Texas Almanac, 1984-1985 Page: 58
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58 TEXAS ALMANAC 1984-1985
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1' a ~Visitors to the Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose in Somervell County can see life-sized replicas of giant reptiles
that once roamed parts of Texas. The figures were donated by Atlantic-Richfield Co. in 1970 after they had been
displayed at the World's Fair. (Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife)
Texas Dinosaurs Numerous, InterestingMany fearful creatures have prowled the lands of
Texas over the millennia. None were more interesting
than the dinosaurs that called much of the central part
of the state home during the Cretaceous period 100 mil-
lion years ago.
The geology and the climate of the state were much
different then. A huge ocean covered most of East and
South Texas. The shoreline ran from generally west of
Fort Worth to Austin and then southwest to San Antonio
and Laredo. Along this general perimeter have been
discovered fossilized remains of many giant reptiles,
fish and birds that thrived in the tropical climate of the
day.
Fossilized remains of the creatures that called Tex-
as home first were noted by scientists in the 1870s. R. T.
Hill, in a report on fossil vertebrates found near the
defunct community of Lambert in Parker County in
1886, noted that he also had discovered a "lower Creta-
ceous saurian" tooth in Comanche County a decade
earlier.
As interesting are the footprints of these huge rep-
tiles that are found in at least 13 counties across the
state - Somervell, Comanche, Hamilton, Williamson,
Travis, Kimble, Bandera, Medina, Uvalde, Kinney,
Kerr, Pecos, and Comal. They are the delight of ichno-
logists - scientists who study fossil footprints - and the
tracks have provided much fodder for interesting the-
oriesconcerning the lifestylesof these beasts.
Scientists began to take note of Texas' dinosaur
tracks early in the 20th century, about 100 years after
fossilized footprints became objects of interest in other
parts of the world. Study and interpretation of the
tracks worldwide fell from scientific favor because of
hoaxes and misinterpretations midway through the
19th century. With a resurgence of interest midway
through the present century serious evaluations of the
tracks in Texas began. Roland T. Bird of the American
Museum of Natural History investigated tracks in the
Paluxy Creek in Somervell County in 1944 and, in 1954,
he surveyed the footprints in West Verde Creek in Ban-
dera County.
Some early scientific debate centered around
whether the large reptiles actually walked on dry land
or just paddled about in shallow water. Bird suggested
that tail marks found at West Verde Creek indicated the
sauropod was on dry land dragging its tail. He alsofound the tracks of a brontosaur, a plant-eating reptile-
superimposed by footprints of a large carnivorous bi-
pedal dinosaur-possibly an Allosaurus-in Paluxy
Creek, recording an ancient chase by one beast of an-
other for food.
After Bird's discovery, John H. Ostrom of Yale Uni-
versity uncovered 25 sets of dinosaur tracks in an early
Cretaceous formation at Lake Eanes in Comanche Coun-
ty. The concentration and grouping of the tracks indi-
cated to him that the creatures moved in herds. Build-
ing on Bird's discovery in Paluxy Creek, Robert T.
Bakker of Johns Hopkins University suggested that sau-
ropods traveled in structured herds with mature ani-
mals on the outside of the group and the younger ones
in the center. Palentologist James Farlow of Hope Col-
lege in Michigan studied tracks in Kimble County and
Ichnology
in Science '82 magazine theorized, from the distance
between the prints, that the dinosaurs were traveling at
nearly 25 miles an hour, quite a speed for a beast that is
usually thought of as slow and ponderous.
While most of the dinosaur tracks have been found
in creeks and rivers or other surface locations, one set
of 13 prints was discovered several feet below ground
level at the bottom of an excavation for a nuclear power
reactor being built by Texas Utilities Service, Inc., at
Comanche Peak in Somervell County in 1972. The site
was surveyed by archaeologists and several of the
tracks preserved in limestone blocks were removed be-
fore construction was resumed.
Over the years, other scientists have tried to prove
without success that human footprints are represented
among the dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy Creek.
The state began to protect some of the tracks with
the acquisition of land along Paluxy Creek in Somervell
County in 1969 and 1973. Today the 1,523-acre Dinosaur
Valley State Park near Glen Rose in Somervell County
gives Texans an opportunity to view many of these fos-
silized dinosaur tracks first-hand. Most of the other
sites are on private land and are not open for public
viewing.ZNp
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Texas Almanac, 1984-1985, book, 1983; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth113817/m1/60/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.