Dinosaur tracks from 200 million years ago found in school lobby

Students at an Australian high school received an exciting paleontology lesson this week when a researcher confirmed that a fossil stored on their campus for two decades preserves tens of dinosaur traces dating back about 200 million years.

The rock plate stems from the callide basin in the northeastern state of Queensland. Coal miners discovered it in 2002, and after discovering unusual traces embedded, they announced a local geologist who donated it to Biloela State High School, where his wife learned science. The rock became a central view in the student’s lobby in the main office, set up in a stand and surrounded by colorful dinosaur walls painted by the students.

However, school officials did not understand the full importance of the fossils-some even mistaken him for a copy-while the paleontologists verified the signs belonging to small dinosaurs, with two legs from the early Jurassic era. they Published their findings on Monday In the revised magazine by peers Historical Biology.

This is “one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur traces ever documented in Australia, a paleontologist at the University of Queensland, Anthony Romilio, the main author of the study, said in a statement. “Next to an unprecedented photograph of the abundance of dinosaur, movement and behavior from a time when no fossilized dinosaur bones have been found in Australia.”

The oldest Dinosaur bones in Australia come from the middle Jurassic period about 160 million years ago, Romilio explained by email. “Trail fossils, like these, are the only evidence Australia has from the dinosaurs before this period,” he said.

The school is located in the rural city of Biloela about 9 miles south of the Callide Basin. Although Dinosaur tracks have been reported in the area for more than three decades, only one track had been officially described before. The newly analyzed fossil contains a single three -fingered press on one surface and a two -song trail to another. A third surface contains at least 13 crossings and many isolated prints. The researchers identified a total of 66 fossilized prints, estimated that there are 47 creatures left.

“We obviously always considered Fossil as historically important in terms of age and related to their dinosaurs and their history in Central Queensland,” said David Hall, the school vice president, in an email. “We were not aware of the importance of the amount of tracks in the specimen being so unique.”

This week’s study detail how Romilio and other scholars identified prints that belong to Ornithischian dinosaurs, herbivores with a pelvic structure similar to that of birds. The small dinosaurs leaving their tracks on the school rock had their feet ranging from 15 to 20 inches and were moving with less than 4 miles per hour in watery terrains when they left their mark, Romilio estimates.

Prints that maintain their travel measure between 2 inches and nearly 8 inches long, although most add up to about 4 to 4.7 inches. The school’s school house mats less than one square meter in the area, but it is quite heavy that it took two of the former Romilio students to raise it from its stay and place it flat on earth so that the scientist could make a silicone mold of further study.

Romilio then examined the fossil by taking pictures of the surface and turning them into a virtual 3D pattern. Many of the tracks are not visible to the naked eye, but digital patterns allow researchers to adjust the lighting and apply depth resolution filters to detect hidden details.

“Only after making it back to the lab, countless tracks appeared,” Romilio said.

Fossils where you least expect

Sometimes, the most interesting fossil discoveries are hidden in simple appearance. In December, New York house owners noticed what turned out to be a full mastodon jaw extending from the ground to their yard.

staleThe new dinosaur identified by old photos of fossils destroyed by World War II bombsfrom Leslie Katz

“The vast majority of dinosaur fossils, they are not found by paleontologists,” Romilio said. “They are actually found by people on earth.”

Local community members contacted Romilio for high school fossil after learning his work in other traces discovered nearby. Study at Biology It also describes the traces of the dinosaur he observed on a 2-ton stone in the parking lot of the coal mine.

“I am extraordinary to think that part of history this rich was resting in a school yard all this time,” he said. “His true importance is difficult to appreciate until someone has done the research, and now we are all celebrating it.”