Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Dinosaur dance floors

There is an amazing sight (site) in Sucre, Bolivia, which features hundreds of distinct dinosaur tracks from at least 8 different species – a total of 5,055 individual prints. The "dinosaur dance floor," as it is called, stands 328' (100 m) high and stretches .9 miles (1.5 km). Ian Belcher of The Guardian explains how the limestone wall (IMAGES HERE) was formed: It was unique climate fluctuations that made the region a palaeontological honey pot. The creatures’ feet sank into the soft shoreline in warm damp weather, leaving marks that were solidified by later periods of drought. Wet weather then returned, sealing the prints below mud and sediment. The wet-dry pattern was repeated seven times, preserving multiple layers of prints. The cherry on the cake was added when tectonic activity pushed the flat ground up to a brilliant viewing angle – as if nature was aware of its tourism potential.” Meanwhile, the name of another "dinosaur dance floor" in northern Arizona, U.S., which has been discredited by geologists at the University of Utah as only a dense collection of unusual potholes eroded in the sandstone, must now be understood metaphorically.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You may add your comments here.

Labels