Volunteer researchers in Texas have discovered nearly 75 new dinosaur tracks dating back to the early Cretaceous period — all thanks to a scorching record temperatures which have dried up Paluxy River beds in Dinosaur Valley State Park.
Drought-like conditions have been nearly twice the standard in North Texas which has seen 41 days at or above 100 degrees this summer, compared to a typical annual average of just 20 days.
So far, volunteers have spotted the three-taloned imprint of what was likely the distant ancestor to the famous Tyrannosaurus rex: the short-armed, 15-foot-tall predator Acrocanthosaurus.
Acrocanthosaurus could weigh typically near 14,000 pounds, with all that weight sinking its prints deeper into the riverbed.
They amateur paleontologists also found still heavier prints from the Sauroposeidon, a Brachiosaurus- or Brontosaurus-like dinosaur that could reach more than 100 feet tall with its long neck and could weigh as much as 88,000 pounds.
Sauroposeidon happens to also be the official state dinosaur of Texas.
Volunteer researchers in Texas have discovered nearly 75 new dinosaur tracks dating back to the early Cretaceous period — all thanks to a scorching record temperatures that have dried up Paluxy River beds in Dinosaur Valley State Park
So far, the volunteers have spotted the three-taloned imprint of what was likely a=the distant ancestor to the famous Tyrannosaurus rex: the 15-foot-tall predator, Acrocanthosaurus
‘This is not normal for us. Normally, this would all be underwater,’ said one Dinosaur Valley State Park superintendent, Jeff Davis, in a recent interview with the Dallas Morning News.
‘It has been another very hot, very dry year so our researchers are trying to take advantage of the drought.’ Davis added.
Similar drought conditions revealed fossilized dinosaur tracks around this time last year as well.
Dinosaur Valley State Park is home to a variety of dinosaur tracks, mostly from ancient sauropods and theropods, back in the mid-Cretaceous Era, when the Dallas region of Texas was at the shore of a sea.
Many of the theropod tracks in the park do not show their distinctive three-toed pattern because the tracks were made in runny, deep mud, burying the toe impressions, according to the Dinosaur Valley State Park website.
Sauropods include herbivorous dinosaur species such as Diplodocus and Brontosaurus, which had large flat elephant-like feet, while theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex had clawed, three-toed feet.
Unlike the excellent specimen at left, many theropod tracks in the park do not show their distinctive three-toed pattern because the tracks were made in runny, deep mud, burying the toe impressions. Some tracks come deeply overlaid as multiple tracks, as seen at right
Based in Glen Rose, Texas, the approximately 2.4-square miles of Dinosaur Valley are frequently visited by Dallas residents from 80 miles southwest. Park officials said they are in a race against time to get the fossilized footprints catalogued for posterity, before the rains
Based in Glen Rose, Texas, the approximately 2.4-square miles of Dinosaur Valley are frequently visited by Dallas residents from 80 miles southwest.
Davis told the Morning News that he and the park’s volunteer paleontologists are in a race against time to get the fossilized footprints catalogued for posterity, before the rains come hide and slowly erode them once again.
‘These won’t be here forever,’ Davis said. ‘We do whatever we can to preserve these pieces of history.’
A few heavy rains will pull sediment in its wake as it refills the Paluxy River, filling the fossilized footprints and obscuring them in a new even surface of mud.
While this mud has benefits, it helps prevent the fossils from eroding away, this geological cycle will eventually fully erode these rare dinosaur tracks.
Davis hopes that researchers will be able to map the tracks and document them photographically as well as via measurements and mold-taking.
In the past, famously in 1938, entire physical fossil footprints were removed from the Paluxy River and shipped off to New York’s American Museum of Natural History.
Droughts in Texas this year have also unearthed more recent history, including the wreckage of a steam ship built during World War I to transport American troops and supplies to France.
The nearly 300-foot-long ship wreck was found by a man jet skiing in the Neches River this August in East Texas.
