Nearly 200 dinosaur footprints have been discovered in an Oxfordshire quarry, shedding new light on the extinct creatures.
The footprints are 166 million years old and were discovered buried under mud at Dewars Farm Quarry after a worker noticed “unusual protrusions” in the limestone quarry.
Five footprints were discovered in what investigators say is part of a “dinosaur road”.
The longest continuous track found during summer excavation is more than 150 meters long.
Four of the sets of footprints that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic long-necked herbivores called sauropods, believed to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to almost 18 meters long.
The fifth footprint was made by a Megalosaurus, a carnivore that left a distinctive triple-claw print, the researchers said.
An area where tracks intersect raises questions about possible interactions between carnivores and herbivores.
“Megalosaurus has been known and studied by scientists longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries demonstrate that there is still new evidence of these animals, waiting to be found,” said Emma Nicholls, vertebrate paleontologist. at the Oxford University Pure Museum of History (OUMNH).
From the marks you can also obtain information about how the dinosaurs walked, at what speed and how big they were.
The universities of Oxford and Birmingham jointly led a team of more than 100 people in a week-long excavation.
About 200 footprints were discovered and approximately 20,000 photographs were taken. Detailed 3D models of the site were built using aerial drone photography.
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“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud deformed as the dinosaur’s legs moved in and out,” said Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist at OUMNH.
“Together with other fossils such as burrows, shells and plants, we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment that dinosaurs walked through.”
The findings will be displayed in a new exhibition at the museum.
Discoveries had already been made near the quarry in 1997, when 40 sets of footprints were discovered, considered one of the most scientifically important dinosaur footprint sites in the world.
