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skywizard
26th September 2013, 15:35
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/images/news_large/news-dino-print.jpg

A veritable treasure trove of dinosaur footprints has been found along the side of Alaska's Yukon river.

A research team exploring the region came across thousands of fossilized dinosaur tracks along the shoreline. Consisting of scientists from the University of Alaska's Museum of the North, the team traveled over 500 miles down the Tanana and Yukon rivers and returned with more than 900kg of footprint fossils.

"We found dinosaur footprints by the scores on literally every outcrop we stopped at," said researcher Paul McCarthy. "I've seen dinosaur footprints in Alaska now in rocks from southwest Alaska, the North Slope and Denali National Park in the Interior, but there aren't many places where footprints occur in such abundance."

The discovery of an area so rich in fossil footprints is very rare and is being hailed as highly significant. The prints seem to come from a wide variety of different dinosaurs and are so abundant that it's possible to come across up to 50 specimens in as little as ten minutes.

"We found a great diversity of dinosaur types, evidence of an extinct ecosystem we never knew existed," said museum curator Pat Druckenmiller.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/39921-dinosaur-tracks-alaska-yukon.html


peace...
skywizard

777
26th September 2013, 15:41
A dinosaur highway! Perhaps this was some sort of migration route during season changes?

Spiral
26th September 2013, 16:15
Its probably rare because of the very peculiar circumstances it takes for footprints in mud to become footprints in rock without rain washing them away etc, not to mention them not being eroded away in the intervening 60 million years of being lost under tons of newer rocks forming over them !