Emily Chan
Texas has been experiencing extreme drought conditions for the past two years, which points to concerns about climate change. But there is a plus side to the heat. The droughts have resulted in secret footprints being uncovered for the first time.
In Glen Rose, Texas, a drought has caused a river flowing through Dinosaur Valley State Park to dry up, revealing about seventy previously hidden tracks from giant dinosaurs that lived over 110 million years ago.
The footprints were found in the park’s Ball Room site. They have three toes, with some resembling the markings of an elephant. One of the prints, known as the “Lone Ranger Track,” is said to be the longest dinosaur track ever to be discovered.
Over the summer, hot temperatures made the tracks visible. As the water levels of the Paluxy River reduced, it allowed more tracks to be uncovered. Under regular river conditions, the tracks would’ve remained unseen underwater and concealed by mud and sediment.
Experts believe that the footprints belong to two different species of dinosaurs. The three-toed tracks were made by Acrocanthosaurus, one of the largest predators that lived in North America during the Early Cretaceous period, dating back to 145 million to 101 million years ago.
As an adult, the giant carnivore reached a length of about forty feet.
The elephant-like prints seemed to have come from the long-necked, plant-eating Sauroposeidon, which measured about 100 feet tall and weighed 110,000 pounds, towering significantly over the Acrocanthosaurus.
Officials from a nonprofit organization that supports the park, Friends of Dinosaur Valley State Park, announced in a post on social media that the prints were “the most tracks we have ever seen at this location.” The tracks were first spotted by them on August 25th.
While drought exposed the prints, rainfall will cover them back up again, but at least researchers have been given the opportunity, however brief, to study the tracks.
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