An Ancient Story

At the Taylor Site, upstream from this panel, fossilized dinosaur tracks with a denser in-fill material date to more than 100 million years ago. These ancient tracks have eroded in several different ways. One Acrocanthosaurus made a trackway of 150 steps; over time, the softer in-fill material in these tracks was removed by the swift waters of the Paluxy River, leaving tracks much lower than the surrounding rock. Another trackway was made by an ornithopod, one of a group of two-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs; this track has a hard in-fill flush with the surrounding rock because both eroded at the same rate. Three other tracks are relief tracks, where the surrounding limestone is eroding faster than the rust-colored in-fill material, leaving the tracks slightly raised above the surrounding rock.

Texas · United States