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)
