These are large tracks!
Week 2 of field work, Dianna, Thomas, Justin and I head to Blanco, TX. Here, some well known dinosaur trackways can be observed in the bed of the Blanco River. Because of their location, some are strongly affected by erosion induced by the river, especially those close from the center of the creek. These tracks are located on private land: any visitor must request permission from landowners before trespassing.
Temperature cooled down, we started early in the morning when it was still felt chilly. Using hand brushes and brooms, we removed most of the sediment that fills individual tracks to reveal the original morphology of each foot and, when the track is very well preserved, a ridge or rim of solidified mud that indicates the proximity of the fossil track from the original track layer. Indeed, most tracks are undertracks: they correspond to the deformation of sediments under the surface where dinosaurs actually walked. The deeper from the original primary track layer, the less defined features will be.
Cleaning and digitizing the dinosaur trackways not all the work we are planning to achieve for this project, we also want to describe rock layers below and above tracklayer and collect samples that will be subsequently analyzed in the lab to derive paleoenvironmental informations. All starts in the field, with very classic but efficient techniques!
