Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have made a fascinating discovery in Denali National Park, Alaska. A 20-story cliff face has revealed the fossilized footprints of numerous dinosaurs that roamed its surface some 70 million years ago.
And although at first glance it might seem that these ancient reptiles defied gravity, it was actually due to a geological process.
The find in Denali is exceptional, as it contains a record of footprints of various species, layering over multiple generations. This has led astonished researchers to dub the area the “dinosaur coliseum.”
A watering hole in a vast floodplain
This site, which covers the size of a football field and a half, reveals evidence of the presence of ornithopods, ceratopsids and theropods, which indicates a significant diversity of species and a persistent occupation of the place over time. According to the researchers, the location could have been a watering hole in an extensive floodplain.
“It’s not just a rock level with footprints,” Dustin Stewart, lead author of the study, said. recently published in the magazine Historical Biology. “It is a sequence through time. Until now, Denali had other known footprint sites, but nothing of this magnitude,” she added.
“They are beautiful,” said paleontologist Pat Druckenmiller, co-author of the article and director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “You can see the shape of the fingers and the texture of the skin.”
Although the site was initially hidden by researchers in the park’s vast landscape, the right light revealed its hidden wonder. The position of the sun created a dazzling effect on the tracks, leading the team to realize that they had found something truly special, so they immediately documented the find.
“When the sun makes a perfect angle with those reservoirs, they just explode,” he said. “We were all stunned and Pat said to us, ‘Get the camera.’ We were hallucinating,” Stewart said.
How did the dinosaur footprints accumulate?
According to a statement from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, dinosaur footprints accumulated over thousands of years due to various preservation processes. The movement of tectonic plates caused the tracks to rise and become exposed as the ground deformed upward.
According to the National Park Service, It was this tectonic activity that was part of the geological upheaval that gave rise to the 966 km long Alaska Range near Denali National Park.
The footprints not only represent the presence of large herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs – a diverse and forested environment where impressive creatures such as tyrannosaurs, raptors and flying reptiles lived side by side – but also show fossilized traces of plants, pollen, crustaceans and wading birds.
“It was a wooded area full of dinosaurs,” explains Druckenmiller. “Through Denali was running a tyrannosaurus that was several times larger than the largest grizzly bear today. There were raptors. There were flying reptiles. There were birds. It was an amazing ecosystem.”
Scientists hope that these discoveries will provide a more detailed understanding of the ecosystem 70 million years ago. “All these little clues help us understand what the environment was like as a whole,” Stewart says.
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