Footprints of last dinosaur to walk on UK soil found

A new report has announced that canto Footprints of at least six different dinosaur species have been found, The last dinosaurs walked on British soil 110 million years ago. The discovery of dinosaur footprints by a curator at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and a scientist at the University of Portsmouth is the latest sign of the presence of dinosaurs in Britain.

Footprints were found on cliffs and shoreline at Folkestone, Kent, where stormy conditions hit the reef and coastal waters and continually reveal new fossils. Professor of Paleobiology, David Martil, he declared: “This is the first time that dinosaur footprints have been found in the layers known as the ‘Folkestone Formation’ and is an extraordinary discovery as these dinosaurs would have been the last to roam the country before becoming extinct. They were walking close to where the White Cliffs of Dover are now”. when he saw them.

Fossils are footprints made of sediment that filled the footprint left when a dinosaur’s foot was pushed into the ground, which then preserved it. The footprints come from a variety of dinosaurs, indicating that there was a relatively high diversity of dinosaurs in southern England at the end of the Early Cretaceous period, 110 million years ago.

It is believed that they. come from ankylosaur, rugged looking armored dinosaurs that resembled survival tanks; theropod, dinosaur three-legged carnivore In form of Tyrannosaurus Rex ; He ornithopodsHerbivorous, “bird-hip” dinosaurs are so called because their pelvic structure is somewhat bird-like.

Philip HadlandThe curator of collections and engagements at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is the document’s lead author. He said: “In 2011, I found unusual tracks in the Folkestone Rock Formation. It looked like they were repeating themselves and all I could think was footprints. This was contrary to what most geologists say about the rocks here, but I went looking for more footprints and as the tides revealed more of the erosion, I found even better ones. More work needed to be done to convince the scientific community of their validity, so I collaborated with experts from the University of Portsmouth to verify what I had found.

Most of the findings are distinct footprints, but one finding includes six footprints, which form a “track”, which is more than consecutive footprints of the same animal.

This footprint is similar in shape to the track elephant’s footprint and may have been identified as a . as done ornithopodichnus , of which similar but smaller footprints were also found in China from the same period.

The largest footprint found—80 cm wide and 65 cm long—has been identified as belonging to a dinosaur-like iguanodon. Iguanodons were also plant eaters, growing up to 10 meters in length and walking on both legs or all sides.

Professor Martil said: “It is fascinating to find such a range of species in a single location. These dinosaurs probably took advantage of tidal exposure on shores in search of food or to take advantage of clear migration routes.

In the late Cretaceous, this part of Kent, and indeed much of the UK, was under shallow sea, but this study also clearly shows that the Folkestone Formation was intertidal.

Headland said: “In addition to finding that dinosaurs went to sea like their modern relatives, birds, we also found new evidence that changes the geology interpretation of the Folkestone Formation’s strata. This only suggests that what has previously been published on the geology of a region is not always accurate and may lead to new insights. Almost anyone has the potential to make discoveries that combine scientific knowledge from publicly accessible geological sites”.

The document has been published on Proceedings of the Geological Association And some of the footprints are currently on display at the Folkestone Museum.

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