High temperatures and lack of rainfall are sadly being the protagonists of this summer. As a consequence, the planet is experiencing an episode of extreme drought. Precisely the drought of a river that flows through the Valley of the Dinosaurs State Park, in Texas, has brought to light a series of footprints left by dinosaurs that lived in the area 113 million years ago.
The images of the footprints have been published by the theme park itself on its Facebook profile. In them you can see the traces of three fingers that go down the river bed that is now dry. The set of footprints is one of the longest in the world, according to park experts on the social network.
“Most of the tracks that have been discovered recently and that have been discovered in different parts of the river in the park belong to Acrocanthosaurus . This was a dinosaur that, as an adult, was about 4.5 meters tall and (weighed) about seven tons,” park spokeswoman Stephanie Salinas Garcia told CNN .
“Due to excessively dry conditions this past summer, the river completely dried up in most places, allowing more tracks to be discovered here in the park,” Salinas said. “Under normal river conditions, these newer tracks are underwater and are often filled with sediment, causing them to be buried and not as visible.”
According to park experts, most of the tracks that have been found are from Acrocanthosaurus , a dinosaur that weighed nearly 7 tons as an adult and was 4.5 meters tall. Another ancient reptile, the Sauroposeidon , would also have left its mark on the dried up river. The Sauroposeidon reached 44 tons in its adulthood and was about 18 meters tall.
Valley of the Dinosaurs State Park is inland southwest of Dallas and was once on the edge of an ancient ocean. Visitors who come to the theme park can see the footprints that dinosaurs left in the Paluxy river bed.
Although this summer’s drought has exposed the footprints, rain is expected to cover them again , helping to protect them from weather and erosion. “Although they will soon be re-buried by the rain and the river, the Valley of the Dinosaurs State Park will continue to protect these 113-million-year-old footprints not only for current generations, but for future ones as well,” Garcia said.
The drought we are experiencing this summer has not only brought to light the tracks of ancient reptiles in Texas. In eastern Serbia, the lowering of the water level in the Danube River has exposed dozens of German World War II ships, some of them loaded with ammunition. In our country, a dry swamp in Valdecañas, in Cáceres, shows the Guadalperal dolmen, also known as “Spanish Stonehenge” , a megalithic construction dated between the end of the 5th and the 3rd century BC. In India, on the Yangtze River, found Buddhist statues believed to be 600 years old.
