One of the many excavated dinosaur footprints. Image: Dr Luke Meade/University of Birmingham
The footprints will provide researchers with material for further education and analysis.
Researchers in the UK have discovered a huge expanse of quarry floor filled with around 200 different dinosaur footprints, creating multiple enormous trackways.
The dig took place on Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire and involved researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham. The team uncovered five extensive trackways which date back to the Middle Jurassic Period (around 166m years ago), with evidence of more being present in the surrounding area, making it the UK’s biggest ever dinosaur footprint site ever unearthed.
The team also used aerial drone photography in order to build detailed 3D models of the site.
According to the researchers, the footprints were made by two different dinosaur species: the Megalosaurus, which was a carnivore, and herbivorous dinosaurs called sauropods (most likely to be Cetiosaurus, an up to 18m-long cousin of the Diplodocus). The longest continuous trackway which was uncovered measured more than 150m in length.
Referring to the Megalosaurus, which was the first dinosaur worldwide to be scientifically named and described in 1824, Dr Emma Nicholls, vertebrate palaeontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH), said: “Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found.”
The newly uncovered trackways connect to discoveries made in the area back in 1997, where previous limestone quarrying revealed more than 40 sets of dinosaur footprints, with some trackways reaching up to 180 metres in length.
Prof Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontologist from the University of Birmingham, added that the footprints “offer an extraordinary window” into the lives of dinosaurs, and help to reveal details about their movements, interactions and the tropical environment they inhabited.
During the new excavation, more than 20,000 images were created of the footprints. These will provide researchers with material for further study and education, and could provide insights into how these dinosaurs walked, how large they were, and if and how they interacted.
One notable area of the site shows the carnivore and herbivore tracks crossing over, which led researchers to question about whether and how the two were interacting.
According to Richard Butler, professor of palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, the team’s 3D models will allow them to “continue to study and make accessible this fascinating piece of our past for generations to come”.
The latest discovery will be broadcast on BBC 2’s Digging for Britain on 8 January, as well as at a planned public exhibition to be held in OUMNH.
In July of last year, scientists unearthed the most complete dinosaur remains in the UK in the past 100 years.
The specimen, known as Comptonatus chasei, was found in the cliffs of Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight and is around 125m years old. It was named after the place it was found in, as well as after Nick Chase, the late fossil collector who first discovered it in 2013.
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