Catalonia has a great wealth of Mesozoic deposits which has allowed intense work by paleontologists from the beginning of 20th century.
One of the lines of work of the Institut de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont has been centered on the deposits of dinosaurs of the Cretaceous of Catalonia and the Valencian Community, the wealth of fossils has allowed the continuation of scientific searches and, even, the expansion of the scopes of study in the renewed Institut Català de Paleontologia.
At the present time, the Mesozoic research department gathers evidence from generations of earlier paleontologists and trains new researchers through grants for R+D research projects (2006-2008) from the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain.
What is the Mesozoic era?
The Mesozoic era was formed by three geological periods (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous) that includes almost 200 years of evolution of life on Earth, from about 251 million years to about 65 million years ago.
In these periods, the dominant vertebrates were reptiles and, to a lesser extent, amphibians.
At that moment, the Earth was forming its present continental morphology by starting from a so-called super-continent 'Pangea' that began to fragment at the beginning of the Triassic.
Also during the Mesozoic a great revolution in the flora (the appearance of flowering plants at the beginning of the Cretaceous) took place with the resulting impact on continental ecosystems and the vertebrates that depended upon them.
The best known faunas of this period are dinosaurs. However, during the Mesozoic great events in the evolution of the vertebrates took place; the rapid decline of the dominion of amphibians before the reptiles at the beginning of the Triassic, the appearance and spreading of the first mammals, the conquest of the air and the sea by some reptiles, the diversification of dinosaurs and, finally their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.
One of the great divulgative projects where the ICP's Mesozoic team has worked is the web where you'll find all the information about dinosaurs in the East Iberian Peninsula.
© 2011 - Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont