A government-funded project that demolished a wooden boardwalk has severely damaged unique fossiled dinosaur tracks in Utah. According to the US Bureau of Land Management, it claims that their backhoe messed up the tracks. The boardwalk was to protect the old imprints. The construction vehicle has destroyed fossilized dinosaur prints, some of which are as least 112 million years old.
Visitors to the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trackside, about 20 miles north of Moab, documented last week that the walk impressions left by the big vehicle’s treads laid on top of several of the dinosaur footprints.
The Utah Friends of Palaeontology is a non-profit organization. The proclamation in testimony on January 29 stated that the bureau’s construction was not happening with the input of a paleontologist. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology wrote to Greg Sheehan, the Utah state director for the bureau, conveying skepticism about “irreparable, and avoidable” destruction had been done and “would have been avoided if qualified paleontologists had been on your staff”.
Fossiled dinosaur tracks were of at least ten dinosaur species
Construction equipment has allegedly been “driven directly over the fossil dinosaur tracks; permanently destroying as much as 30 percent of the site,” according to the letter. On social media, several people shared photos of the devastation and communicated their discontentment. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the US Bureau of Land Management’s Moab field office was doing the work to rehabilitate the boardwalk, which attends to the property.
The work at the property is on hold, Bureau spokeswoman Rachel Wootton said. Jim Kirkland, Utah’s state paleontologist, and a regional bureau paleontologist were both on hand to assess the site, according to her.
“At this time, we have no evidence of any damage in the area. But out of an abundance of caution, a team will go to assess,” the bureau said in a statement.
In its category, the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trackside is one of the considerably crucial localities in the world. The tracks were first found out in 2009, urging the Bureau of Land Management to construct a barrier.
However, more than 200 tracks were at the site, according to the agency last year. The tracks are from at least ten dinosaur species that lived roughly 112 million years ago. Thereby, including sickle-clawed raptors and crocodile relatives. In 2015, there was boardwalk creation at the site, soon making it a popular tourist destination. However, the wooden walkway will now go under construction to make a concrete and metal walkway.
