Dinosaur Valley State Park, State park in Glen Rose, Texas
Dinosaur Valley is a state park in Glen Rose, Texas, where the Paluxy River flows through 617 hectares of protected land and exposes fossilized dinosaur footprints in the limestone riverbed. Five marked areas allow visitors to stand right next to these prints and recognize the shapes that animals millions of years old left in the soft ground.
The state of Texas acquired the land in 1968 through the State Parks Bonds Program, after paleontologists had started mapping the tracks in the riverbed. The park opened officially in 1972 to preserve these prehistoric finds for future generations and support scientific research.
The park stands at the center of controversies that began in the 1930s, when some residents carved false prints into the limestone to sell them to collectors. Those fakes were later exposed, and today scientific interest focuses solely on the genuine impressions that visitors can observe in the accessible stretches of the riverbed.
The best tracks are visible during low water levels in late summer and fall, when the riverbed is dry enough to make the shapes clear. Visitors should wear sturdy shoes, as some paths cross uneven ground and slippery stones.
Scientists identified Acrocanthosaurus through its triangular toe prints, which differ sharply from the round tracks of plant-eating sauropods. Some print sequences show that predators and herbivores walked through the same area at the same time, offering rare insights into their behavior.
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