Dinosaur tracks: Prehistoric chase scene reconstructed

By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News

Scientists have digitally reconstructed the scene of a dinosaur chase - preserved in the mud of an ancient river bed in Texas.

The tracks were left by two dinosaurs more than 110 million years ago.

Seventy years ago, the whole trackway was removed from the river bed and divided into blocks, which were moved to different locations for study.

Some of these blocks have been lost, but the team managed to use old photographs to reconstruct the site.

The research is published in the journal Plos One.

Lead researcher Peter Falkingham, from the Royal Veterinary College, said he and his colleagues had used just 17 photographs taken by American palaeontologist Roland T Bird, who first excavated the site in 1940.

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Large Field of Dinosaur Tracks Uncovered in Southwest Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- The discovery of a large field of dinosaur tracks in Arkansas has researchers busy using cutting-edge technology and traditional techniques to learn all that they can about the animals and environment that existed there 120 million years ago.

The track site, found in southwest Arkansas, covers an area of about two football fields and contains the fossilized tracks of several species and tracks from multiple animals of the same species, some of which have never been previously documented in Arkansas. The site will help researchers learn not only about the creatures that once roamed through the area, but also about the climate during the Early Cretaceous period 115 to 120 million years ago.

"The quality of the tracks and the length of the trackways make this an important site," said Stephen K. Boss, who led the National Science Foundation-funded project. Based on the rock in which the footprints were found, researchers have a good idea of what the climate would have been like.

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