We already know that they have proliferated like mushrooms to become part of our cities and a frequent weekend destination for family leisure. The shopping centers they are an unavoidable reality that serves to show the way of life of the second half of the 20th century and what we have of the 21st; used by almost all citizens, there is never a lack of criticism against them accusing them of multiple social sins. Now, are they also to blame for the extinction of the dinosaurs? ? It might seem so, according to a recent discovery in New Jersey (USA).
Well, blaming shopping centers may be excessive, but the truth is that in the south of that state, about 24 kilometers from Philadelphia, an exceptional paleontological site has been found. . In a township called Mantua Township. Right behind the Lowe's Store. It was a marl quarry owned by the Inversand Company, although it now belongs to Rowan University, which acquired it last year. Why? Because the site oozes fossils all over. Thousands of them.
It is estimated that this rich quarry dates back to the Cretaceous , which gives it a double interest because it was in that period when the last great extinction occurred. massive, the one that put an end to the age of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, presumably due to the impact of a meteorite in the area now occupied by part of the Caribbean and the Yucatan. The fact that most of the skeletons found are almost intact suggests that their owners all died at the same time, which is quite significant.
The property has an area of 26 hectares that are being excavated with the thoroughness and patience of science, under the direction of paleontologist and geologist Kenneth J. Lacovara , of the aforementioned university: "We do not yet know if [the site] dates from the mass extinction, but we are testing this hypothesis by examining the fossils, the sediments and the chemistry" he explained. The works have forced to dig up to 12 meters underground , having to be carefully sifted so that no remains escape.
It must be taken into account that, in the Cretaceous, the area was submerged and formed the bottom of a sea shallow about twenty kilometers from the coast. That is why many fossils already found and removed correspond to marine animals , being molluscs for the most part. It seems that there are also reptiles (crocodiles, lizards and turtles), since the potential of these sediments promises to be enormous. But it is necessary to wait; as Kirk Johnson says , from the Smithsonian Museum, “kill all the deer in New Jersey and then try to find a single dead deer; you won't find one."
Even so, New Jersey is rich in fossils and the fact that it was the main scene of the famous Bone War proves it. that confronted the nineteenth-century paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Otoniel C. Marsh, which we already talked about in a recent article (see link below) and as a result of which today popular dinosaurs were discovered like the triceratops, the diplodocus or the stegosaurus; later the hadrosaurus and the allosaurus also appeared.
In any case, there is much work ahead. That is why they have resorted to opening the quarry to the public , involving the community in the excavations themselves (children and adults distributed in groups) and thus obtaining both funding and help (thousands of paleontologists visit the site each year to collaborate). In this didactic project active and open-air museum The previous owner, the company Inversand, also participates, all together they promoted the idea that replaced the initial one of building apartments on the land.