A network of around 200 dinosaur footprints from the Middle Jurassic period has been found in a quarry in Oxfordshire, the largest discovery of its kind in the United Kingdom. The trackways, which are thought to be around 166 million years old, were discovered at Devers Farm Quarry by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham.
According to a news release from the University of Birmingham, they are part of a vast “dinosaur highway” and bear the footprints of the 9-meter-long, ferocious predator Megalosaurus and the herbivorous dinosaur that was up to twice its size.
Gary Johnson, a mine worker, first noticed the unusual indentation while extracting limestone for road construction in 2023. Their discovery has since attracted the attention of paleontologists eager to piece together a more detailed picture of life in the Jurassic era.
Our paleontologists worked with their counterparts @UniofOxford Britain’s ‘Dinosaur Highway’ to uncover vast expanse of mine floor filled with hundreds of individual prehistoric footprints pic.twitter.com/HbbemtftqH
– UniBirmingham News (@news_ub) 2 January 2025
“It’s like a snapshot of (the dinosaur’s) life and what they were doing,” micropaleontologist Dr. Kirsty Edgar, who was part of the excavation, said in a statement.
In June 2024, a team of about 100 volunteers and researchers from the universities of Oxford and Birmingham spent a week excavating and documenting the site. Their findings link to a previously discovered trackway in the same mine, which was discovered in 1997, although that section is no longer accessible.
In the latest discovery, the longest trackway extends over 150 metres. While some tracks were left by giant sauropods, others belonged to the carnivorous Megalosaurus. Megalosaurus, originally named in 1824, was the world’s first scientifically described dinosaur.
“The general rule of walking is that the faster the animal is moving, the farther apart the footprints will be,” paleontologist Lawrence Tanner, who was not involved in the dig, told CNN, comparing the speed of sauropods to that of modern elephants. From.
It’s not clear where the dinosaurs were going, but Tanner believes they may have been roaming along the shoreline or looking for food.
The exceptional preservation of the tracks is attributed to the unique circumstances of the time. The site’s soft sediment, combined with the right amount of humidity, creates an ideal environment for capturing the impressions, CNN reports.
“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the soil was deformed as the dinosaurs’ feet slid in and out,” Earth scientist Dr. Duncan Murdock of the University of Birmingham said.
Using aerial drone photography, researchers took more than 20,000 images of the site, which will be used to create detailed 3D models of the footprints.
Due to limited time for researchers to document the site before mine operations resume, much of the surface remains unexplored. Dr. Edgar hoped that further excavations might reveal even more information and insight into the lives of dinosaurs. “As new areas emerge, we will continue to evaluate and work with mineworkers,” he told CNN.