Record dinosaur footprints found in France

The biggest dinosaur footprints ever found have been discovered in France. Two amateur enthusiasts stumbled across the prints in the Jura mountains north of Lyon. They’re huge – up to two metres in diameter – and they cover a vast area of land, having been left in what was wet sand about 150 million years ago.

“It’s amazing, because it’s not just fossils, it’s also traces of life,” said geologist Patrice Landry. “You can see where they walked, you can imagine the dinosaurs on this beach, feet sinking in the sludge, coming and going.”

Palaeontologists think the prints were made by sauropods, gentle leaf-eaters who were the true giants of the dinosaur family; some of them may have been 30 metres long, and weighed 100 tonnes.
The prints were found near the village of Plagne, and local people are excited.

“It’s great to know they were the biggest dinosaurs. It’s fantastic; I’ve seen them, and they are amazing,” said one man.

The Jura region has thrown up thousands of other finds recently and gives its name to the Jurassic period of history. These new prints should make Plagne one of the leading dinosaur sites in the world.

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tags: Archaeology, Dinosaur, France