An excavation at Dewars Farm Quarry in England’s Oxfordshire county has revealed 200 dinosaur footprints dating back to the Mid-Jurassic period (166 million years ago). It is believed to be the largest dinosaur trackway discovered in the UK.  

Some major highlights at the site include footprints of the gigantic 18-meter-long Cetiosaurus and nine-meter-long Megalosaurus. The former was one of the largest herbivore dinosaurs ever lived and the latter was the first dinosaur scientists named. 

In fact, the word “Megalosaurs” was coined in 1824, way before the term “dinosaur” came into existence in 1842.

“Scientists have known about and been studying megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,” Emma Nicholls, one of the researchers and a collection manager at the Museum of Natural History, said.

Discovering the dinosaur footprints

The dinosaur footprints were first noticed by quarry worker Gary Johnson who was clearing the clay on the ground with a digger when he suddenly noticed a series of strange humps. When he removed mud from some humps, dinosaur footprints emerged.

“I thought I’m the first person to see them. And it was so surreal – a bit of a tingling moment, really,” Johnson told BBC.

Soon a team including more than 100 researchers from the University of Oxford and University of Birmingham arrived at the site and began digging the ground. 

The excavation continued for two weeks and revealed five dinosaur trackways, the longest of which measured 150 meters. About 200 footprints in total were discovered on the five tracks. 

The footprints suggest that giant, long-necked, plant-eating sauropods walked on four tracks, while carnivore megalosaurs used one. 

“It’s rare to find them so numerous in one place and it’s rare to find such extensive trackways as well,” Nicholls told AFP.

A BBC team filmed the entire excavation and made a documentary film titled Digging for Britain. It launched iPlayer on January 7 and is supposed to air on BBC2 the next day.

Footprints as snapshots of a dinosaur’s life

The researchers captured over 20,000 photos of the dinosaur footprints and the excavation site. They will use the photos to create 3D models.  

“The really lovely thing about a dinosaur footprint, particularly if you have a trackway, is that it is a snapshot in the life of the animal,” Richard Butler, one of the researchers and a professor of palaeobiology, said. 

“You can learn things about how that animal moved. You can learn exactly what the environment that it was living in was like. So tracks give us a whole different set of information that you can’t get from the bone fossil record,” Butler added.

For instance, an interesting piece of information the footprints revealed that the place was once covered in muddy warm water. However, soon after the dinosaurs passed from there, possibly a storm hit the reason, covering the trackways with sediments and preserving them for hundreds of millions of years. Without such an event, the tracks would have washed away. 

Moreover, the trackways reveal a region where megalosaurs and sauropods crossed paths. The 3D models of the footprints along with other fossil records can be used to recreate this interaction along with the environment in which the footprints were made.

“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out. Along with other fossils like burrows, shells, and plants, we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through,” Duncan Murlock, a collections manager at the Museum of Natural History, said.

The next step is to ensure the trackways are preserved. The footprints cover a large area of the quarry, and scientists are working with the quarry operators to find a practical way to protect the site.