Spacecraft builders follow in dinosaurs' footsteps

[Nipuna]

Caroline Morley, online picture researcher

(Image: Ray Stanford)

678415main_footprint[1].jpg (272.83 KiB) Viewed 2191 times

It's not often we get a story linking palaeontology to outer space, unless we're discussing the asteroid theory for the mass extinction of dinosaurs. However, dinosaur prints from the Cretaceous period have been discovered on land now occupied by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

This print was discovered by fossil tracker Ray Stanford at Goddard's campus in Maryland and has been attributed to the rear right foot of a nodosaur - a spiky-armoured, medium-sized and heavily built herbivore.

"This really is a rare sight," said Stanford.

Three-toed footprints from smaller carnivorous theropods were also found at the site. The US Geological Survey used pollen from a rock sample to estimate the age of the finds as 110 to 112 million years old.

As the footprint is on federal land, improperly removing it would be in violation of three laws, so NASA officials plan to work with the state of Maryland and palaeontologists to document and preserve the prints within the restrictions.