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Texas Floods Reveal 100 Million Year Old Dinosaur Tracks

Texas Floods Reveal 100 Million Year Old Dinosaur Tracks

Floods Uncover Rare Dinosaur Footprints in Texas

TEXAS – Recent floods that claimed at least 135 lives have unexpectedly revealed a remarkable piece of prehistoric history in the Sandy Creek area. As the powerful waters stripped away layers of sediment and debris, they exposed a trail of 15 well-preserved, three-toed dinosaur footprints.

The discovery was made during a volunteer-led cleanup and quickly drew the attention of palaeontologists from the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School Museum of Earth History.

Matthew Brown, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the museum, says the tracks appear to belong to an Acrocanthosaurus — a massive carnivorous dinosaur that walked on two legs and could grow up to 35 feet long. Each footprint, embedded in the Glen Rose Formation’s fossil-rich limestone, measures between 18 and 20 inches.

The site also holds historical value. In 1985, an 18th-century artillery piece was found nearby, hinting at the area’s layered past.

Experts are now racing to protect the fossilised tracks from damage as heavy machinery works on flood recovery. A scientific team is using mapping and 3D imaging to determine whether the footprints were left by a single dinosaur or an entire group.

This rare find — uncovered by a natural disaster — underscores the unexpected ways Earth’s deep history can resurface. The Glen Rose Formation has long been a treasure for fossil hunters, and this latest discovery adds another chapter to its legacy.

For scientists and history enthusiasts alike, the footprints offer a breathtaking glimpse into a world that existed over 100 million years ago, reminding us of the delicate balance between disaster recovery and preserving our planet’s ancient heritage.

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