WUHAN, 3 October (BelTA - Xinhua) - Chinese scientists have
determined that a dinosaur egg, unearthed in the mountains along a
Yangtze River tributary in central China, is around 86 million years old
using an unconventional dating method never before applied to fossil
eggshells.
The method, known as carbonate uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating, involves using lasers to vaporize minerals in fossilized eggshell fragments. The resulting vapor contains uranium and lead atoms. Over millions of years, uranium gradually transforms into lead, like sand slipping through an hourglass. By measuring the proportions of uranium and newly formed lead in the minerals, scientists can determine how long the "hourglass" has been running, revealing the fossil's age.
Lead researcher Zhao Bi, from the Hubei Institute of Geosciences in China, said the method has been used to calculate the age of Earth, lunar magma and cave rocks, but using it on a fragile dinosaur egg was new.
Prior to this study, the common method was dating the rock layers in which dinosaur eggs were buried. But such an indirect method provides only an approximate time range, such as the late Cretaceous period, spanning 100 million to 66 million years ago, and lacks precision, Zhao told Xinhua.
In this new study published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, Zhao's team used this method to date Cretaceous dinosaur egg fossils for the first time, precisely determining that the minerals within eggshells from the Qinglong Mountain site formed between 87.65 and 84.17 million years ago.
Since the 1990s, scientists have uncovered dinosaur egg fossils in Qinglong Mountain, in Shiyan City, Hubei Province. Subsequently, a national-level nature reserve and an on-site museum were established, collectively preserving more than 3,000 dinosaur egg fossils to date.
The study has attracted widespread attention within the paleontological research community, and its findings have been featured in leading journals such as Nature and Science.
The method, known as carbonate uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating, involves using lasers to vaporize minerals in fossilized eggshell fragments. The resulting vapor contains uranium and lead atoms. Over millions of years, uranium gradually transforms into lead, like sand slipping through an hourglass. By measuring the proportions of uranium and newly formed lead in the minerals, scientists can determine how long the "hourglass" has been running, revealing the fossil's age.
Lead researcher Zhao Bi, from the Hubei Institute of Geosciences in China, said the method has been used to calculate the age of Earth, lunar magma and cave rocks, but using it on a fragile dinosaur egg was new.
Prior to this study, the common method was dating the rock layers in which dinosaur eggs were buried. But such an indirect method provides only an approximate time range, such as the late Cretaceous period, spanning 100 million to 66 million years ago, and lacks precision, Zhao told Xinhua.
In this new study published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, Zhao's team used this method to date Cretaceous dinosaur egg fossils for the first time, precisely determining that the minerals within eggshells from the Qinglong Mountain site formed between 87.65 and 84.17 million years ago.
Since the 1990s, scientists have uncovered dinosaur egg fossils in Qinglong Mountain, in Shiyan City, Hubei Province. Subsequently, a national-level nature reserve and an on-site museum were established, collectively preserving more than 3,000 dinosaur egg fossils to date.
The study has attracted widespread attention within the paleontological research community, and its findings have been featured in leading journals such as Nature and Science.
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