Over three weeks, scientists uncovered more than 90 places in which dinosaurs left footprints along the middle portion of the Yukon River. It’s the first time scientists have delved so deeply into the area’s history from its earliest days.
Paleontologists Tony Fiorillo and Yoshitsugu Kobayashi took their time pondering the particulars of footprints left by at most half a dozen species from the past.
The most frequent footprints found by this team on the Yukon River this summer were dinosaurs eating plants that left three-toed footprints. Fiorillo and Kobayashi also discovered footprints left by a four-toed armored ankylosaur.
In his role in the study, Kobayashi, who is an instructor in the Japanese Hokkaido University, brought a number of tools. Kobayashi employs a method known as photogrammetry to create a 3-D image of fossils. This type of image can aid in identifying more intricate details that our eyes may miss. The drone was also used to fly over areas of the riverbanks which hold clues about the past landscape.
This type of research is like going through a book and filling with details. The footprints of various dinosaurs reveal who the main characters from the book are. But at the very least one of them asked a few questions. About one hundred million years ago an animal species that Fiorillo was unable to identify immediately left a large footprint that had three toes long and thin left behind.
After returning to his desk in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Fiorillo will search through books and other archives of the museum to discover what species of prehistoric animals left their mark on the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.
About halfway through the journey The team came across the riverbank for the size of the size of a football field. It was covered with large sandstone stones that were covered with footprints left by two species of shorebirds. Fiorillo was astonished by the discovery of at most 16 blocks covered with footprints.
“This could have been the place where they were able to find something interesting to do, for instance many food options,” Fiorillo said.
The next day, we discovered another fascinating discovery that was a collection of tiny knobby bumps on dark gray siltstone, which caused Fiorillo and Kobayashi an pause. It was a fossilized dinosaur skin impression. They claimed that the impression signifies that the area is ripe for conservation of bone.
In total, the team has recorded over 90 tracks locations left by at least half a dozen distinct ancient species. It was such a wealth of discoveries that Fiorillo and Kobayashi almost ran out of pages in their yellow hard-backed field notebooks.
“I began to wonder what I would have to do if my notebook runs over pages? But I’ve never used an entire field notebook,” Fiorillo said.
Kobayashi laughed. He admitted that the artist was in the process of running out of space. “So my drawings, figures and letters are becoming less and less.”
This summer’s research will inform a wider amount of research, almost one quarter century of research on the way large reptiles adapted to this extreme north. Kobayashi claimed that the tale isn’t fully told.
“So once we are back and get all the information together, we’ll have a new question to answer. Perhaps more than one,” Kobayashi said. “This stretch of river is just one chapter in the book. We are aware that there are many more outcrops that run down the river. We try to comprehend the chapter and, if there are any gaps left unanswered We’ll be sure to revisit the chapter.”
