Researchers discover largest dinosaur tracks ever recorded

Monday, March 27, 2017, 7:35 PM - Paleontologists in northwestern Australia have discovered some of the world's largest dinosaur tracks ever recorded, according to the University of Queensland (UQ).

Dinosaur footprints were discovered along a 25-kilometre stretch of the Dampier Peninsula coastline in Western Australia, an area otherwise known as "Australia's Jurassic Park."

One of the 21 tracks found measures about 1.7 metres long and belonged to a sauropod, according to the lead author of the study that was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Dr. Steve Salisbury.

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Uncovering the tracks was no easy task. The group of scientists from the university's School of Biological Sciences and James Cook University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences had to fend off sharks, crocodiles, massive tides and the threat of development throughout their research.

"It is extremely significant, forming the primary record of non-avian dinosaurs in the western half of the continent and providing the only glimpse of Australia's dinosaur fauna during the first half of the Early Cretaceous Period," Dr. Salisbury said in a news release.

"It's such a magical place -- Australia's own Jurassic Park, in a spectacular wilderness setting."

The tracks were found in rocks believed to be 127 to 140 million-years-old.

Dr. Salisbury and his team were contacted by the area's Goolarabooloo People who were concerned about preserving the land after the government of Western Australia selected the region as a site for a $40 billion liquid natural gas processing plant. However, the project was abandoned in 2011 when the area was awarded National Heritage status.

The research group spent over 400 hours investigating and documenting the tracks.

"We needed the world to see what was at stake," Goolarabooloo law boss Phillip Roe said in the release. "It's great to work with the UQ researchers. We learnt a lot from them and they learnt a lot from us."

The team also discovered the first confirmed evidence of stegosaurs in Australia, the news release notes.

"There were five different types of predatory dinosaur tracks, at least six types of tracks from long-necked herbivorous sauropods, four types of tracks from two-legged herbivorous ornithopods, and six types of tracks from armoured dinosaurs," said Dr. Salisbury.

The dinosaurs were from the Cretaceous, a geological time period that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period about 66 million years ago.

SOURCE: UQ 

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