In the continent and country of Australia, there is the largest known dinosaur footprint. A footprint of a gigantic sauropod (a long necked dinosaur) was discovered in northwest Australia, measuring almost 65 inches or 1.75 meters, according to the lead author of the report, Steve Salisbury at the University of Queensland. Richard Hunter is another scientist working with the expedition, and he has been there for five years. There are many other dinosaur tracks, and together they are estimated to be 130 million years old upon rocks; some rocks that are believed to be 140 million years old.
The sauropod that made the largest foot impressions would have been approximately 5.4 meters(17 feet, 9 inches) tall at the hips. The tracks belong to carnivores dinosaurs and are in that area of northwest Australia, the Walmadany area, Dumpier Peninsula, 80 kilometers (49.71 miles) on a stretch of beach rocky land with twenty one different dinosaur tracks, which establishes that location as the most variety of dinosaur track fauna known. The team of paleontologists also found the first proven fossil evidence of the plant eating Stegosaurus in Australia.
For thousands of years, Australian aborigines knew of these dinosaur tracks, but did not generally know about dinosaurs. In the 1950’s, some of the footprints and track ways were illustrated and scientifically described, but not until early 2017 was an intricate research study made, and at the request of the indigenous people that are the caretakers of the site. The physical conditions of weather, rocks, soil, terrain are extremely favorable for fossilized dinosaur footprints and their preservation, but face erosion.
The Australian native custodians of the fossilized prints will not allow the tracts to be removed by the paleontologists as the whole area is deemed as an ancient holy site and when erosion, after many years, shall destroy the tracks, the Australian natives agreed to accept the natural disappearance of the tracks. All the paleontologists were able to do with those dinosaur footprints is to photograph, mold, and digitally map them.
The feet impressions of the very long gone animal giants are subject to the detrimental effects of erosion because they are on the Broome Sandstone, that was formed in three major occurrences where floods deposited sandstone over huge swaths of land.
Australia recently has had other major dinosaur discoveries. In early 2015, the fossilized bones of an elaphrosaur was unearthed at a dig site in Victoria at an outback, by volunteer Jessica Parker. The creature roamed Australia 110 million years ago, according to a statement released by the Swinburne University of Technology.
Also, inside a deep opal mine near Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia; scientists have discovered the fossilized bony remains of a herd of dinosaurs. One of the dinosaurs, found by opal miner Robert Foster in the 1980’s, was mixed in with other boney parts from various dinosaurs. Doctor Phil Bell, head researcher from the University of New England in Australia, has indicated. In 2018. Bell and his assistants named a new species of a planting eating dinosaur, whose fossilized remains were unearthed at the Lightning River site.
