venturing4th: Two Hundred Miles in Search of Dinosaurs

Blog for May 4, 2017

Clayton is about as far east and north as you can get in New Mexico - right near the Texas/Oklahoma border. We drove the 100 miles to Clayton to visit Clayton Lake State Park where, in 1982, one of the largest and best preserved dinosaur trackways was discovered on the lake’s dam spillway. Not too long ago, the rolling grasslands around Clayton Lake were domain to the huge buffalo herds that ranged the Great Plains. Many years prior to this, dinosaurs ruled the area as indicated by a series of tracks embedded in the rock near the lake.

At least eight different kinds of dinosaurs made these trackways, including both plant eaters and meat eaters. The most common footprints show three distinct, rounded toes. Paleontologists believe they were made of different species of iguanodonts, herbivorous dinosaurs that walked on two strong, muscular legs much of the time and carried a long tail. These dinosaurs weighed about a ton, the size of a hippopotamus.The foot prints of the carnivorous dinosaurs can be identified by their bird-like tracks made by three slender claws.

Clayton Lake State Park is near the Rabbit Ears Mountains.

Clayton Lake on a beautiful, blue-sky day.

We had to cross the earthen dam to reach the spillway where the tracks are located.

More that 100 million years ago, dinosaurs walked through here. The landscape was quite different then. Instead of a desert, there was an ocean that extended from the gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. Dinosaurs walked along the shoreline, sank into the soft sand and left their footprints.

Looking down on the dinosaur tracks.

Two different dinosaurs made these footprints. The rounded, blunt-toed prints above were made by a plant-eating dinosaur, probably an iguanodont or hadrosaur. The tracks below were made by a meat-eating dinosaur. Their tracks are much smaller in size and have a more pointed heel impression.

Dinosaurs that tromped this sandy shoreline left distinct footprints that remained long after they had passed.

Many of the footprints found in the park show a distinctive parallel-formation pattern like those made by animals that move in herds. Researchers have dubbed this area a dinosaur freeway.

The curved, tubular impressions are worm burrows. After the worm made the tube in the sediment, sand filled in the space and preserved the original shape.

This elongated track is likely from a carnivorous dinosaur that stepped in very soft sand, sinking in deep enough to create the impression of its fourth claw, otherwise known as a “dew claw”.

Look closely and you can see a curved groove between these tracks which is a tail print. Tail impressions are rare because dinosaurs usually carried their tails upright. The tail print appears where presumably the dinosaur slipped and dropped its tail to keep its balance.

The most prominent track here has the three toes and squared heel of a plant-eating dinosaur. It is a rare find. Not only are the margins of the footprint clearly defined, it shows the fine structure of the bottom of the foot .