A group of scientists from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute discovered four dinosaur egg fossils in the Coll de Nargó archaeological site in Lleida, Spain
In a big discovery made by scientists from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute, four egg fossils have been found in the Coll de Nargó archaeological site in Lleida, Spain. Until this discovery, only one type of dinosaur egg had been found in the region.
"Eggshells, eggs and nests were found in abundance and they all belong to dinosaurs, sauropods in particular. Up until now, only one type of dinosaur egg had been documented in the region: Megaloolithus siruguei. After analysing more than 25 stratus throughout the Tremp Formation, a minimum of four different additional types were identified: Cairanoolithus roussetensis, Megaloolithus aureliensis, Megaloolithus siruguei and Megaloolithus baghensis," as explained by Albert García Sellés from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute and lead author of the study.
Palaeontologists often face the challenge of determining the age of the sediments that contain such fossils while studying new discoveries.There are fossils known as "guide fossils" whose characteristics allow for the age of rocks to be deduced. However, these fossils are frequent in marine sediments but more scarce and difficult to find in land sediments.
"It has come to light that the different types of eggs (oospecies) are located at very specific time intervals. This allows us to create biochronological scales with a precise dating capacity. In short, thanks to the collection of oospecies found in Coll de Nargó we have been able to determine the age of the site at between 71 and 67 million years."
