Updated 10:13 AM EDT, Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Utah to Unveil 125 Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Tracks Discovered By Hiker

  • +
  • -
  • Sign up to receive the lastest news from LATINONE

It might take more than a month before paleontologists in Utah create a public display for people to see the tracks left behind by 125-million-year-old dinosaurs. A hiker who was out in the Moab recently discovered the tracks of what scientists believe to be a Utahraptor and a prehistoric crocodile.

The find helps scientists piece together the lives of these creatures since the bones are rare to come across. The dinosaurs that left behind the tracks may have been similar to some of the creatures made famous in Jurassic Park. But right now volunteers are working to uncover the tracks so that special images can be taken of them before the public has a chance to see them. The location of the tracks are currently a secret to the public, according to reports.

Still, Utah officials said that by October they will open up the location for people to get a glimpse. "We'll be able to replicate any of the tracks, should they ever be damaged or destroyed,"  Rebecca Hunt-Foster, a BLM paleontologist said about 3-D images that will document the find. "And also people will be able to study them without doing damage to the actual surface."

And there's a lot of work still to be done as there were more than 150 tracks found, with more than a dozen coming from the same animal. "Over 200 tracks that we're aware of so far,"  a volunteer named Lee Shenton, who's working on the dinosaur tracks site, told the media.  "And at least one case," Shenton said, "where there's 17 consecutive prints from the same animal. I think it's going to be something really important."

Utah of course is no stranger to dinosaur study; the State's Bureau of Land Management has uncovered many rare dinosaur tracks and bones. "We're starting to get a much clearer picture of what North America looked like when dinosaurs roamed the Earth," says Scott Foss, the state's regional paleontologist, according to the BLM.gov website

© 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
  • Sign up to receive the lastest news from LATINONE
Close

Curiosidades

Real Time Analytics