Researchers discover thousands of dinosaur footprints in Alaska | 24CA News

Dustin Stewart has been obsessive about dinosaurs since he was 9 years outdated. But he by no means dreamed he’d develop as much as research 70-million-year-old footprints in Alaska.

Scientists have discovered dinosaur tracks within the Denali National Park earlier than, however by no means something on this scale.

Stewart, a paleontologist and graduate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), says there are 1000’s of newly discovered prints crawling up vertical partitions “like Spider-Man.” 

“Seeing that for the first time, oh, we were on the next level. Unbelievable. Everyone was excited,” he informed As it Happens visitor host Paul Hunter. “[They were like] ‘Oh, my God, look at that one; look at that one.'” 

Stewart is a lead creator of the research that analyzed what researchers say is the biggest identified dinosaur monitor web site in Alaska. He labored alongside Patrick Druckenmiller, the director of the Museum of the North in Fairbanks. The findings had been printed final month within the journal Historical Biology. 

‘We had been freaking out’

Stewart and his crew got down to study extra after listening to concerning the web site from nationwide park workers, who first observed a few of the tracks in 2015 on a rocky outcrop researchers have since dubbed the Coliseum. 

After mountain climbing for seven or eight hours, he mentioned they weren’t very passionate about what they discovered at first.

“We were exhausted, and we were seeing there [was a] wall that had some dinosaur tracks on it. But not [as many as] we were kind of expecting,” he mentioned.

However, when the solar began setting and “hit this perfect angle” on the wall, he says they noticed dozens of tracks — after which a whole bunch, and 1000’s extra.

“Immediately all of us were just flabbergasted, and then Pat said, ‘Get your camera.’ We were freaking out.”

A glance again in time

The tracks are believed to hint again about 69 million years, inserting them within the Cretaceous interval. Stewart says he believes most tracks had been from the Pachyrhinosaurus and Nanuqsaurus — the latter a cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex. 

He says a number of footprints present several types of dinosaurs that had been proper subsequent to one another, which makes him consider that one dinosaur walked a path someday, and one other the following day.

“We’re seeing this area of tracks through time and in multiple events that created this kind of environment,” mentioned Stewart. 

The researchers consider the Coliseum, which seems to be like vertical layered rocks pointing outwards, was as soon as horizontal and flat on the bottom and close to a watering gap.

Many completely different creatures would collect there for water, he mentioned, which might clarify why so many alternative kinds of tracks may very well be present in one spot.

“It is probably similar to something we see in Africa where you see these animals we don’t really associate with one another — lions, giraffes, alligators, and they’re all there …. in the same area,” mentioned Stewart.

The shapes of the footprints ranged from blobs and holes to extra outlined footprints.

“You can see the shape of the toes and the texture of the skin” in a few of the prints, Druckenmiller, senior creator of the research, mentioned in a press launch.

Possible proof of dinosaur migration

Donald Henderson, a paleontologist from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta who was not concerned within the research, says the findings are fairly superb.

“Normally we just get, you know, maybe, a few metres long and one or two metres wide, but they’ve got this huge expanse of rock exposed,” he mentioned.

Henderson mentioned tracks that lay flat on the bottom could be obscured over time. Nearby rocky hills are “constantly being eroded” and might settle onto the bottom. Plants may additional obscure tracks as they develop over prime them.

However, because the Coliseum “walls” are vertical, nothing can actually accumulate, he mentioned.

Last yr the museum reported on a dinosaur monitor web site in southern Alberta and located proof of the identical creatures as these Stewart’s crew present in Alaska.

Henderson mentioned that this discovery reveals that animals had been residing all the best way from the far north to the south such because the United States.

During the late Cretaceous interval, the planet may very well be described as a “greenhouse world” with no polar ice caps, Henderson mentioned. Still, dinosaurs residing in what’s now Alaska most likely skilled “long, long dark” polar nights, presumably main some emigrate.

“That might explain why you’ve got basically the same dinosaur as in Alberta and Alaska,” he mentioned.

Stewart is optimistic there are much more tracks to be discovered at Denali National Park sooner or later.

“We’re going to find more of [them] every single year we go out there,” he mentioned.