New findings published by the paleontology team at Southern Methodist University in Texas don’t literally say “HOLY SHIT! We found a continuous track of dinosaur footprints that started in Brazil and end in Cameroon that were split by the breakup of ancient supercontinent Gondwana,” but they come pretty close to it. You can kind of tell SMU’s Louis Jacobs definitely wants to say it.
“We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar. In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical,” is as close as he can get though. “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. The two continents were continuous along that narrow stretch, so animals on either side of that connection could potentially move across it,” said Jacobs.
It’s not clear if these findings will prove particularly controversial among the “young Earth creationist”-type assclowns or if it’s too third-order to matter. Feels like continental drift and dinosaur footprints wouldn’t be a game-changer if you already think the planet is 6,800 years old.