It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news.
Dinosaurs evolved from their closest relatives, the dinosauromorphs, in less than 5 million years, a new study finds. Researchers did radioisotopic dating on a handful of sand-grain-size zircon crystals embedded in rock near and above dinosauromorph fossils, and found that the animals lived between 234 million and 236 million years ago. These new dates are about 5 million to 10 million years earlier than previous estimates. [Read the Full Story on the Dinosauromorphs]
Running dinosauromorphs
Ancient animals run away from an erupting volcano 235 million years ago in northwestern Argentina. These animals later ended up as fossils in the Chañares Formation. The site includes fossils of early mammal relatives Dinodontosaurus (left background) and Massetognathus (left foreground).
Latest Videos From
The early dinosauromorphs Lewisuchus (right background) and Lagerpeton (right foreground) are also pictured. (Image credit: Victor Leshyk)
Mountainous work
Study co-researcher Adriana Mancuso (right), with the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, and Juan Martín Leardi (left), a paleobiologist at the University of Buenos Aires, excavate a skeleton of Massetognathus, an early mammal relative that was buried in the Chañares Formation. (Photo credit: Randall Irmis)
Surreal landscape
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
Study co-researcher Adriana Mancuso (far left) investigates the badlands of the Chañares Formation in northwestern Argentina. The researchers dated the layer containing dinosauromorphs to 236 million to 234 million years ago. (Photo credit: Randall Irmis)
Rocky work
Adriana Mancuso points to a volcanic ash layer in the Chañares Formation that contained crystals of the mineral zircon, which allowed them to do radioisotopic dating. (Photo credit: Randall Irmis)
Volcanic ash
Study co-researcher Farid Chemale, a faculty member in the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Brasilia, samples a volcanic ash layer in the Chañares Formation for radioisotopic dating. (Photo credit: Adriana Mancuso)
Argentinian nightfall
Dusk falls over the badlands of the Chañares Formation in Talampaya National Park in Argentina. (Photo credit: Adriana Mancuso)
Laura is the managing editor at Live Science. She also runs the archaeology section and the Life's Little Mysteries series. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.
Live Science Plus
