Massive Dinosaur Footprint Trove Unearthed in UK Quarry!

The nearest encounter many individuals will have with a dinosaur may be in a museum, in films, or at amusement parks — or perhaps films about amusement parks — but envision stumbling upon HUNDREDS of footprints that are hundreds of millions of years old. A worker at a limestone quarry in Oxfordshire, England, experienced just that.

As explained by Dr. Duncan Murdock from Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History: “One of the quarry workers, Gary Johnson, was extracting a layer of clay from above the surface where the prints were located… and he perceived a series of bumps as his digger scraped over the surface, leading him to think, ‘Hmm, that’s peculiar.‘”

In came the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham, who confirmed the remarkable discovery in June of 2024. Dr. Murdock notes that there were previously recognized prints at a nearby quarry in the late 1990s, but nothing of this magnitude. Many hands made light work; however, paleontology requires patience: “Excavating the clay that covers the footprints by hand, sometimes applying a pressure washer to assist in softening some of the clay and removing it.”

Dr. Murdock compares the ancient conditions of Oxfordshire to the Florida Keys, with mud deposits along the edge of a shallow sea, stating that limestone is an excellent preservative of fossils in the right conditions. “What aids in preserving the prints there,” he clarifies, “is that boundary between the limestone and the clay. It’s the contrast in materials that maintains that surface.”

Tens of thousands of images, paired with drone footage, contributed to the creation of a 3-D model of these dinosaur trackways — showcasing two very distinct categories of prints. There is only one type of dinosaurs with tracks measuring a meter in length: sauropods, the most massive creatures to have ever inhabited land. “Four legs, a long neck, long tails — envision something akin to a Diplodocus.”

The second variety resembles that of a three-toed bird strolling along the shore: “Those are from a ‘therapod’, a carnivorous dinosaur. The most probable candidate is Megalosaurus, though it might be another related therapod. When T-rex roamed the Earth, these would have already been fossils for 100 million years, which is quite astonishing!”

It’s challenging to capture precise details, although these prints have numerous stories to unveil. “We can analyze the sizes of the prints,” Dr. Murdock elaborates, “the spacing in length and width… and from that, we can reconstruct the gait of these creatures, [and] their walking speed.”

Almost precisely 200 years after the initial Oxford dinosaur discovery, Dr. Murdock shares that it’s an extraordinary experience to participate in history by revealing prehistory: “Uncovering dinosaur bones is certainly thrilling, but they signify the demise of that creature… this truly represents the life of that creature. It’s so exhilarating to consider that a dinosaur placed its foot right there for a brief moment, and then proceeded.”

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