GLEN ROSE, Texas — Dinosaur tracks have been uncovered and restored in the Lone Star State.
During the extreme drought, the Puluxy River dried up inside the Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, revealing a long stretch of dinosaur tracks.
"It exposed over 60 tracks in this one singular trackway that this dinosaur left behind," Jeff Davis, park superintendent, said.
And you know how they say about everything being bigger in Texas? It's no exception for these tracks. Imagine a foot print the size of your dinner plate!
"One-hundred-ten million years to 113 million years ago when this was a shallow inland sea and they were just walking through sticky mud," Davis explained how they ended up at the riverbed. "It did a really good job of preserving their tracks."
Various types of dinosaur tracks have been found around the state park, but one is causing a big roar. Around 40 volunteers were preserving the prints from an Acrocanthosaurus (Acro) dinosaur; a dinosaur almost the size of a T-Rex!
But, how were these tracks uncovered?
"That river is kind of a double-edged sword," Davis said. "If there was no river, we never would have found tracks because that has cut down through the layers of silt and limestone and sediment to expose the tracks."
Also called the Lone Star or Lone Ranger track is said to be one of the longest in the world with the best preserved footprints from dinosaurs.
"The limestone is such a fine grain limestone that it left a lot of detail from the feet of the Acro that walked through there, so you can see things like the pads that were on their feet," Davis said. "Things that you don't expect to see on a dinosaur track that's that old ... 113 million years."
These tracks are more than dinosaur prints in the dirt. They tell a story, Davis said.
"It gives me this really deep sense of connection to the resources to the history to deep times," Davis said. "It's not some movie monster and not some creature from fantasy. It is an animal that walked through this area and it just seems really real to me."
The park did say with the recent rain, these tracks will likely be covered sooner rather than later. The park said it may be awhile before we see them like this again, so you may want to hurry to get a look for yourself.
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