Western prof reports first evidence of Cretaceous Period dinosaurs in South Africa
Excerpt from an article by Jeff Renaud for Western News
Guy Plint is no stranger to tracking prehistoric beasts. Over the past 40 years, the Western Earth Sciences professor emeritus has studied the Cretaceous rocks of Alberta and British Columbia finding conclusive traces of dinosaurs like the armored ankylosaurus, Deinosuchus (a giant ancestor of the modern crocodile), and most recently, the world’s oldest heron-like bird.
Now, Plint and his collaborators have identified footprints of Cretaceous dinosaurs in South Africa for the first time ever, the majority most likely produced by brachiosaurs. These tracks were found in a remote coastal setting in the Robberg Nature Reserve, a protected area that lies south of Plettenberg Bay in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Although the rocks had been studied previously, the tracks had not been recognized because the rocks formed vertical cliffs, so most tracks were seen in the cross-section, and it was not possible to see the impressions of toes people usually use to identify a footprint.
The findings were published recently in Ichnos, an international journal for plant and animal traces. Read the full original article here.
Image: View of underside of thin beds of sandstone and mudstone deposited in an abandoned tidal channel, showing large scale deformation, representing front and hind feet of sauropod dinosaurs walking through soft mud. In photo: Guy Plint (on left) and Kei Heyns, the senior conservation ranger at Fransmanshoek Conservancy in the Western Cape. (Annemarie Plint)
