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."
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
No comments:
Post a Comment