There’s a silver lining to the extreme drought in Somervell County: Visible 100-plus-million-year-old dinosaur footprints.
The footprints were first discovered last summer, revealed when Paluxy River waters receded. With the drought conditions currently in the area of Dinosaur Valley State Park, those footprints are even more on display now.
“Tracks are once again visible this year due to the drought. Researchers and volunteers have worked to clean and record more tracks at various sites around the park,” park superintendent Jeff Davis told KSAT.
Read more: Texas drought reveals dinosaur footprints created more than 100 million years ago
Thomas Adams, curator of paleontology and geology at the Witte Museum, told the San Antonio Express-News last year that the tracks were created between 104 million and 110 million years ago by an Acrocanthosaurus. The dinosaur was the the largest North American predator of its time and probably left tracks while slowly walking through the mud along the shore of present-day Glen Rose scavenging for prey.
“The footprints they left behind would dry out and harden within days or even hours,” Adams said. “When the water rose, it would cover the tracks, which became filled with sediment, so they’d be protected from erosion.”
Dinosaur tracks were first recorded in Texas in 1917.
Another local dinosaur: Meet Iguanodon, the big dinosaur that lived in the Texas Hill Country
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July in Somervell County was the 18th driest on record in 129 years. Rainfall was about 1.53 inches behind normal through July, the latest data available.
In Government Canyon State Natural area near San Antonio, dinosaur tracks believed to be left by Acrocanthosaurus and Sauroposeidon dinosaurs can be seen in a spot about 2.5 miles up the Joe Johnston Route trail (a 5-mile roundtrip hike). They’re the only known dinosaur tracks on public land in South Texas.
