볼리비아 절벽의 공룡발자국

볼리비아 절벽의 공룡발자국

이 놀라운 벽 볼리비아에있는 시멘트 공장 근처에 12 년 전에 발견되었습니다. 

자세한 연구 과학자들은이 벽 공룡 산책로의 거대한 숫자를 포함 것을 발견 한 후.

CAL-ORKO-Bolivia7

벽에 80 미터 높이 1,2 km 길이이며 공룡의 5000 개 이상의 산책로가 포함되어 있습니다. 

그들은 "공룡 댄스 플로어"라는. 당신을 놀라게한다이 벽에 대한 가장 특이한 것은 벽에 꽤 틀려서이며 

그것은 공룡이 걸을 등을 산책로두고 수있는 방법 진짜 미스테리 것입니다.

해외 소셜 미디어에서 신기한 공룡 발자국 사진이 화제를 모으고 있다. 까마득한 절벽 정상까지 공룡 발자국들이 줄을 지었다. 이 이미지는 조작이 없는 ‘진품’일까. 

사진은 볼리비아의 도시 스크레 인근에 있는 고생물학 유적지 칼 오르코에서 촬영된 것이다. 이곳에서 세계 최대 공룡 발자국 화석이 발견된 바 있다. 

공룡들은 최대 91m 높이의 절벽을 거슬러 올라간 것처럼 보이는 자국을 남겼다. 462개 가량 발자국 줄이 이어지며 총 5천 여 개의 발자국이 남아 있다. 

출처 : http://www.kuriositas.com/2013/09/the-incredible-dinosaur-wall-of-bolivia.html

Some things appear where you least expect them.  Although dinosaur tracks have been discovered the world over, climbing up a near vertical wall in a Bolivian quarry? Bolivia – yes, fine. Zooming up hundreds of feet towards the skies? Hardly.  Yet here they are.  Spread across a limestone slab a mile long and almost 300 feet high, this great wall at Cal Orcko near the city of Suvre reveals more than 5,000 footsteps, with 462 discrete trails.

Yet sixty eight million years ago (give or take a million or two) this immense vertical wall was a muddy plain across which dinosaurs danced.  Although the last verb is not one usually common in describing events from the Jurassic period, puzzled palaeontologists have call it the Dinosaur Dance Floor because many of the prints are positioned in strange patterns.

Image Credit Flickr User Carsten Drossel

Image Credit Flickr User Mark 75 
Back in the cretaceous period, Cal Orko bordered a vast lake. It was here that the first flowers bloomed on the continent and it was not long before they attracted herbivores.  It was only a short time afterwards that carnivores (including the favorite of many, T-Rex) moved in too.  As this melee of creatures moved around the shoreline they left their footprints in the mud.

Image Credit Flickr User vincentraal

Image Credit Flickr User Teen Wolf
We have the variations of the climate to thank for their preservation.  A period of dry weather solidified the prints.  Then, when the wet weather came around again they were buried under sediment and more mud.  There are seven layers of footprints made in this manner at Cal Orco. The tectonic movements of the earth’s plates pushed the flats and their footprints inexorably upwards. Nature made the perfect viewing angle for the scattered tracks of the dancing dinosaurs.

Image Credit Flickr User Germeister
Across the mud flats all those millions of years ago a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex made its solitary way across the banks of the lake.  All told his tracks extend for 347 meters and are the longest dino-tracks ever discovered.  The baby Rex has even acquired a nickname – Johnny Walker.

Image Credit Flickr User Carsten Drossel
Almost all of the prints are so well preserved that the individual species which made them can be ascertained.  As well as Johnny Walker about eight species have been recognized.  They include the Ankylosaurus, the Titanosaur and Carnotaurus.

Above is my rather poor attempt at imagining what the scene may have looked like with probably even poorer proportions but you get the general idea.  Palaeontologists have been able to establish a real idea of the speed at which the dinosaurs crossed the muddy bank by studying the depth of the prints and the number of toes which were plunged in to the thick mud by the enormous beasts.

Image Credit Flickr User Carsten Drossel

Image Credit Flickr User Miss Mass
Unfortunately these tracks will be lucky to last another ten years, let alone ten million.  Erosion and mining in the vicinity means that landslides are common.  Whole slabs of the trails have fallen off since they first appeared on the cliff face. Yet locals are not pessimistic.  They believe that below these tracks perhaps something even more incredible lies in wait to be discovered.