Giant dinosaur tracks found in North Texas at Dinosaur Valley State Park
GLEN ROSE, Texas - Our hot and dry summer conditions have led to a prehistoric find in North Texas.
Giant dinosaur tracks have been found in a dried up creek bed at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, about 80 miles southwest of Dallas.
The Robinett family said it was worth the drive from Houston.
"We’ve seen how many of the new ones? We just got to uncover a couple too? Yep," Ashley Robinett said.
Kim Scarlet and Mike Fogarty, from Plano, are amazed.
"The time period is what I can’t get over. Yes, it’s hard to wrap your head around how much time has gone by," they said.
Never seen before dinosaur tracks have been uncovered by extreme drought conditions at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose. The area where it was found is called the Ballroom Site.
With the river dried up, people can easily see baby dino prints, some were enormous three-toe species and others with five toes, and dinosaurs of all sizes and shapes.
"Hence the name ballroom. It’s just like they’re dancing every which direction," researcher and volunteer Paul Baker said. "I would say they’re feeding. They’re doing who knows what, we don’t know for sure. There are a lot of theories. That’s the fun part about it."
Featured
Remarkable fossil shows dinosaur, mammal forever frozen in epic battle
The 125 million-year-old fossil was discovered in the Lujiatun Member of the Lower Cretaceous Yixian formation in China back in 2012.
Finding these prints has been amazing, but the researchers are racing against the clock because the severe drought will only keep these prints uncovered for so long.
"Sometimes, we’re doing castings until 3 o’clock in the morning because we know we’re racing the rain, the weather, because once it rains, a lot of this will be covered," Baker explained.
It’s a fascinating sight to see whether you’re a curious visitor, a scientist, or other another kind of expert.
"He told me this was the edge of the ocean. This wasn’t a river back then. It was the edge of the ocean. That’s why there are so many tracks," Scarlett said.
"I just like dinosaurs so much that my mom made my middle name Rex and my nickname T-Rex," 7-year-old Theodore Robinett said.