Big, New Dinosaur Trackway To Be Made Public Near Moab

"New" is kind of a misnomer for a bunch of rocks holding fossilized dinosaur footprints. But this one is newly discovered, and will be new to the public when it opens, probably in October.

KSL TV has this report about the discovery, and about the work to prepare the walkway for its public debut. The video at right is from KSL, and we offer excerpts below.

Moab area dinosaur tracks were in the news earlier this year when someone stole a footprint from a well-known trackway. That person has since been arrested but the track was never recovered (because it was dumped into the Colorado River and divers couldn't find it). It will be interesting to see how this new site is presented and protected.

Here are the excerpts:

The tracks were first discovered by a Moab resident in 2009 but the location of the discovery-site has been kept secret. Scientists from the University of Colorado and the Bureau of Land Management studied the site north of Moab and excavations began last year.

"Over 200 tracks that we're aware of so far that we've uncovered,” volunteer Lee Shenton said. “And at least one case where there's 17 consecutive prints from the same animal.

“I think it's going to be something really important. It has at least a dozen different animals."

What Mathis finds fascinating about track sites is they “record behavior of dinosaurs in ways that the bones or body fossils cannot."

The BLM is raising funds to build a trail to the dinosaur tracks. The agency hopes to have the site open to the public by October.