????Archaeological news is
in the spotlight as huge dinosaur footprints were found in Yongjing
County of Gansu Province. Archeologists have now confirmed those
footprints as the largest found anywhere in the world.
????There are more than 100 footprints altogether.
The one on the mountain slope is 1.5 meters long and 1.2 meters
wide, and it's so large that an adult man can sit comfortably
in it.
????Dinosaur footprints as long as 89 centimeters
have been found in China's Inner Mongolia and in South Korea
archeologists have also found dinosaur footprints as long
as 1.2 meters. But these dwarf all found so far.
????Archaeologist Zhao Xijin said: "I
have looked up the records and found these are the largest."
????Through measurement of the footprints,
the experts discovered they were left by an animal with a
3.45-meter distance separating its hind legs, and the length
between the hind legs and front legs was 3.75 meters.
????Based on those measurements, the experts
calculate that the owner of the largest tracks was at least
20 meters long and weighed at least 50 tons. The animal would
have been able to cover a distance the length of a basketball
court, in 2 strides. Archaeologists are still trying to determine
what species it belonged to.
????The ancient tracks were preserved thanks
to environmental conditions at the time they were made, over
170 million years ago. Before the Yellow River was formed,
the area was the shore of a lake in the process of drying
up. The dinosaur group may have been drinking from the lake
and left the tracks in the muddy shore as they moved off.
As time passed the lake dried up and the shore continued to
bake in the intense sunshine, hardening the clay. When the
next rainy season came, water covered the shoreline once more
and sand gradually filled the depressions.
????After over 100 million years of massive
geological changes, the lake bed portion of the earth's crust
was thrust up, becoming a mountain slope, containing perfectly
preserved fossils.
????(People's Daily 03/18/2001)
