A network of nearly 200 dinosaur footprints, dating back to the Middle Jurassic period, has been found at a quarry in Oxfordshire, marking the largest discovery of its kind in the United Kingdom. The trackways, believed to be around 166 million years old, were uncovered at Dewars Farm Quarry by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham.
They are part of a vast “dinosaur highway” and feature footprints from the 9-metre-long, fierce predator Megalosaurus and herbivorous dinosaurs that were up to twice its size, according to a news release by the University of Birmingham.
Gary Johnson, a quarry worker, first noticed unusual indentations while extracting limestone for roadworks in 2023. His discovery has since drawn attention from palaeontologists eager to piece together a more detailed picture of life in the Jurassic era.
Our palaeontologists worked with their counterparts from @UniofOxford to uncover a huge expanse of quarry floor filled with hundreds of different prehistoric footprints on Britain’s ‘dinosaur highway’ https://t.co/UIWhfbCV8y pic.twitter.com/HbbemtftqH
— UniBirmingham News (@news_ub) January 2, 2025
“It’s like a snapshot into the day of the (dinosaurs’) life, and what they were doing,” said Dr Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontologist, who was part of the excavation, in a statement.
In June 2024, a team of around 100 volunteers and researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham spent a week excavating and documenting the site. Their findings have been linked to a previously discovered trackway in the same quarry, uncovered in 1997, though that section is no longer accessible.
In the latest find, the longest trackway stretched over 150 metres. While some of the tracks were left by massive sauropods, others belonged to the carnivorous Megalosaurus. Megalosaurus, originally named in 1824, was the world’s first scientifically described dinosaur.
“The general rule of locomotion is that the faster the animal is moving, the farther apart the footprints will be,” Lawrence Tanner, a paleontologist who was not involved in the excavation, told CNN, likening the movement of the sauropods to modern elephants.
It remains unclear exactly where the dinosaurs were headed, but Tanner believes they may have been navigating along a shoreline or seeking food.
The exceptional preservation of the tracks is attributed to the unique conditions of the time. The site’s soft sediment, combined with just the right amount of moisture, created an ideal environment to capture the impressions, according to the CNN report.
“The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out,” Dr Duncan Murdock, an earth scientist, was quoted as saying by the University of Birmingham.
Using aerial drone photography, researchers captured over 20,000 images of the site, which will be used to create detailed 3D models of the footprints.
Given the limited time researchers had to document the site before quarry operations recommenced, much of the surface remains unexplored. Dr Edgar expressed optimism that further excavations could reveal even more tracks and insights into dinosaur life. “We’ll be continuously evaluating and working with the quarry workers as new areas are exposed,” she told CNN.
