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https://theconversation.com/dinosaur-tracksite-in-lesotho-how-a-wrong-turn-led-to-an-exciting-find-208963>
"I am a poor navigator. This is not an easy thing for a field geologist to
admit. We need to be able to find our planned area of interest in good time and
make our way back to our potentially hidden and distant vehicles at the end of
the day. It’s especially true that I am a poor navigator when I need to use
nondescript bushes, the distant hill shape, and the odd fallen boulder as
reference points.
So it was no surprise when I led my MSc student Loyce Mpangala and our PhD
candidate field assistant Akhil Rampersadh astray in Lesotho’s Roma Valley. We
were walking back to our car after looking at a dinosaur tracksite that I’d
visited before. The tracksite, which is marked on Google Maps as an attraction,
was on the other side of a sparsely populated hill with numerous informal
walkways, overlooking the National University of Lesotho.
Walking along the wrong (I didn’t know it then) footpath, I spotted a dinosaur
footprint I hadn’t seen before. Once you’ve worked on dinosaur tracks for seven
years and visited the same site a few times you get to know their shape and
their personality. And this one was different. The first footprint I spotted
superficially resembled others on the hill: three-toed, longer-than-wide with
claw marks; but it was far away from the known site we had just visited.
After taking a few more steps, we spotted some more footprints. These had
distinct shapes we had not yet seen in the Roma area: short, wide footprints
with rounded, stubby toes. When we looked more closely, they were sometimes
paired with star-shaped handprints. These footprints were made by herbivorous
ornithischian dinosaurs and it is the first time their distinct shape has been
documented in the Roma Valley, which is rich in fossil footprints. It adds to
scientists’ knowledge of the extensive trace fossil diversity of the local
dinosaur community during the Early Jurassic period about 200 million years
ago.
I guess sometimes – and I cannot overemphasise how rarely – the wrong turn can
lead you to the right place."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
