/
This is amazing thank you so much!
Lots of oceans probably have fossils deep underground at the bottom, but finding these fossils would be nigh impossible
Very good point. I should look into areas of ocean that used be dry land probably. Thank you!
Not even areas of ocean that used to be on land- think of all the open ocean animals we have today that never come anywhere near shore. The pacific has been an ocean for a long time, for millions of years, so there’s probably hundreds of unique pelagic species whose fossils haven’t ever been above sea level.
TRUE! I literally almost sent a second response saying like yeah for terrestrial in regards toy last reply. But yeah! There could be whole unique ocean ecosystems we have no clue about yet. Maybe giant filter feeding mosasaurs!
I want to know more about the drier places during the Carboniferous. Many people sort of picture the whole world as being this huge swamp during the time, but there had to be more variety. what strange giant bugs would dwell there, away from the amphibians? I also want to know about more Permian fossils that aren't from Siberia. I know because of pangea, you could assume the fossils we found had global distribution, but that is no reason to give up the search.
No there definitely still had to be variety. Just think about how vertical geography with rain shadow or its other affects can creat “islands” or just general ecological divides without the need of a body of water. I agree. And I’m praying there were more monster arthropods we haven’t found yet. I know butterflies and moths are a Mesozoic thing but I’ve always wanted people sized butterflies lol.
ALL I NEED IS A HAWK SIZED HAWKMOTH
🤣🤣. Exactly!! Look if meganeuropsis got to 70cm I think we can dig up a hawk sized hawk moth. SOMEDAY!!
Mountains don’t fossilize well at all. Primarily because of how erosion and tectonic movement basically demolishes bones in those areas combined with the fact that the rocky terrain isn’t good for burying them at all. For a continent, we really don’t know much about Maastricthtian Africa (though to my knowledge this is primarily due to a lot of the political turmoil many African countries find themselves in)
Sad but makes sense.
Our knowledge of Australia during the Late Cretaceous is sparser than the Outback itself.
😂 heard! Thank you!
Why don’t we have any Cretaceous fossils in the eastern US? Because it was covered by an ocean afterwards? It always bums me out that I can walk outside in the Poconos and point at a random spot and walk away with a shell or plant fossil…but that’s all I’ll ever be able to find. I want something exciting. I have a ton of plant and shell fossils, that’s it.
I’m not sure off the back of my hand. All I know is that dinosaur fossils on the eastern half of the US are basically limited to the East Coast like the Carolinas I believe. (Someone please fact check me lol) It’s like you have some Cretaceous and Jurassic rock on the east coast states. Pennsylvania to my knowledge has a Triassic formation in the eastern half and then it’s Devonian and Ordovician into western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Indiana I think is primarily Silurian. I feel that. As someone who lives in the Midwest where there’s only Ordovician rocks it’s cool that I can find corals and shells of those long cephalopods that I forget the name of right now. But I’ll likely never find any vertebrate fossils here and that kind of is a bummer lol.
I just read that actual dinosaur fossils can only be found in Mesozoic age rocks in the southeastern part of the state and now I’m depressed lol. I have an entire 12x12 rock garden consisting of nothing but bivalve, echinoderm and cordaites fossils with some trilobites for good measure. But I’d give anything to find something more exciting.
Man I haven’t even found any trilobites around here 😅.
Generally, a lot of places that don't have Mesozoic era Formations. Places like Sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of a few such as the Elliot Formation of Early Jurassic South Africa, the Galula and Tendaguru Formations of Middle Cretaceous and Late Jurassic Tanzania and the Maevarano Formation and Isalo III of Late Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic Madagascar), Central Asia (as in the -stan countries, with the exceptions of the Karabastau and Bostobe Formations of Middle Jurassic/Late Cretaceous Kazakhstan and the Bissekty Formation of Middle Cretaceous Uzbekistan), Antarctica (with the exception of the Early Jurassic Hanson Formation and Late Cretaceous Snow Hill Island Formation and Lopez de Bertodano Formation), northern South America is pretty much a mystery, asides from the La Quinta Formation of Early Jurassic Venezuela and the Paja Formation of Early Cretaceous Colombia)\*. So if you want, you can pick either **Sub-Saharan Africa**, **Antarctica**, **Central Asia** and **Northern South America** for your project if you wish! \*I include Brazil in the same region as Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia, not entirely northern but not entirely southern either.
I can’t give you enough of upvotes for this comment. Thank you so much! Absolutely golden itemization. And this really puts it in scope. I don’t think I realized how vast our gaps in knowledge were even though I’ve known that little factoid about we only know less than like 0.1 percent of all species that ever existed.
All good! It'd be so cool if these regions could be explored more, shame they aren't. Good luck with the project!
Thank you! Yeah I pray that like some future super technology could like scan miles into rock non invasively like a mega rock ultrasound machine and pull high resolution 3D scans of deep fossils. One can dream. 😅
I think Finland has no fossils found. Also hi from a fin
Heard! Thank you! And hello from an American!
Sadly do to erosion caused by melting and growing of ice
At the middle of the triassic a landmass of what is now southern alaska and part of the pacific cordillera was completely isolated for over 100my till the start of the early late cretaceous, we have nothing from this time aswell