Chalking With Dinosaurs, Part 2

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A chalk-outlined theropod footprint from Utah, with my left foot for scale.

As GeoWeek 2020 starts on Saturday May 9th, so does Chalking With Dinosaurs. And since we can’t all go to the Dinosaur Coast this weekend and hunt fossilized footprints, let’s bring the dinosaurs to our streets, our driveways, and our houses.

My video below gives an introduction to Chalking With Dinosaurs, and the science of ichnology. The Jurassic rocks of Yorkshire really are among the world’s best for finding dinosaur footprints!

 

Where exactly can you find footprints (once the Covid-19 travel restrictions are lifted, of course)? This is explained in my second video, below, but from Port Mulgrave in the north to Yons Nab in the south, the North Yorkshire coast has loads of places where dinosaur tracks have been discovered.

 

For an introduction to the Jurassic geology of Yorkshire, John Powell’s 2010 presidential paper for the Yorkshire Geological Society is always a good starting place. If you then want to explore the Yorkshire dinosaur track sites in greater detail, the 2003 paper by Mike Romano and Martin Whyte (also a presidential address to the Yorkshire Geological Society!) is the place to go.

But if you want to get some dinosaur footprints chalked on your street, and then learn how we interpret such fossils and work out how dinosaurs might have behaved, you’ll have to follow the hashtag #ChalkingWithDinosaurs over the next few days, mostly on Twitter.

All together now: “Open the door, get on the floor, everybody chalk a dinosaur…”

 

Earth scientist in York, fossilist across Yorkshire. Co-director of the Yorkshire Fossil Festival and palaeontologist for hire. Can be found twittering, facebooking, and instagramming as @fossiliam.

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