The Guardian: Climate Change Exposes Dinosaur Fossils on Mediterranean Seabed Off France

Rising sea levels and intensifying seabed erosion driven by human-caused climate change are uncovering long-buried dinosaur fossils on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of southern France, scientists have revealed.

In a study published this week, researchers from the University of Montpellier and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) reported the recovery of several isolated dinosaur bones—including a partial femur and vertebrae—from depths of 80–150 metres between Marseille and Toulon. The specimens, dated to the Late Cretaceous (~75–70 million years ago), belong to a hadrosauroid duck-billed dinosaur and a small theropod, both terrestrial animals.

The bones were preserved in ancient coastal and deltaic sediments of the Tethys Ocean that once covered the region. As global temperatures rise, Mediterranean waters are warming and sea levels are climbing at ~3–4 mm per year. Stronger storms and altered currents are stripping away protective sediment layers, exposing the fossils for the first time in millions of years.

“These are not aquatic dinosaurs,” lead author Dr. Sophie Laurent stressed. “They lived on land. Climate-driven erosion is simply revealing what rivers and storms buried near ancient shorelines long ago.”

The finds add to a growing pattern of marine dinosaur discoveries worldwide, all explained by normal post-mortem transport and geological processes. They also highlight how accelerating climate change is reshaping even the deep seafloor, potentially bringing more Mesozoic secrets to light before they are lost again.

From the warming waters off France, these exposed bones serve as stark reminders that the age of dinosaurs and the age of humans are now colliding on the ocean floor.