The fossil track way, consisting of seven individual three-toed tracks, is morphologically similar to track ways associated with the dinosaurs known as ornithopods (bird feet).
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The new Glen Canyon track locality may extend the ornithopod dinosaur record in North America back 20 to 25 million years earlier than previously documented.
According to paleontologist Adrian Hunt, former director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, "the Navajo Formation find is very important not just for ichnology [the study of fossil tracks], but also for the dinosaur record. Tracks from large bipedal dinosaurs from this time period are unknown and this discovery suggests the existence of the ornithopod lineage of dinosaurs much earlier than previously thought".
The new track site was documented by a team of paleontologists and volunteers working with the National Park Service to establish a pilot paleontological resource monitoring program.
The new track site area is not open to the public, Max King, acting public affairs Coordinator for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, told OldWestNewWest.com, and added that most track areas within the national recreation area are not publicized.
"If people stumble on a track site area while they are out hiking, we ask that they do not disturb it," he said. "Look at it, take pictures, but please treat it with respect. If the track is solid, don't try to cut it out, and if it is loose, don't handle it, just leave it alone."
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There are some examples of dinosaur tracks at visitor centers, he said, and at the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam there is a large slab of dinosaur tracks for the public to see. The Hayden center is open year round.
A New Strategy Being Taken
Glen Canyon was selected as the prototype park for implementing new strategies for monitoring in situ paleontological resources. A partnership with the Utah Geological Survey was formed in 2009 to initiate paleontological resource monitoring in NPS areas within Utah.
Utah state paleontologist Jim Kirkland shared his perspective about the new tracks from Glen Canyon:
"Staring at my photographs of this remarkable track way, I'm struck by the great improbability that these tracks represent such a departure from our current knowledge of the temporal distribution of large ornithopods," he said. "The absence of Middle Jurassic dinosaur bones in North America suggests that these animals may have been restricted to the ancient deserts of the American southwest before their first skeletal records appear in the Upper Jurassic of North America and Europe."
As mandated by the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-011), the National Park Service has begun to develop a comprehensive strategy to inventory and monitor non-renewable paleontological resources.
To date, baseline paleontological resource inventories conducted throughout the agency have identified at least 219 park units which preserve fossils. To effectively manage and protect park fossils the NPS must understanding their spatial and temporal distribution, and identify the threats to their stability and sustainability in situ.
Encompassing over 1.2 million acres, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area stretches for hundreds of miles from Lees Ferry in Arizona to the Orange Cliffs of southern Utah. For more information about visiting Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, visit the Web site at www.nps.gov/glca/ .
