Researchers Stumble on a Quarry Floor With Hundreds of Different Dinosaur Footprints, Call It 'Dinosaur Highway'
Researchers were astounded when they witnessed hundreds of different dinosaur footprints on Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire, England. The fingerprints reportedly cover a huge area of the quarry floor, stated the University of Oxford. The findings altogether made multiple enormous trackways. As per examinations, the footprints belong to around a hundred different dinosaurs. Some of the footprints were identified to be of the 9-metre carnivorous beast Megalosaurus.
The findings were uncovered by quarry worker, Gary Johnson, while he was stripping clay in the area to expose the quarry floor. He felt some unusual bumps and decided to look under the mud. He surprisingly ended up discovering the footprints. Experts were informed and a team of researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham began conducting an excavation. In total, 200 footprints were detected on the spot. Experts have also made detailed 3D models of the site to ensure a detailed examination of the footprints in the future.
The footprints were found to be from the Middle Jurassic Period (around 166 million years ago), and created a pattern that experts labeled 'dinosaur highway.' Five trackways were identified, with the longest one measuring around 150 meters in length. Four trackways exclusively featured footprints from herbivorous dinosaurs called sauropods. The dinosaur in question was likely Cetiosaurus, an 18-metre-long member of the species, as per experts.
The fifth trackway that sported footprints by Megalosaurus featured large impressions of three-toed feet with claws. The Megalosaurus prints have attracted a lot of attention, as they are the most extensively researched dinosaurs in the world. This is because they were the first dinosaurs to be scientifically named and described in the world. "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," Dr Emma Nicholls, a Vertebrate Palaeontologist said.
In one section the herbivorous and carnivorous footprints cross each other, which has made researchers speculate that some kind of interaction was happening between these two groups. The team hopes that further analysis will reveal more about the daily lives of these creatures. "These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited," Professor Kirsty Edgar, Professor of Micropalaeontology at the University of Birmingham explained.
Similar discoveries were made in the area back in 1997. Certain limestones were uncovered to be carrying around 40 sets of dinosaur footprints. One of the trackways created by these footprints measured 180m in length. The finding helped researchers understand which dinosaurs existed in the UK during the Middle Jurassic Period. The discovery established the place as one of the most important dinosaur track sites in the world and received the honor of being a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Researchers are ecstatic about the present collection of 200 footprints as it could possibly give them a chance to understand more about the 1977 discovery which is now inaccessible because of the lack of recording and preserving facilities in the past.