British researchers have discovered nearly 200 dinosaur footprints dating back 166 million years, which is believed to be the largest discovery in Britain.
Teams from the universities of Oxford and Birmingham made an “exciting” discovery at a mine in Oxfordshire, central England, when a worker encountered “unusual bumps” while removing soil with a mechanical digger, according to a new BBC documentary. .
The site has five extensive trackways, with the longest continuous track being over 150 meters (490 ft) long.
Four of the five trackways uncovered are believed to have been made by a long-necked herbivorous dinosaur, most likely Cetiosaurus.
According to the University of Birmingham, the fifth set of tracks probably belong to the nine-meter-long carnivore Megalosaurus, known for its distinctive three-toed claws.
“It’s rare to find them in such large numbers in one place and it’s rare to find such extensive trackways,” Emma Nicholls of Oxford University’s Natural History Museum told AFP.
He said the area could become one of the largest dinosaur track sites in the world.
The discovery will be featured in the BBC television documentary “Digging for Britain”, to be broadcast on 8 January.
very unrealistic
A 100-strong team led by academics from Oxford and Birmingham excavated the tracks during a week-long excavation in June.
The new footprints follow a small discovery in the area in 1997, when 40 sets of trackways were discovered during excavation of limestone, some of which were up to 180 meters in length.
Researchers took 20,000 photographs of the latest footprints and created detailed 3D models of the site using aerial drone photography.
It is hoped that the discovery will provide clues about how dinosaurs interacted, as well as their size and the speed at which they moved.
“To know that this was a dinosaur walked across this surface and left exactly the same print is very exciting,” Duncan Murdock of Oxford Museum told the BBC.
He added, “You can imagine it clawing its way out of the mud with its feet.”
Richard Butler, a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham, said the weather may be the reason the tracks are so well preserved.
“We don’t know for sure… but there may have been a storm that deposited a lot of sediment over the footprints, and that means they have been preserved rather than just being washed away,” He said. Said.
Mine worker Gary Johnson, who supervised the excavation, said the experience was mesmerizing.
He said, “I thought I was the first person to see them. And it was very surreal – a bit of a tingling moment actually.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
