Storm Ciara: 130 million-year-old dinosaur footprint uncovered on Isle of Wight

A 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprint was reportedly discovered on the Island of Wight as Storm Ciara hit the United Kingdom last week. According to reports, the footprint was of a three-toed dinosaur and was preserved in a sheet of clay. It was discovered on February 12 by people belonging to the Wight Coast Fossils group.

Wight Coast Fossils group discover 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprint

The group mentioned the discovery on their Facebook handle wherein they explained the fossil's intricate details.

"The Atlantic Ocean is taking aim at us this week, with storms, high winds and lashing rain! But all this weather is revealing traces of vanished worlds along our coastline! Shifting sands at Sandown Bay revealed this beautiful 130 million-year-old dinosaur track yesterday, preserved in the brightly coloured floodplain clays of the Wessex Formation!"

 

"The pointed toes of this track may indicate a large theropod, perhaps Neovenator or the spinosaur Baryonyx. The mottled clays the footprint is preserved in are a paleosol, an ancient soil horizon, representing an area of boggy overbank marshland that seasonally dried and flooded."

 

"Our track maker was crossing this environment 130 million years ago, heading southwest in what is now Sandown Bay, leaving these huge tracks in the boggy soil. Behind the animal lay a range of low forested hills, while ahead lay a flat floodplain landscape dotted with floodplain forests, river channels, and herds of herbivorous dinosaurs."

 

"Clay footprints such as these can be relatively common in our Wessex Formation exposures, but do not hold up to the forces of erosion for long. Sadly they will typically disappear in a couple of days or weeks, as the tide wears down the soft clays of the Wessex Formation, an awesome but fleeting glimpse of a time long gone, lying in plain sight on our coastline!"

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Violent storms that have hit the United Kingdom have revealed may dinosaur footprints found near the area of Hastings, East Sussex. According to reports, those footprints belonged to dinosaurs such as the theropod, stegosaur and ankylosaurus.

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