Now that's a Jurassic Park! 'World class' treasure trove of dinosaur footprints discovered in national park
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An incredible dinosaur track site with perfectly preserved footprints has been discovered in Denali National Park, Alaska.
The footprints belong to herds of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs, which thrived in the ancient high-latitude, polar ecosystem in the Late Cretaceous period between 100 and 66 million years ago.
They roamed the area in large family groups, travelling across the rugged terrain together.
An incredible dinosaur track site with perfectly preserved footprints has been discovered in Denali National Park, Alaska. One of the larger prints is pictured
WHAT WERE HARDROSAURIDS?
Hadrosaurids, or duck-billed dinosaurs, are members of the family Hadrosauridae.
The family includes lots of dinosaurs that were common herbivores in the Upper Cretaceous Period between 100 and 66million years ago.
They lives in what is now Asia, Europe and North America.
They are descendants of the iguanodontian dinosaurs of the Upper Jurassic period.
Hadrosaurs are known as the duck-billed dinosaurs because of the sim8ilarity of the shape of their heads to modern ducks.
The tracks show they travelled in large groups with babies travelling alongside much larger adults.
Some of the footprints are so detailed that they reveal the creatures' skin texture.
Even tracks of bugs and worms can be seen.
The footprints were found by three palaeontologists in 2007, when the Upper Cretaceous Cantwell Formation in the Alaska Range of Denali had not been explored.
On the last day, perched precariously on the steep side of the mountain, Anthony Fiorello, of Pernot Museum, Dallas, Texas and paleontologists from the University of Kansas and Hokkaido University Museum, were 'giddy – somewhere between giggling and crying' when they came across the wealth of tracks.
'Without question, Denali is one of the best dinosaur footprint localities in the world, but what we found that last day was incredible – so many tracks, so big, and so well preserved,' said Dr Fiorillo.
'The Denali tracksite (pictured) is extremely significant to the reconstruction of this Cretaceous high latitude polar ecosystem, Dr Stephen Hasiotis of the University of Kansas said. 'The hadrosaur tracks show specifically where they lived and how they acted as an extended family'
The footprints belong to mulch-generational herds of duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs (illustrated) which thrived in the ancient high-latitude, polar ecosystem
'Many had skin impressions so we could even see what the bottom of their feet looked like. And there were lots of invertebrate traces - the tracks of bugs, worms, larvae and more - which were important to us because they showed an ecosystem existed during the warm parts of the years.'
The paper, published in the journal Geology, provides an insight into the heard structure of hadrosaurs, which lived as families within the warmer-than-expected Arctic climate.
'The Denali tracksite is extremely significant to the reconstruction of this Cretaceous high latitude polar ecosystem as it demonstrates higher annual temperatures compared to the present-day climate,' Dr Stephen Hasiotis of the University of Kansas explained.
'The hadrosaur tracks show specifically where they lived and how they acted as an extended family.
Some of the footprints (pictured) are so detailed that they show what the creatures' skin looked like and tracks of bugs and worms were also revealed
'The burrows and trails of mud-loving beetles, mole crickets, midge fly larvae, and other sediment-dwelling beasties demonstrate that the whole cast of characters left their traces of life in the river bank sediments during the warm summer months - frozen in time, waiting to be discovered.'
The three paleontologists returned to the site to accurately measure and analyse the prints, which showed that four different age classes of Hadrosaurids – adults, sub-adults, juveniles and very young individuals – lived together in a large social group.
The team's research also suggests that the Hadrosaurid dinosaurs – affectionately known as the 'cows of the Cretaceous,' experienced a period of rapid growth in their life history.
'This is one of the greatest dinosaur tracksites in the world in terms of size, number, and quality. We could see how hadrosaurs walked, ran, or slipped on muddy surface.
Perched precariously on the steep side of the mountain (pictured) the palaeontologists were 'giddy - somewhere between giggling and crying' when they came across the wealth of tracks
'This is one of the greatest dinosaur tracksites in the world in terms of size, number, and quality. We could see how hadrosaurs walked, ran, or slipped on muddy surface,' said Dr Kobayashi of Hokkaido University Museum. A deep footprint is pictured
'Footprints were so vivid that we almost could see and smell them,' said Dr Kobayashi of Hokkaido University Museum.
'We were so excited when we found tiny, baby footprints, because we instantly knew this was the evidence to support the polar hadrosaurs survived through winters and lived as a herd to protect each other like other mammals do.'
The trio realised that the single bedding plane site was at risk from earthquake and could crumble and slide down the mountain into a nearby river. So Denali National Park helped the paleontologists remove and preserve the specimens.
The moulds were then transported to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas where they are now on display.
The palaeontologists realised that the single bedding plane site was at risk from earthquake and could crumble and slide down the mountain into a nearby river. So Denali National Park helped the paleontologists remove and preserve the specimens
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