140m-year-old Dinosaur Tracks Found For The First Time In The Western Cape

Dinosaurs have captured peoples imagination ever since their bones and teeth were first scientifically described in 1822 by geologist and palaeontologist Gideon Mantell in England.

Dinosaur bones have taught us a great deal about these animals from the age of dinosaurs, the Mesozoic Era , which stretched from approximately 252 million years ago to 65 million years ago. However, theres something especially appealing about a different kind of dinosaur fossil: their tracks, which show researchers what the animals were doing while they were alive.

Ichnology is the study of tracks and traces, and since 2008, the Cape South Coast Ichnology Project has documented more than 370 vertebrate track sites on South Africas southern coast. These sites are from the Pleistocene Epoch , which stretched from approximately 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago, much more recent than the Mesozoic.

We knew that this coastline contained Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, some of which include non-marine sediments that could potentially preserve dinosaur tracks. We are both familiar with dinosaur tracks from our research in Canada , so we decided to investigate the possibility of tracks in South Africas Western Cape.