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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