Stolen dinosaur footsteps

Australia is home to dinosaur footsteps. Sandstone holes of 1.5 metres long, estimated to be 130 million years old, have been fossilized in rocks in northern Australia. Apart from the dinosaur footprints found in Queensland, currently footprints have been found in a 200-kilometre area on the Dampier peninsula in Western Australia. The exact location is not disclosed.

There’s a good reason to keep sites, such as areas of dinosaur activity, a secret. New Scientist (4 August 2012) reveals that dinosaur footprints have been stolen. When researchers began studying the prints in Western Australia, they did not take precautions to keep the location a secret. Consequently in October 1996, a rare print – thought to be of a stegosaurus – went missing. It has never been recovered. Apparently the thief or thieves used a rock saw to remove the print that was embedded in a boulder. However, scientists think that, in doing so, the thieves may have destroyed the print – it may have disintegrated before it was removed from the ground because there has been no attempt to sell it.

At the same time, theropod tracks were stolen from another location. Hence, now the location of suspected dinosaur footprints is not disclosed.

Thousands of dinosaur footprints have been discovered in Western Australia since the 1990s. Scientists think that they come from at least 12 different species of dinosaur.

(www.newscientist.com)

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