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TexasTowelie

(112,167 posts)
Tue Mar 28, 2017, 04:58 AM Mar 2017

World's biggest dinosaur footprint discovered in Australia's own Jurassic Park

More than 100 million years ago, on a muddy stretch of land that is now Australia, nearly two-dozen species of dinosaur once roamed.

There were duck-billed ornithopods, which left long, three-toed tracks in their wake. Heavy armored dinosaurs pressed large, tulip-shaped prints into the soil. Predators scratched the ground with their talons. And the feet of gigantic, long-necked sauropods created bathtub-sized depressions in the dirt.

Asteroids struck, continents moved, sea levels rose and fell. What was once a damp, forested environment surrounded by shallow seas became the hot, rugged coastline of northwestern Australia.

But the dinosaurs’ tracks remained. The footprint assemblage, which contains evidence of 21 species, is the most diverse in the world, researchers reported Friday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/worlds-biggest-dinosaur-footprint-discovered-australia/

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World's biggest dinosaur footprint discovered in Australia's own Jurassic Park (Original Post) TexasTowelie Mar 2017 OP
Wow! That's pretty amazing! Sounds like a fascinating place... Rhiannon12866 Mar 2017 #1
excuse me, 127 million to 144 million years ago? I thought the earth was only 5000 years? still_one Mar 2017 #2
6000, actually. SammyWinstonJack Mar 2017 #3
Thanks, appreciate the correction still_one Mar 2017 #4
Can we call it 'Beauregard' for short? pinboy3niner Mar 2017 #5
Sure you can TexasTowelie Mar 2017 #6
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