Dinosaur footprints found in England by quarry workers

Quarrymen in England have discovered the clawed footprints of a 30-foot-long predator and other submerged dinosaur tracks, in what paleontologists have described as one of the most important discoveries in Britain in nearly three decades.

A series of five distinct prints were discovered last summer in a quarry in Oxfordshire, about 60 miles northwest of London, scientists announced to the public this week. The prints belong to both herbivores and carnivores that roamed the region during the Middle Jurassic period, about 166 million years ago.

Instead of the grasslands that cover the area today, Jurassic Oxfordshire was more like the Florida Keys, wet with lakes and muddy swamps, the prime area where dinosaur feet could sink into the ground.

The area, which was first excavated in 1997, had already become known among paleontologists as the “Dinosaur Highway.” Scientists have found more than 40 sets of footprints across nearly 200 yards of tracks. Emma Nicholls, a dinosaur researcher, said that the new ruins expand it into one of the largest sites for dinosaur discoveries in the world. Vertebrate paleontologist and Director of Collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

“These latest discoveries prove that there is still new evidence of these animals waiting to be found,” Ms Nicholls said.

At first, quarry workers didn’t think much about the anomaly they discovered while removing clay in late 2023. Mark Stanway, who runs the quarry, said the first trace of a dinosaur was just a hump in the ground.

“Maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as it seemed,” he said.

The pattern of humps, each about 10 feet apart, turns out to be the last remains of giants who died tens of millions of years ago.

Paleontologists from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford visited the site for the first time in November 2023, finding clawed and three-toed footprints in a shape that has become associated with dinosaurs in popular culture.

“It’s like a caricature of a dinosaur,” Dr. Nicholls said.

The tracks were made by the megalosaurus, a ferocious predator that stood about 30 feet long, weighed one and a half tons and walked on its hind legs. It was the megalosaurus The first dinosaur ever To be named and scientifically described at Oxford in 1824.

“We were digging new tracks for Megalosaurus in 2024, which is of course its bicentenary,” Dr Nicholls said. “Completely coincidental but actually spine-tingling.”

The other four prints belong to a single species, likely a herbivorous sauropod, A Dinosaur family They are known for their long necks and tails, small heads and thick leg columns, features that made them the largest land animals ever.

Christy Edgar, professor of micropaleontology at the University of Birmingham, said the footprints were more than three feet long and a foot and a half deep, about the size of a baby’s bathtub.

The researchers said they cannot accurately determine what type of sauropod made this print, but they believe it is a cetosaurus, a dinosaur that was about 60 feet long and weighed about two tons, due to previous fossil discoveries in the area.

The tracks also give scientists an idea of ​​how animals behave, especially at the point where the tracks of different species interact, the scientists said.

For much of the path, the sauropods appear to be stationary, heading north. But then, suddenly, one of the animal’s left feet landed near the previous foot, indicating that it had stopped and perhaps looked over its shoulder.

Although scholars cannot pinpoint exactly when the prints were made, the prints indicate the moment of interaction.

“It’s very likely that the Cetiosaurus actually stopped to catch a glimpse of the Megalosaurus,” Dr. Nicholls said.

The sets of sauropod footprints are also of different sizes, indicating that the animals may have moved in herds with juveniles or traveled alongside smaller herbivores. The megalosaurus, the main predator at the time, moved on its own.

“The body fossil is the death of the animal, while we get sort of a glimpse into what these various animals were doing in life,” Dr. Edgar said.

In addition to its moorland features, Jurassic Oxfordshire has also been affected by rising sea levels.

Within the prints, scientists found evidence of marine life – brachiopods, gastropods, bivalves, echinoids and shelled invertebrates that resemble today’s molluscs and sea urchins, Dr Nicholls said.

In the nearly 30 years since the tracks were first discovered in the area, technology has advanced rapidly, allowing scientists to record their findings more successfully.

During the seven days last summer, as teams of scientists worked at the site, they took hundreds of photos, made casts, recorded drone footage of the site, and created 3D models, allowing continued study of prints that may now be lost to the elements.

Stanway said work at the quarry has not been affected, adding that he would not be surprised to find more tracks in the coming years.