Oldest Dinosaur Fossils Found 恐龍化石新發(fā)現(xiàn)
Image by Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki
媒體英語會帶大家一起學習BBC撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。
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Background: 科學家最新發(fā)現(xiàn)了兩億五千年前類似恐龍的動物足跡。這一發(fā)現(xiàn)將恐龍存活的年代提早了幾百萬年。
These earliest dinosaur-like animals were about the size of domestic cats. They would have weighed two or three pounds (1 to 1.5 kilos) and walked on four legs.
But what's really intrigued scientists is that they date from two million years after the worst mass extinction event in the history of the planet.
It was a time when volcanic eruptions, sudden global warming and a stagnation of the oceans wiped out more than 90% of all life on Earth.
Up until recently scientists thought that dinosaurs emerged 15 to 20 million years after this event. But the new footprints suggest that they arose directly as a result of the devastation, filling a gaping ecological void. Without the mass extinctions there would have been no dinosaurs.
Glossary 詞匯表 (收聽發(fā)音, 請單擊英語單詞)
- dinosaur恐龍
- to be intrigued被吸引，使好奇
- mass extinction大量滅絕
- volcanic eruption火山爆發(fā)
- global warming全球變暖
- stagnation（海水）停滯
- to wipe out毀滅
- footprints腳印，足跡
- devastation毀滅，破壞
- gaping敞開很大的
- ecological生態(tài)的
- void空隙
