Fossilized Dinosaur Tracks Found in Arkansas!

on October 20, 2011

More fossilized dinosaur footprints have been found!

More fossilized dinosaur footprints have been found! This new find, located in a limestone bed in Arkansas, includes the tracks of several dinosaurs covering an area roughly the size of two football fields.1 It appears that the tracks belonged to very large predators, as well as some plant-eating dinosaurs. Scientists used a high resolution laser to create digital images of the tracks. They can use the digital images to further study the tracks, and learn more about the dinosaurs that made them.

If you were to make footprints in the mud, how long do you think they would last? One day? One week? Under ordinary conditions, footprints would not last for very long. Obviously something out of the ordinary had to happen to make these dinosaur footprints fossilize. The global Flood created conditions perfect for fossilization!

“The global Flood (about 4,500 years ago, not 120 million) and the cement-like nature of calcium carbonate (limestone) explain findings like these [fossilized dinosaur tracks]. During the time in which Floodwaters were rising, as described in Genesis 7:17–18, surges of ocean water would have brought in carbonate-laden water and left behind sediments into which animal footprints could have been pressed. Additional surges bearing more loads of sediment could then rapidly bury tracks set in the cement-like carbonate-rich sand, preserving the fossil impressions.”2

—Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell

If you would like to learn more about fossilization and fossilized dinosaur tracks, please read the following:

1 Christine Dell'Amore, “Huge New Dinosaur Trackway Found in U.S.”, National Geographic Daily News, October 7, 2011, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111006-new-dinosaur-tracks-arkansas-paleontology-science/.
2 Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, News to Note, October 15th, 2011, Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/10/15/news-to-note-10152011.