Discovering dinosaur footprints EarthCache

On our way home from NYC we took a detour to check out an EarthCache in the Springfield, MA, area that features dinosaur footprints. We've been wanting to visit this EarthCache (learn more about EarthCache here) since we found the listing last year because we were taken with the prospect of seeing real footprints. And after spending time at the American Museum of Natural History and seeing the fossils, it seemed like a good idea to do some dinosaur "field work" too.

It was fascinating to see, and touch, the footprints and know that dinosaurs crossed this path 190 million years ago. The kiosk at the site provided some interesting background about how this place (which was just off the side of the road and easily missed if you weren't looking for it) came to be discovered and identified.

Approximately 190 million years ago, what is now the Connecticut River Valley area was a subtropical landscape of lakes and swamps. Two-legged, carnivorous dinosaurs made footprints in the mudflats, which were periodically wetted and dried. Sediment slowly covered the prints, protecting them from erosion. Over the eons, they were transformed into rock and buried underground, until workmen constructing Route 5 unearthed them in the 1920s. In the early 1970s, Yale University Professor John Ostrom identified these tracks as being from three distinct, though related, dinosaurs: The largest prints (11-13 inches long) were from Eubrontes giganteus, which stood 15 feet tall and had a 5-foot stride. The intermediate prints (6-8 inches) are from Anchisauripus sillimani, and the smallest (3-5 inches) from Grallator cuneatus. The most remarkable part of Professor Ostrom's work was his determination that almost all of the 134 footprints he studied were part of 28 distinct trackways, leading in very nearly the same direction. The tracks at this site thus documented for the first time that some dinosaurs were not always solitary, but tended to travel as a "hear, pack, or flock."

L. was really curious about the footprints and decided to get a feel for the stride of the dinosaur who made it. Her hypothesis was that the dinosaur who made these particular prints was probably running.

I know I've said this before but our GPS unit (via EarthCache and Geocaching) really does take us to the most interesting places!

If you have a GPS unit, the coordinates to this location can be found on geocaching.com