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Drought in Texas reveals 113-mln-years-old dinosaur tracks

As Paluxy River in Glen Rose, Texas, gives way to relentless drought, tracks evidencing the passage of a T-rex-like dinosaur 113 million years ago are revealed to the light of day.

A dinosaur called Acrocanthosaurus, a seven-tonne, two-legged carnivore with small arms that resembled the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but smaller, was certainly unaware that he had just stepped onto nature’s walk of fame, eternalising his passage for the aeons to come.

Thanks to the drought, which Jeff Davis, superintendent at Dinosaur Valley State Park, called “a pretty bad” one, the large dinosaur’s footprints were exposed.

“So the river, the Paluxy River that runs through the centre of the park, has dried up and left us high and dry, which is not a great thing. But the good thing about it is that it exposes dinosaur tracks that either haven’t been seen before or tracks that have not been seen in years or sometimes decades,” Mr Davis said.

The muddy areas of what today is the Paluxy River were where dinosaurs roamed over 100 million years ago. Shortly after formation, they were covered over with sediment due to a flood, Mr Davis said, which later turned into limestone and protected the prints. Once exposed, the prints start to degrade.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword because, without the river, we wouldn’t be able to see them. We wouldn’t know they were there. But once they’re exposed, that’s when they start to degrade,” Mr Davis reflected.

More than 93 percent of Texas has been in drought since mid-July, according to the United States Drought Monitor. As of mid-August, more than 26 percent of Texas was at the highest level, characterized by widespread loss of pastures and crops as well as water shortages.

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