Gully washer reveals Jurassic prints

Hoosier geologist discovers evidence of 165-million-year-old therapods with attitude

Some of the largest footprints found so far were probably made by a 6-foot-tall therapod, a meat-eating dinosaur that walked on two legs.

Hoosier geologist Erik Kvale (pronounced Kwah-lee) was on an outing with friends and family near Shell, Wyo., when the group stopped for a closer look at some intriguing limestones in a gully recently washed out by a rainstorm. When one of his relatives asked if dinosaur tracks might be found in the limestone, Kvale replied, "Probably not, but... here is one right in front of me."

The new find extends across two square miles and contains perhaps as many as a million dinosaur tracks. Announcement of the discovery by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was delayed until last week because the federal government was evaluating how best to preserve the site, which is on public land and easily accessible from a major highway. The site is crossed by the Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway.

Some of the largest footprints found so far were probably made by a 6 foot-tall therapod, a meat-eating dinosaur that walked on two legs, Kvale said. Previously, this area -- called the Sundance Formation -- was thought to have been entirely underwater during the Middle Jurassic.

Instead of dinosaur tracks, one commonly finds fossil shells left from an ancient sea.

But these dinosaur tracks were clearly made at a shoreline, not in deep ocean water, Kvale said.

The discovery has the potential to reveal much about the behavior, diversity and ecological environments of dinosaurs from a period of time for which very little is known about North American dinosaurs.

Kvale, a research geologist at the Indiana Geological Survey in Bloomington and an adjunct professor at Indiana University, knew that dinosaur remains in the Sundance Formation were a rarity. He grew up in the area and has studied the geologic wonders of Wyoming's Bighorn Basin since childhood. He had driven through the area many times, and for decades others have walked through the area, including the gulch.

The purpose of the trip was to prepare material for a new one-week summer field class that Kvale is offering through IUB's Department of Geological Sciences on dinosaur-bearing rocks (see related story below). Geologist James Farlow of IPFW, who co-edited the IU Press' The Complete Dinosaur, will participate in the study of the tracks. Kvale and Farlow will be joined by investigators from the Smithsonian Institution, Dartmouth College, the University of Wyoming and Kansas State University.

See this Home Pages archival site regarding The Complete Dinosaur:

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/013098/0130text/dino.htm

For more information about the Indiana Geological Survey, visit web site:

http://pyrite.igs.indiana.edu/igs/index.htm

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