“When it starts raining they will fill up with water and mud. Most likely we will not see them like this again for a very long time,” the park said.
GLEN ROSE, Texas — They say everything is bigger in Texas and that includes dinosaur tracks.
Over 113 million years ago, pre-historic dinosaurs roamed what is now the Glen Rose area in Texas and managed to leave fossilized tracks hidden beneath the Paluxy River. They were recently re-discovered by workers of the Dinosaur Valley State Park, as shown in videos and images posted to their Facebook page.
“The Paluxy River has pretty much gone dry this drought,” said one park worker in a Facebook video post shared on Aug. 17. “What’s cool about the river is what you’ll find in the river. Sweep a little bit of the dirt and dust away and this is what you’ll find… dinosaur tracks.”
In the video, the worker points out how many tracks have three large claw marks, commonly belonging to the theropod dinosaur class, he said. This was confirmed in a 2012 study, which also said the river holds tracks from the sauropod class, too.
“These are normally underwater so you don’t easily get to see these… well in shallow water, covered in dirt and silt,” he said.
The park also shared several photos of volunteers cleaning out the long trail of prints as they worked on “dinosaur track mapping,” which also consisted of measuring the tracks, the park commented in their posts.
It is likely the tracks will be covered up again, especially thanks to the stormfront passing through the Lone Star State.
“When it starts raining they will fill up with water and mud. Most likely we will not see them like this again for a very long time,” the park said.
Dinosaur Valley State Park is located at 1629 Park Rd 59., Glen Rose, TX 76043, which is about an hour and a half drive northwest of Waco. It is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
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