In this undated photo provided by Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the University of Birmingham on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, work underway as five extensive trackways that formed part of a “dinosaur highway” are uncovered, at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire, England. (Emma Nicholls/OUMNH via AP)
PBS News has a story about the discovery of a special dinosaur trackway in England. While digging up clay in a imestone quarry in southern England, a worker found nearly 200 dinosaur tracks that date to the Jurassic Period about 166 million years ago. There are four sets of sauropod tracks, thought to be Cetiosaurus which grew to around 60 feet in length. Crossing these tracks is an additonal set, which belong to a a ferocious predator named Megalosaurus.
“Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world’s most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there’s limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the findings.
The group that worked at the site this summer took more than 20,000 digital images and used drones to create 3-D models of the prints. The trove of documentation will aid future studies and could shed light on the size of the dinosaurs, how they walked and the speed at which they moved.
“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at the Oxford museum. “Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.”