Nearly 200 dinosaur footprints were discovered over the summer in an old quarry in Oxfordshire, southeast England, the largest area of such tracks ever found in , the universities of Oxford and Birmingham announced today.
The impressive footprints were left by five dinosaurs, 166 million years ago. The discovery will be featured on the BBC’s ‘Digging for Britain’ archeology show on January 8.
The longest “route” made by one of these dinosaurs reaches a length of 150 meters. Dewars Farm Quarry was a veritable “dinosaur highway” where carnivores and herbivores crossed each other during the Middle Jurassic Period.
φωτο: Oxford University Museum of Natural History
“Perhaps the largest footprint in the world”
“It is very rare to find such a large number of footprints in one place and such long tracks,” explained Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Oxford’s Natural History Museum. Dewars Farm may be one of the largest footprint sites in the world, he added.
The first tracks were spotted in June by Gary Johnson, an excavator operator at the mine, which is operated by Smiths Bletchington.
“I realized I was the first person to see them, it was surreal,” he told the BBC.
Over the next few days, about 100 people took part in the excavation, overseen by the two universities, at what was once a shallow lake of warm water.
NEW: In a stunning find, researchers from Oxford University and have uncovered a huge expanse of quarry floor filled with hundreds of different dinosaur footprints, creating multiple enormous trackways.
— University of Oxford (@UniofOxford)
Why were the traces preserved?
Scientists don’t know what helped preserve the footprints left by the dinosaurs in the mud. “Perhaps a storm deposited sediments that helped harden them,” speculates Richard Butler, a paleobiologist at the University of Birmingham.
The four paths were carved by sauropods, plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks, probably of the Cetiosaurus species. These dinosaurs were up to 18 meters long and their footprints resemble those of an elephant – only much larger.
The fifth track was probably left by a Megalosaurus, the largest carnivore of the Jurassic period in England. Megalosaurus was bipedal and its footprints are clearly distinguished by their three forked toes.
The mine was photographed using drones to create a 3D model and preserve this extraordinary discovery. In 1997, about 40 dinosaur tracks were found nearby, but this area is no longer accessible today and the evidence collected is limited.
